Mr. Middlehurst (Art)


Mr. Middlehurst taught Art and Technical drawing in my time at Tulketh. He was a tall character with a beard to match and wore the usual dour looking clothes that most of his fellow teachers wore at the time. He had a Hippy kind of look about him. 

In the 3rd year options I had not been deemed good enough to take other practical subjects like, Metalwork, Woodwork, Domestic Science, Needlework (mainly for girls at this time), GCSE Art, and Latin which was way out of my league anyway. So, our House Tutor, Mr. Forshaw, chose CSE, Art for me to do.  Being honest I  certainly was no Michael Angelo. 

The practical option lesson in the 4th and 5th year comprised of a full afternoon which basically was 2 hours of work in your chosen subject.

In the 4th year we were billeted in room 11, which had exceptionally low desks and had previously been the Technical drawing room which now had moved to room 41 which was a room in the prefab block outside opposite the English rooms.    Mr. Middlehurst, I thought showed great respect for us as students and treated us more like adults. He was especially patient with my limited ability in Art and give me some much-needed advice on the various projects we had to complete. Sometimes he used to tell the class of his days as an Art student in London, the decadent lifestyle he used to live and the famous foggy London winters.

One thing I remember well was he brought in a radio for us to listen to which I thought helped. At the time Radio One was the top station and Ska music, New-wave and Disco dominated the charts with the help of some novelty tunes like, A Day Trip to Bangor by, Fiddler’s Dram, and I’m in The Mood for Dancing by, The Nolans. The D.J. at the time we were listening was Andy Peebles, who went on to work for Radio Lancashire and is an exceptionally good Cricket commentator to boot.

There were some great characters in the class at the time like, Roderick Davies, Alison Danby, Melvin Holland, Diane Parkinson, Debby Thompson, and many more. The beauty of the class is that they were only about 15 of us.

Like all good things we got away with listening to the radio for quite a while until one afternoon when the formidable Deputy Head Mrs Ackers, came in to our class and asked Mr. Middlehurst, for a quick word outside the room.  Mr. Middlehurst came back in to inform us we could no longer go on listening to the radio it had something to do with the Music Performance Society, which I found odd when you could sometimes hear the radio on in the school canteen.

In the 5th year it was decided that I would not be entered for the Art CSE exam in the spring of 1980. I cannot say I was to upset and along with fellow students, Alison Danby, and Melvin Holland, were consigned to the library to do much needed revision in the other subjects.  The surprising thing was, nobody ever checked on us to see if we were revising and often, we just spent the time talking and messing about something which today would not have been tolerated.

As for Mr. Middlehurst, I believe he left in 1980, like the rest of us.

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