Cowley boys school

3 static negatives

Animated gif file made from 3 consecutive black and white negatives shot in the 1970s as part of my duties to photograph the school teams and provide prints.

 

Team photos taken at Cowley Boys School in the mid to late 1970s.
It was sleeting as I took the pictures. As always I shot a few frames of each team so as to minimise the chance of anyone spoiling the shot by blinking or gesticulating.

Some forty years after taking these images I can recover a time element by animating between the three negatives, a highish definition black and white video of a time gone.

A separate image from another day and using the side of the quad rather than the steps.

Fountains

Victoria Park St.Helens, 1979.

 

Fellow Cowley pupil Robert Williams takes a photo as I record him and Victoria Park during a 6th form Photo Society outing in 1979.
Pilkingtons Glass was a major manufacturer based in the town and employed a whole lot of townsfolk in the factories dotted around.

1979 filming at Cowley.

The Summer of 1979 being the end of secondary education for me it was a treat when a film company used the school as a location in the final week of term. Being a little less than honest in saying “I was from the school magazine” I was fortunate that the director Hugh Hudson allowed me to photograph the scene he was filming in the changing room. This was destined to be the Paris Olympics changing room towards the end of the film “Chariots of fire”.

Being the 1970’s Health and Safety was not a consideration, the images do provide a window into the period, pupils sitting on the low wall on the roof of the school, boys standing on the power cables to the big lights, chain smoking crew that knew how to swear in a very full and knowledgeable way….

It looks like a private school but it wasn’t, it was a very good school, needed a bit of updating but then we would not have had changing rooms that have not been altered since the 1930’s and the crew would not have come

 

Large powerful lights act as the sun shining through to the subterranean changing rooms. Top left shows boys dressed for sports emerging from a similar changing room at the other end of the school.
The Headmaster Mr McDonald emerges from the side entrance and monitors the situation.
The talent bus parked near the scene of the filming.
Being the 1970s things were a little more relaxed than these days.
Standing on the high current power lines going to the lights passes the time as the boys keep an eye on the onsite catering.
Lots of cigarettes.

Hugh Hudson (director) with his cameraman David Watkin. (David Watkin was also the cameraman on the film “Return to Oz” a far darker follow on from “The Wizard of Oz” would have been nice to have a chat with him if he were not so busy..)

Team photos

My first income from photography came from taking over the team photos at Cowley Boys School. I didnt charge very much, 50p bought a whole plate (8.5″x6.5″) print in black and white. Cheap even at the time this enabled me to buy short lengths of outdated film or chemicals for the darkroom.

Sleet added to the atmosphere in this shot. Of course I should really have followed a Masters advice and photographed the teams directly after a match – much less smiling!
St.Helens.

Petrol at the YMCA

Fellow Cowley Boys 5th form pupils play for one night only at the YMCA in St.Helens town centre in 1978. I was asked along to record the evening by Les Glover one of the singers.

Petrol were opening for another band and the hall started to fill up as they played. I had to use flash as it was so dark, manual cameras and slow film were the tools at hand and compromise had to come somewhere.

It would have been good to photograph the audience as well, perhaps a modern dSLR or mirrorless camera and a time machine would finish the job.

Changing room antics

The far changing room at Cowley boys school, St.Helens, 1976 or 1977.

Not the changing room used for filming the final changing room scene in the film “Chariots of fire” at the other end of the building a few years later. Timer exposure Lubitel II camera on a tripod.

Mrs Ellwood

“A” level Geography lesson underway in Cowley Boys Sixth Form Centre.


By the motion blur on the papers I would guess an exposure of approx 1/15th of a second at f2

 

Mr Dobbs

The tireless Mr Dobbs music master conducts the school brass band on the balcony of the main hall at Cowley School.
He deserved a much better tenor horn player than I was that’s for sure.

Morning assembly saw all the pupils in the main hall for hymns, prayers and announcements. When the band didnt play the hymns were accompanied by piano from the front of the hall.

Some favourite Hymns:
There Is a Green Hill Far Away.
In the bleak mid Winter
Immortal Invisible.