The Isis School Photo

In those days, schools made quite a ceremony of photos. Not just the individual portraits where you sat rigidly, pretending not to blink, but also the grand ‘school photo’ — that panoramic epic of faces squinting into the sunlight, destined to curl at the edges in drawers for decades. There were also the sports teams, the prefects, and any other group the school photographer could coax into formation. It was a whole cottage industry, complete with special tripods, collapsible stools, and mysterious black boxes that looked as if they belonged more in a Victorian laboratory than a modern school.

Now, the reader might think this whole account of my Isis School days is some sort of self-indulgent fiction — a rose-tinted romp through invented characters and half-remembered adventures. To prove otherwise, I’ve included our actual 1961 school photo. Every face in it really did exist (though some of the names may have been tampered with, just to keep things interesting). The more determined reader can, if they wish, try their hand at a little sleuthing — guessing who’s who beneath the pseudonyms. It’s not terribly difficult, ha ha.

For example, Mr. Hoyle is Mr. Hoyle — headmaster, disciplinarian, but also a friendly ‘pal’ at the Isis School. But Mr. Jones? Not quite. And Jackie Bouchère? Definitely not Jackie Bouchère. Let’s just say some names have been changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty. Still, looking back across those faces, I feel an odd affection for every one of them — heroes, villains, and all the muddled souls in between. Sixty years on, I can forgive them their minor trespasses (and hope they can forgive mine).

School Photo 1961

Isis School Photo Right Section

The Isis School – Reflections

Despite the occasional whacking — and there were a few — I have to confess, the Isis School was the only school I genuinely enjoyed. The teachers, by and large, treated us like ‘people’, which was a refreshing novelty. Many actually liked teaching, and that enthusiasm rubbed off. There was an atmosphere of camaraderie — something I didn’t find later in the state grammar school, nor in my final year of primary in Culcheth, under the formidable Mrs. Bonser, whose very name could make chalk squeak in terror.

My mother used to describe her own childhood on the Isle of Eigg in the Western Isles — those sunlit days when “they always made you feel welcome.” And that’s exactly how the Isis felt: a place where you were known, tolerated, occasionally scolded, but never ignored. There was a sense of bonhomie, a friendliness that somehow survived the cane.

The old building and its grounds helped too. During playtime, the place felt almost enchanted — we could roam and explore, invent kingdoms behind the bike sheds, and plot daring escapes to the sweet shop. School wasn’t just lessons and Shakespeare; it was adventure, freedom, and the peculiar, fleeting joy of being twelve years old in 1961.