Mr. Gaukrodger- Housemaster and Maths

 Mr. Gaukrodger, was the Housemaster for Lonsdale House and had been at Tulketh since 1964. He were one of the four Heads of House who were tasked with your pastoral care you could say. In fairness that was true. We nicknamed them "the four magistrates" amongst other colourful synonyms.  

 He taught Mathematics, Technical Drawing, Religious Education and Humanities. In fact in the second  year he taught our form group Religious Education which was just for one hour lesson a week. Sadly I do not recall anything from those lessons.  I do not think anybody followed on in the final two years with the subject at GCSE level.   There were not much chance of any our form group following a theological path in our future lives.

Mr. Gaukrodger was nicknamed Father Abraham after the leader of The Smurfs a pop novelty group from late 1970’s. He had been a teacher at Frenchwood County Primary School before joining Tulketh and his wife was a teacher at the time at St. Andrews C of E School where some of our intake at Tulketh where from. . I remember fellow pupil and Lonsdale House member Phil Sulivan telling me that he used to get him mixed with his elder brother Sean, which sometimes helped Phil out of few scrapes.. 

One warm day in the airless Mathematics block my friend Gary Corsbie loosened his tie.  Mr. Gaukrodger was keen on your uniform being worn smartly. He took exception to Gary doing this with his tie and he attempted to tidy his tie up for him  Mr. Gaukrodger slipped on the floor while leaning over and collided with Gary. Gary being a fiery tempered teenager took exception to this, and there was a bit of a stand-off and words were exchanged. I remember Gary was kept behind at break. Some of our class group tried to look through the window to see what was going to happen.

Mr. Gaukrodger, marched Gary off to the Headmaster’s office to see Mr. Jones. It was the talk of the schoolyard for a couple of days with different versions of the incident touted round by those who were there. My recollection of the incident wasn't up to much because I would have been probably daydreaming rather than listening to the lesson in mathematics on fractions, decimals and percentages.   

Many years later Gary could still recall the incident with clarity when we have met up for a drink in the Black Bull pub in Fulwood. He looks back on the incident with humour. 
    

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