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  1. #1
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    St Marys College Crosby

    Recent locals may not know that the St Marys of decades ago was an entirely different institution.

    It was run by the Christian Brothers who combined rote learning with serious punishment. I have often thought about how that came to be, and to an extent, empathised with some of them.

    I recall someone describing the typical Christian Brother as someone who would have been ejected from the Japanese WW2 army for being too cruel.

    The great majority of pupils came from the Crosby-Formby-Southport area, and as a working class boy there on a scholarship from Bootle, I never felt comfortable socially. My friends were elsewhere.

    When I left and went to university I lost all contact with SMC, and indeed the area as I subsequently had a career which meant moving around quite a lot before retiring to Southport just over three years ago.

    It intrigues me now what has happened to my peers then. I have met one coincidentally but would be interested to exchange experiences with others. I'm on pauljc@globalnet.co.uk





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  3. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by bensherman View Post
    Recent locals may not know that the St Marys of decades ago was an entirely different institution.

    It was run by the Christian Brothers who combined rote learning with serious punishment. I have often thought about how that came to be, and to an extent, empathised with some of them.

    I recall someone describing the typical Christian Brother as someone who would have been ejected from the Japanese WW2 army for being too cruel.

    The great majority of pupils came from the Crosby-Formby-Southport area, and as a working class boy there on a scholarship from Bootle, I never felt comfortable socially. My friends were elsewhere.

    When I left and went to university I lost all contact with SMC, and indeed the area as I subsequently had a career which meant moving around quite a lot before retiring to Southport just over three years ago.

    It intrigues me now what has happened to my peers then. I have met one coincidentally but would be interested to exchange experiences with others. I'm on pauljc@globalnet.co.uk
    As a former Crosby resident,I have many friends who are prior SMC students. What year did you leave ?

    I am still in touch with some.

  4. #3
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    I was there 65 - 70, hated every minute of it, I've never met anybody who was there at the time who I've met since who has a half good word to say about it and that includes Doctors!

  5. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alikado View Post
    I was there 65 - 70, hated every minute of it, I've never met anybody who was there at the time who I've met since who has a half good word to say about it and that includes Doctors!
    Most of my friends would be at least ten years older than you.

    I think the early 50s and early 60s schooling didn't hold good memories for most of us.

    :-(

  6. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by shippy View Post
    I think the early 50s and early 60s schooling didn't hold good memories for most of us.

    :-(
    I'll second that!

    Didn't Vanman/Antiquesman go to SMC?

  7. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by seivad View Post
    I'll second that!

    Didn't Vanman/Antiquesman go to SMC?
    No, they wouldn't have him. !!!!



    Only kidding, I don't know ...

  8. #7
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    I passed 11 plus with a pass to St Mary's, it was never my intention to attend after finding out, Rugby Cricket was the order of the day, so I stayed on at my old school and moved on up into Secondary.

    No regrets!

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by daviebaby View Post
    I passed 11 plus with a pass to St Mary's, it was never my intention to attend after finding out, Rugby Cricket was the order of the day, so I stayed on at my old school and moved on up into Secondary.

    No regrets!
    So you attended cookery and needlework classes instead. ?.

  10. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by shippy View Post
    As a former Crosby resident,I have many friends who are prior SMC students. What year did you leave ?

    I am still in touch with some.
    I left in 1967

  11. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by seivad View Post
    I'll second that!

    Didn't Vanman/Antiquesman go to SMC?
    Do You Mind.

    Expelled

  12. #11
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    I would happily have gone to Bootle Grammar, which is where my mates went. But my mum and dad would have been horrified. My dad had a hard life on the docks and thought that my going to SMC would set a different life course for me.

    SMC seemed to be dedicated to pumping as many catholics as possible into Oxbridge or failing that Russell Group universities. They were most happy if you subsequently became a doctor or solicitor , married a good catholic girl and had a large family. I seriously think this was so the professional classes of Merseyside would be dominated by catholics.

    If you didn't fit into that mould, you were largely ignored, except for beatings.

    I think the CBs were recruited in their early teens , and spent their lives in a seminary, collecting a degree in Classics or similar, and of course were isolated from family life which of course was forbidden to them once they graduated. It produced a strange view of the world, and by my reckoning some of them realised what they had given up but didn't know how to change things. So they were frustrated and often angry men.

    I remember that until the sixth form, girls were not of this planet, but halfway through the first year of sixth form there was a dance which included Seafield girls...what an awkward and unpleasant evening that was, probably for the girls too.

  13. #12
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    Was at St Mary's from 1960-70. Travelled on the train from Birkdale and made many good friends at the school. Like the OP, I don't know many former pupils from those days who look back fondly - though I have to recognise it probably got me to University through its "direct" methods. When I became a teacher I more or less deployed a style that was the opposite of what I had experienced there! However, there were some good and kind teachers - Bill McCann in the Mount - who had a major impact on me, Cliff Phillips in Geography, Norman Brooks and Harry Atherton in Spanish and Paula McWilliams and Ernie Spencer in English - a Scot like myself who more or less propelled me into studying English and becoming a teacher.

    As another poster suggested, I don't suppose many folk have happy memories of education in the 60s and I remember being scared out of my wits half the time - but for all that I can't bring myself to diss the place completely. Like the OP, I always thought the route the Brothers took to being teachers must have permanently damaged a lot of them. Not an excuse for their approach, but certainly an explanation. At the end of the day, St Mary's probably got me to where I am and it would be churlish not to acknowledge that. It's methods were certainly of another age.

  14. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jock McP View Post
    Was at St Mary's from 1960-70. Travelled on the train from Birkdale and made many good friends at the school. Like the OP, I don't know many former pupils from those days who look back fondly - though I have to recognise it probably got me to University through its "direct" methods. When I became a teacher I more or less deployed a style that was the opposite of what I had experienced there! However, there were some good and kind teachers - Bill McCann in the Mount - who had a major impact on me, Cliff Phillips in Geography, Norman Brooks and Harry Atherton in Spanish and Paula McWilliams and Ernie Spencer in English - a Scot like myself who more or less propelled me into studying English and becoming a teacher.

    As another poster suggested, I don't suppose many folk have happy memories of education in the 60s and I remember being scared out of my wits half the time - but for all that I can't bring myself to diss the place completely. Like the OP, I always thought the route the Brothers took to being teachers must have permanently damaged a lot of them. Not an excuse for their approach, but certainly an explanation. At the end of the day, St Mary's probably got me to where I am and it would be churlish not to acknowledge that. It's methods were certainly of another age.
    I was at Grammar School much earlier than that and teaching by fear was not the norm at all, not by a long way, apart from of course in schools were religion was of first importance, in my days that would generally be the RC schools.

    From what contact I had with friends who went to RC secondary schools, the experiences related to St Mary's were pretty standard among other RC schools.

  15. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by bensherman View Post
    I left in 1967
    Most of my friends from back then, are nye on 79/80 years young.

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