There was a growing need for more teaching staff and pupil accommodation, a problem that was resolved by the appointment of Masters David Lewis and John Tilley in 1946, and the acquisition in 1947 of the old cottage hospital which was renamed Holbache House, and which could accommodate up to 40 boys.

The school was beginning a new phase of expansion which would continue at a pace through the 1950s and into the 1960s, but money was in short supply and many areas of the school were in need of a good dose of TLC. Throughout my eight year stay at Oswestry, from 1952-1960, I do not recall the slightest whiff of paint, and not even the visit of HRH the Duchess of Kent in 1957 could induce the thrifty Headmaster to dip into his pocket in order to spruce up parts of the old school.

Boys enjoying a dip in the pool.

Only the open-air pool, fed by icily cold stream water which flowed from the nearby St Oswald's Well, benefited from annual maintenance. At the start of each summer, Dai Lewis would press-gang a group of us into cleaning out the pool and giving it a coat of whitewash in preparation for its use by some of the more hardy boys.   

Jumping or diving into this chilliest of environments was akin to self-inflicted punishment and it was not to be undertaken by the faint-hearted. In all honesty I cannot say I recall anybody who actually relished this bracing experience, but we all seemed to be drawn to it like moths to a flame under the watchful eyes of Lewis and Tilley.

Upper Brook Street in the 1950s.

During their time together as teachers at Hereford Cathedral School in 1919, Mssrs Williamson and Felton had been keen sportsmen, and as an innovator at Oswestry School it was Headmaster Williamson who conceived the idea of an annual road race, which in my time started on Upper Brook Street just outside the school gates. Thus it was that in 1936 The Triangle was born. 

Wartime conditions had adversely affected the production of automotive parts and by 1950 there were just four million registered vehicles on British roads. As a consequence, there was very little traffic passing along Upper Brook Street and in those days it was the exception, rather than the rule, to meet any vehicles as we slogged our way around the eleven-minute-plus triangular course.

It was not until the mid-sixties that the start of The Triangle was moved over to the Maes-y-Llan for safety reasons, and in this 1967 photograph, Peter Harber can be seen leading the chasing pack from the rugby field onto the Trefonen Road.

Following the great fire of 1926 which destroyed much of School House, numerous changes and improvements were made to the building, and having acquired Holbache House in the forties Mr Williamson had more projects in mind.   

For many years the school had leased the Maes-y-Llan playing fields, and when in 1950 the opportunity to buy the freehold of the land came along Mr Williamson and the school management committee grasped it with alacrity. This turned out to be a smart move as it was later used as collateral for further expansion of the school.

The aging Headmaster went on to oversee the construction of The Memorial Hall in 1954 which was followed in 1957 with the building of a three-classroom maths block on the paddock behind the laboratory. 

But, as 'The Old Man' was approaching the end of a long career dedicated to Oswestry School, I sensed that modernisation of the interior fabric of the buildings was not high on his list of priorities, and I often felt that our living conditions were reminiscent of Dickensian England. The school classrooms, particularly those in the wooden Prep building, the dining room, and the barrack-like dormitories, were beginning to look tired and dated. The less said about the outside toilets the better!

Prep Department classroom.

Ralph Williamson retired from teaching in 1958 and what followed were the three, brief, and sometimes turbulent years of the Frankland administration. Whilst the appointment of Headmaster Frankland turned out to be an unfortunate choice and a negative blip in the school's history, to give credit where it is due, it was under his regime that the Combined Cadet Force came into being followed by the building of the CCF Hut. Further building work was undertaken and more accommodation was made available with the purchase of The Quarry at the top of the hill.

However, I must be honest and say that during this time it was not always a happy environment in which to live, study and play, but there was never a dull moment. After a couple of years in charge, the Headmaster had become very unpopular amongst the pupils and there was a lot of animosity towards him, particularly in School House. Major Frankland and I never really saw eye to eye, and as a Senior Prefect in the summer of 1960, I spent an inordinate amount of time in his study fending off pointed questions about subversive activities taking place in the school. For some unaccountable reason he believed that I was behind some of the trouble in School House and I could not convince him otherwise.

Admittedly there was much unrest, and this series of three rather animated entries from my Diary gives an indication of just how and why tensions were rising amongst the boys.

The observations in my Diary turned out to be somewhat prophetic when in 1961, the following year, the bubble burst, and the open-air toilets, which had been badly neglected for many years, were trashed by a band of school rebels during a putsch against authority. The photographs below are two of the numerous images in my possession that were taken at the time of the insurgency, but this is only part of the story, and leaving further details aside, suffice it to say, in the late summer of 1961 Headmaster Frankland left the school for personal reasons.

Remnants of the toilet wall.

Some of the rebels.

Oswestry School legend and stalwart, DGW Felton, who had acted as deputy to the two previous headmasters then stepped into the breach as Acting Head for one term until the arrival of Richard Sale in January 1962.

Every school with a history as long as that of Oswestry will no doubt experience ups and downs, and ours is no exception. However, it is true to say that with the support of Masters Tilley and Lewis, who had seemed somewhat impotent during the unrest of the Frankland regime, the school soon found calmer waters under the direction of Headmaster 'Dick' Sale and very quickly regained its morale and reputation.

JF Tilley, DWG Felton, R Sale, D Lewis.

It has been said that Oswestry School in the 1960s experienced something of a golden era for athletics which hitherto in earlier years had been the poor relation of sporting activities, and in my next article I will expound on this.