Memories of Mr Lockett 

First from a teaching colleague, LILIAN FORD, who writes, “My association with Blaydon Secondary School, as it was in 1926, began on the same day as Mr Lockett’s.  I was a pupil in Form 1B and he was our form master.  Sixty one years later, during the school’s 75th anniversary celebrations, I learned from Mr Lockett that in 1926, first year pupils had been divided according to age and not ability as had been customary in previous years.  So 1B was the younger group and not the dimmer half of the ‘scholarship’ intake, as I had always believed.  That proof of Mr Lockett’s amazing memory cheered me considerably!  Like the pupils Mr Mitchell has referred to ,who said they were never very good at Physics, I can truthfully say the same thing about Maths, but Mr Lockett never held that against me.  When I returned as a member of staff in 1951, he had recently been appointed headmaster and from then until his retirement I always found him most supportive, fair and understanding.”

When in the middle school, looking out of the form room window along the front of the school on Friday afternoon , we would see Mr Lockett leaving on foot, in rain, snow or shine from Blaydon to collect the staff wages from the bank – to return to the school the same way an hour or so later.

He regularly took charge of the school cricket and football teams, at home and away, inspiring or refereeing as appropriate – his was a genuine interest.

ALAN WILLEY (1936) and a previous OBA committee member, selected from the many personal reminiscences from which he could draw, “The first is concerned with pronunciation.  Joe in his Staffordshire accent always pronounced a double ‘g’ in such words as ‘sing-ging’ and taught us local ladsthat the final letter of the alphabet was ‘z’ no ‘a-zed’ and that in mathematics, the figure ‘0’ was ‘zero’ not ‘nothing’.

The second goes back to those early, heady, days in the ATC when Joe lectured to us boys of the second year sixth about the principles of flight, aerodynamics and astro-navigation.  To us youngsters intending to study a scientific subject at University, it was fascinating – but now I’m afraid I wouldn’t even understand the symbols!”

Appropriately a final comment from a fellow headmaster, MR WARREN:

“I first met Joe in June 1965 when I was interviewed by him for a science teaching post in Blaydon.  I duly started my teaching career at Blaydon Grammar School in September of 1965.  Thia was to be Joe’s last year because he retired in July of 1966.

The school looked very different then, and the Science laboratories looked very like the postcards from the 1920’s.  As a newly qualified teacher I had little contact with the Headmaster, but was aware of him keeping an eye on me in the distance.  From time to time he would ask me how things were going, in a kindly way.  I am sure that he was well briefed by Mr Mitchell on my Physics teaching.  The school was a happy well ordered community and Mr Lockett’s kindness is something that I remember well today.  I had much more contact with him since he retired, when I learned about his remarkable memory, and his long career at Blaydon.  It is an honour to havefollwed in his footsteps – there is something about the school which keeps hold of its’ staff, and perhaps Mr Lockett’s influence is still at work.”