Lower 6B Science Report
After hibernating in the Fifth Form for a year and casting aside the haggard looks, sunken eyes and stubbly chin of the G.C.E. era, we emerge tired but triumphant into the "glorious" Sixth. We now inhabit the Chemistry Lab., existing in an atmosphere of organic gases (not including oxygen). At the beginning of term after various counts we found that we consisted of nine males and one female, who, apart from being a convert from last year's "lit. lot," is also an infant protege of Liberace. A few of our members (then in the Fifth) honoured the Swiss Government by visiting their beautiful country in the summer at the risk of being ejected as undesirable aliens.
The Upper Sixth has allowed us to share their hovel (common room) which has been decorated in a rather unusual contemporary style. We are a very versatile company, having a fiendish magician, a future Dan Archer and one or two would-be explorers in our midst, as well as the budding Gielguds, Wolfits and Oliviers (not cigarettes), who tramp the boards nightly in preparation for the opening night.
Message from the Satellite, or
A Rocket from Russia
Upon the departure of those amiable scientists the Halogens, the privilege (doubtful as it may be) of giving you this annual insight into the sacred and secular affairs of this happy, if slightly overworked, band of scientists falls to us, the Alcohols.
The end of last term was a time of departure for the senior members of our form, namely D. Scott, L. Hibbert and J. Ibbotson, who have proceeded to the University of Manchester, and Mildred Taylor and Pauline Howard to Electronics and to Nursing respectively.
We were also sorry to lose our form master, Mr. Pendlebury, whose efforts and unfailing patience in attempting to instil into us some knowledge of Physics were greatly appreciated by all.
All over the world the prestige of Science has been rising. Even here in Greenhill this movement has been perceived in the elevation of the Sixth Science form-room up two flights of stairs to the Chemistry Lab. Our form master, we hesitate to say new, as several years in the Chemistry Lab. would remove the lustre from anything, is a White Rose man from that bleak county over the Pennines.
This year the new recruits, ten in number, swelling our ranks to twenty-two, arrived with the usual air of self-confidence that a successful "O" level G.C.E. lends to one, just as last year's Upper Sixth gloated as gradually their promised land dissolved before their eyes to a virtual desert.
Harmony once again returns to the labs, in the form of a new lab. assistant. This angel from heaven has come to us in place of a suspected "Lit. Lot" Sympathiser whose subversive activities in these hallowed halls upset the somewhat calm ritual of our activities.
As our special effort towards the I.G.Y. we are conducting an orchestra, sorry, expedition into the uninhabited regions of Outer Heck-mondwike, but the supply of porters this year is very low; so a press gang will be operating in school to this purpose.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. What about I don't know, but nevertheless you have been warned.
To those who read this report and are offended by either insertions or omissions, well "C'est la vie," or in plain English "Hard Luck."
The Alcohols.
Form VI Lit. Report
Once again my pen is poised above the page, time marches on but the words refuse to come.
The Arts side managed to secure nine lower sixth girls to its ranks. This increase caused Mr. Cooke to repeat Shakespeare's famous words, "Oh, Further Educationalists, I come to lay my weary bones amongst you."
We are rather perturbed by the fact that our form room now looks crowded since at the end of last term we lost only three people to the outside world.
Since the departure of the school's linguist, the room looks much tidier. We no longer find books, with horrible-sounding titles, pushed into the piano or behind the radiator.
We welcomed back to the happy state two of last year's Upper Sixth and under their new title, the Upper Sixth or the Third Year Sixth, resolved to work. Gone are "Cricket in Ten Easy Lessons" and "The Heartaches of a Student"; these have been replaced by a French dictionary and Tudor Constitutional Documents.
Gone too is the "silly, soft, stupid'' former Lower Sixth. Raised to the ranks of Upper Sixth students, we are now working like Trojans in preparation for the fateful day.
However, the speech has been spoken and the word has been written and so it only remains for me to say au revoir from the "Lit. Lot."