CHEMISTRY lessons at the old Oxford ‘Tech’ were not the most popular among pupils.

Gordon Clack recalls that chemistry teacher Mr Buist was an accurate chalk-thrower.

“If you did not immediately tell him what happened if you mixed H2So4 with NaCl, he would inform you that ‘you did not have the brains of a louse!’ How I dreaded Mondays and chemistry!”

Mr Clack, of Witney Road, Ducklington, was reminded of his days at the Oxford School of Technology, Art and Commerce by our picture of a student reunion, sent in by Audrey Gates, of Bicester (Memory Lane, October 11).

He was a student in the engineering department from 1943-5.

He writes: “We engineers also had the fiery, red-headed Miss Taylor for English and Miss Musto for geography.

“She was a rather large, billowy lady and, like Miss Taylor, always wore her academic gown and would sweep into the classroom like a ship in full sail.

“Our form master was Mr P Jones, a soft-spoken Welshman, who also took us for maths. Another Welshman, Mr Parry, took us for history.

“We too led a rather peripatetic life, with one classroom at the top of the Halifax Building near Westgate and another in Brewer Street, where we went for technical drawing with Bill Ashton.

“Sessions in our practical workshops meant a bus ride to St Mary’s Road, off Cowley Road, where Mr Langdale, Mr Richie, Harry Dodd and Mr Ashton taught us metal-fitting and how to use a micrometer and Vernier gauge, both of which measured metal to a tenth of a thousandth of an inch.

“I remember being fascinated by what appeared to be a new and – as I have since learned – rather rare de Havilland Gipsy King aero-engine in a transit-frame standing in the open at the rear of workshops. I often wonder what happened to it.”

More of Mr Clack’s memories soon.