Wigan Album

He was TH Walker, affectionately known as Tommy Rot One of his favourite sayings was Piffle, utter tosh, tommy rot!I notice the old epidiascope at the back of the room. There was also a case full of specimens including an ostrich egg and sharks teeth.

what a photograph, taken from beneath the globe hung from the ceiling which could be lowered onto the head of anyone offending John Bradburn in his geography period

Tom Halliwell Walker married to a Miss Seddon from the stocking factory in Vauxhall Road.He described my maps as being drawn on sugar bags with a stick of rhubarb dipped in glue

Quite unique - Tommy Walker actually in class and it looks as if he might be teaching. All I can remember is that he was awol most of the time for our lessons, that's the impression I was left with - when he eventually got to class he often did a quick intro of sorts and then promptly disappeared. Were we the unlucky ones or did other experience the same? Slack management or a teacher who conned the system and failed the boys in his trust - probably both. He wasn't the only one - FAL, the art "teacher" was similar - out of the room smoking far more than in the classroom teaching. I don't want to tar all WGS teachers with the same brush because there were many dedicated ones but these two are well remembered by me for all the wrong reasons.

I heard Tommy Rot was a member of the Freemasons and one reason he was frequently absent from lessons was because he would attend their meetings. The problem was there never seemed to be any cover for his lessons and we were left to our own devices, usually reading all the back copies of National Geographic.