The Maltonian Website - for Malton School
Maltonians' Memories
Alison Ware
Ally Nurre (Alison Ware) sent me a letter, with a photograph of a hockey team from 1968 enclosed, in January 2023. She subsequently sent another photo, and some memories
From a letter sent in January 2023: A New Year’s surprise for you. I was looking at the Maltonian Web for any reference to a friend, Marion Lowe (a friend and Head Girl in 68-69), and being successful, I decided to pop my maiden name in there too, Alison Ware, and something popped up which surprised me. Something relatively recent … 2004. You made a reference to me making a promise! Whereas, I may have appeared in previous year’s Maltonians (1962-69) in various sporting capacities, in relation to hockey, tennis, rounders, net ball, or as a Nainotlam contributor, Holgate House Captain, and then there was the Bonnie of Bonnie and Clyde stunt, I was not expecting to see anything since that time.
(Incidentally, I am the Bonnie at the bottom left of the picture from 1968 - there were three Bonnies, yours truly, Liz Smith and Marion Lowe, the photo appearing in the Malton Gazette, the year we did the heist and carted off the Chairman of Malton’s Rotary Club by car to the grounds of the Grammar School where the photographer from the newspaper was conveniently waiting. The photo portrays the rather stout but willing [feigning struggling], Chair bedecked in his gold chain of office being hoisted up by the three Clydes, two of whom I remember their names, Emerson and Smales/ could have been Smails[ who we naturally called “Snails”] . Apologies to the third Clyde. The Chairman had been held for ransom raising money for the latest school charity, “Shelter”, a London based housing charity. A speaker from the Charity had come to address the school and he impressed a group of us into action. We were in the Lower Sixth at the time and invited Phillip Gaskell head boy to oversee our work and to give it legitimacy! The staged prank was designed to create some publicity for the launch of the charity. Our headmaster, Pip (Philip Taylor) was in on the act, and naturally without him, we couldn’t have pulled it off. He would have sneakily opened the windows of the meeting room in the Town Hall from the inside, enabling us to climb in through the windows to a truly astounded Rotary Club …. until they cottoned on to what was happening and made their donations in order to get their chairman back.)
Back to your entry in The Maltonian Web, … 2004 updates. You said that as you were clearing up the stage ()after 2 nights of a Variety Show) … a visitor from America arrived with her husband….and that I made a promise to send you a photo of an event not previously recorded of mock blood-stained limbs during a hockey match …. This was in relationship with the end of term Staff versus First Ladies Hockey Team. Well, as Hockey Captain, I wanted an explanation for our very probable defeat ….and after all it was an opportunity for student body entertainment!
On return to the States, the picture I had described didn’t show up being packed in boxes from a previous move. It only showed up in this last retirement move [ 2018] but by then the promise had been forgotten. Yesterday, I saw the request in black and white as I searched my name. Now, I truly must act on it. The photo taken by a friend to illustrate the event, a non -professional photo, may not come out too well and is a little damaged but I will get it enlarged and we will see. With friends, Liz Smith and Marion Lowe, we decided to obtain bandages and red paint in order to feign wounds inflicted of course by the dangerous opponents i.e. members of staff and some others recruited to fill out their team. It took some preparation. First we visited the house of Mrs. Pay (the wife of Mr.Pay, the boys’ Sports Master- beloved by the boys and girls alike) on our lunch break. She lived somewhere further up the Middlecave Road so not too far from the school. Luckily, she was in. When asked if she had an old sheet which we could tear up she miraculously was able to come up with the goods. We took our prize back to school and then acquired red paint from the art room. I suppose Mr. Makins obliged though, as he was a hockey player, we couldn’t tell him what we needed it for. I’m sure the paint wasn’t ill gained! It was at half time when certain members of our whole team nipped into the girls’ locker room and got bandaged and painted up. We reappeared to play the second half as per the photo. Now why did we need to play this stunt, you may ask? Well, to get sympathy and understanding from the spectators, and to demonstrate that we had the skill really to defeat our opponents, but the other side were just too plain dangerous to the point that a normal tackling game could not play out. We were interested in our own preservation! It was with good reason. This had been demonstrated the previous year when Mr. Martindale (Math’s teacher) took a golf-like shot from one end of the field to the other and beyond ultimately breaking Ma Blake’s music room window! I don’t really remember the outcome of our game, but I do remember the stunt we played … all in good jest.
From an email a week later in January 2023: About the second hockey photo, (from the 1965 MGS photo album): I have given this photo some thought. 4 of the 11 players were from our village, West Heslerton: myself, Rosey (Ware), Judy (Harrison) and Carol (Wakeley). I think I know why we might have been well represented at hockey at MGS. Our village school headmaster, Mr. Moore, had acquired a set of shinty sticks. If you are familiar with them, they are un-sprung, unlike the nicely spliced and sprung hockey sticks. We got used to whacking that ball with those shinty sticks, despite there being a somewhat painful vibration all the way up the stick when really whacked hard. We played regularly in the village school, and all came to the Grammar School knowing how to play the game. I remember when my father bought me a regular hockey stick. It was such a proud possession especially when I discovered that it didn't even hurt at all when in use! Perhaps that is why we enjoyed flying down the field; it all seemed too easy. Wasn't it supposed to hurt? Also, in the picture of the wounded warrior hockey players, already sent, was another past player from our village school. That of Elizabeth Smith. What a turn out from our village school. I think there were 40 pupils in all from ages 5-11 from two villages, a hamlet and outlying houses and farms.