Raymond Cartwright 1961

Hello, my name is Raymond Cartwright and I attended Shrewsbury Technical High School.

I stumbled across your site a few days ago and it stirred a lot of memories. As far as I can remember I started in September 1961 and stayed until sometime in 1963. Some of the pupils names I recall are: Bird (Byrd?); Brown; Burgess; Cross; Davies (Davis?); O’Dwyer (John?); Eaton (Snowy?); Fewtrell (Fugil?); Gibbons; Littlehales(Roy?); Vaughan (Roger?); Williams (Graham?) and teachers Gower (Headmaster); Medlicott (Dept Head); Shufflebotham (English); Roebuck (PT); Tugg(?) Metalwork; “Popeye” Music; Godwin (Woodwork);

I remember the treck to the sportsfield by The Column; the workshops in the basement and individual classrooms. A lad called Anson Austin was the only other pupil from our village and he was several years ahead of me.

I would be interested to hear if this is of any interest to your group,  Regards  Ray.

Editor replies : Thanks for writing in Ray. It is always good to hear from past inmates.. I think the metalwork teacher was a Mr Chub. If anyone wishes to comment or contact Ray, please let us know via :

Timothy Davison STHS 1960 (Wiltshire) wrote in responding..

I don’t remember Raymond. Based on the post, must have come from Hodnet. I think he would have been one or two years below me from what he says – David Eaton (Snowy because of his almost white hair) lived in Copthorne Park and rode an (Excelsior?) two-stroke twin motorbike. I think he went to work for Tarmac on the way to Wellington. The English teacher was Mr Shuttleworth (or shuffle words!) “Num num num num num”. He used to mutter that and bob up and down by standing on tip-toe. He was a dead shot with a board rubber which would land in the middle of the desk in front of you if he thought you weren’t paying attention. Music teachers were Mr Hipwell and Mr Derry as I recall. I would have said Mr Club/b but it could well have been Chub/b. I can’t find any trace of either of them on line.

Thanks Tim Ed.

John Giddins writes :
An interesting one this one. First, I believe the metalwork teacher was Mr Clubb – I ought to know as I have a Metalwork O Level. That doesn’t explain why I ended up working mainly in polymers! Hippo or Mr Hipwell was an old guy who taught music. I came across this man many years before as he was headmaster at Monkmoor when my father was at school there in the 20’s/30’s. My father described him as inhuman as he would cane anyone who stepped out of line for the slightest offence.
Fortunately by the time he came to work at STHS such practices were becoming outlawed. Another person mentioned in the item was “Snowy” Eaton. He was the brother of Mary Eaton, with whom I worked from 1964 – 1966 at RAPRA. On one morning in 1965 I cycled from Salop to Aberystwyth and Mary was very interested in my trip. Not long afterwards, Snowy Eaton performed the same ride presumably inspired by my efforts.