Pool Meadow - Back to school!

Dean Revell

We use to meet up at the Coventry center bus depot (Pool Meadow), get into separate coaches, depending on house (Blount, Dudley or Mortimer). Our suitcases  ( and bikes) thrown on to a lorry (nearly said truck) and off we would go. I remember the drive to school took all of 1/2 hour, but the drive from school to Cov. would take at least a day!





John Burke (From Topix)

I remember the coach trips from Pool Meadow and the open truck that took all the luggage and bicycles to Cleobury.





Paul Rees  "One more day to go, one more day of sorrow, one more day of this old dump and we'll be home tomorrow!" Sang on the bus going back to Pool meadow at end of term.







While on this topic - I began dabbling in writing song lyrics at Cleobury c 1966. I found a couple of lyrics called Boarding School Blues Pt 1 and 2  written while at school and which focused on leaving Pool Meadow for the school at 12 years old and returning home.





Boarding School Blues - Part 1

by Trev Teasdel



A case goes in the back

A bag goes in the rack

We go in the coach and down the wayward track.

We are 12, never left home, off to make it on our own.

The coach draws off, along the drive

Our parents weep n wave and strive to see their darlings off.



Chorus

Leaving home for the first time

To get those boarding school blues

Leaving home in term time

To break the old school rules!



Fun n games n chat, handkerchiefs and looking back

Finger spotting, whistling at the girls as the journey's scenery unfurls.

And suddenly it's endless fields and looking back..

Regretting this, regretting that, wishing your were on the homeward track

The homesick blues, you're feeling bad. Could have been kinder to mum and dad!





Chorus

Leaving home for the first time

To get those boarding school blues

Leaving home in term time

To break the old school rules!





Conversation runs rings around your head,

You're feeling down, wish your were dead

as you gaze upon an endless void ahead

Life's a mysterious tutor that leads you on towards your future.

You catch a joke, maybe you snigger but the hurt inside just gets bigger.





Chorus

Leaving home for the first time

To get those boarding school blues

Leaving home in term time

To break the old school rules!







Boarding School Blues (Part 2)

Chorus

One more day in this old place

There's one more day and we're going home.

Going home after far too long

We're going home.

In the prep room there is chaos,

Even the Masters celebrate

Fun fights in dormitories,

Nobody can wait.

It's all midnight packing and bed-ransacking

Pillow fights and bright torch-light

Everybody's getting ready

Everybody knows

We're going home.



At last the time has come,

No one will sleep tonight

Lights out - half past ten

No one gives a damn

Midnight raids on the staff room,

Biscuits topped with jam.

It's all been meals and lessons, slippers, canes, assembly

But tomorrow - we're going home,



Tossing caps in the Severn as the coach rolls over the bridge

Gulls come to greet them and fly off over the ridge

It's all 'when I get home..I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that'

Nothing seems to matter when you're on the homeward track.



Look out Coventry city - the boys are back in town

The girls are looking pretty, we'll soon be hanging round.

It's been facts n figures and classroom triggers

but now we're coming home.



......



On Visiting Day





Michael Billings

Thinking back to the Sundays once a month when our Parents visited the school. The coaches from Coventry were Bunty or Red House Motor Services from Spon End, Coventry. Their garage was just before the Railways Arches. Wow i had forgotten about that until today.

Visiting day - parents would arrive in cars or on the coach. You'd maybe book lunch at a hotel in Cleobury or maybe Ludlow or maybe the family would picnic in Wyre forest. You'd get the whole until about 6pm with your parents, to go out of school. You felt sorry for the lads whose parents were in the forces or from homes whose parents couldn't visit. Sometimes, if they were friends they might come with you. After all the excitement the evening would be a total come down. The only saving grace was the tuck parcel that could be unraveled afterwards.



Another lyric I wrote at the time - on the playground in 1966, waiting for supper after visiting day was this. I used the emotion you felt after the parents had gone home to write a lyric but turned it into something more universal. I had the single As Tears go By - Marianne Faithful and Dylan, Donovan, Paul Simon were all newly out so the musical influence would from the work of those artists.





OH WHY DID YA LEAVE

by Trev Teasdel



The stars shine bright above

People below talk about love

But me I'm sittin' here,

every now and then a tear.



Chorus

Oh why did ya leave?

You were mine I do believe

Oh why did ya leave?

You were mine I do believe



No one can tell the way I fell for your arms

There was no way to repel your charms

You came to me when I needed a lift

Now you have flown with the winds so swift.



The night's so dark, it hides the mark you made.

You shone so bright in the night then began to fade

The room's so bare, there's no one there, I cry out all in vain.

The floor it creaks, my mind it seeks, a rest from all this pain.



1966 Cleobury Mortimer



The next lyric with any relevance to the school was written on leaving the school in my final year - summer 1967. The idea for the lyric (which had a Paul Simon influence) came as the coach lined up outside the Bursar's office, waiting to leave. The Bursar's window sill gets a name check!



In the chorus I took poetic licence and said we 'hitch hiked home' but obviously we went by coach. The Glen and the slippy embankment also gets a plug metaphorically in the song!





IT’S A LONG HITCH HIKE HOME

by Trev Teasdel,



Well now, at last, the term has ended

And we’re ready to return.

I say goodbye to all my friends

For I have many things to learn,

And ambitions to fulfil

And I whisper to my friend

Whose mind is still on the window sill.



Chorus -

It’s long hitch hike home

So I give my hair a comb

Put my rucksack on my back

And proceed down the track.



I’m off to seek my fortune

But not in pence and pounds

I’m off to seek my fortune

But not in jewels and crowns

I’m off to seek the truth

I’ve been looking for, for years

I’m off to seek a sun,

In a crowded mass of tears.



I’ve travelled through the glens

And made many friends

But as I try to wend my way

Up the embankment slimy clay

I sometimes slip and fall

Like a silver waterfall

But eventually I’ll climb

And overcome the slime.



I’ve travelled many miles

Through many empty valleys

And I’ve had my fair share

Of the darkness of the alleys

I’ve come across folk

Searching for their yoke

They sound their motto wide

“Seek and thou shalt find”



Everybody’s searching

For what? – They do not know

Gazing from their windows

They bow their heads low.

People trying to reach

With hands that can not feel

People trying to speak

To images unreal….

....................................

Strange but in 2021 the new Pool Meadow building, where the school coach used to leave from, now has the Ska'd for Life 2 Tone Mosaic on by artist Carrie Reichart as part of the City of Culture status and Trev Teasdel is featured on it with his 1974 Coventry music magazine Hobo as seen below.