Month: January 1975

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I’ll Name Names, Tomorrow…Playing Call My Bluff In An English Class, Was It 1S Or 2AK? 1974 or 1975

I had a memory flash in September 2024 from an event at Alleyn’s School that must have been about 50 years ago now.

Janie and I went to see Here In America at The Orange Tree, Richmond:

Here In America by David Edgar, Orange Tree Theatre, 14 September 2024

Great play/production btw. The play is about the Second Red Scare in the 1950s.

It brought back to my mind a memory of playing Call My Bluff in an English class. That simple panel game had teams of three trying to convince the other team of three that “bluff” definitions of unusual words were actually true…and that true definitions were in fact bluffs.

Call My Bluff was “appointment to view” stuff in the 1970s – certainly in our household. Mind you, there wasn’t exactly a lot of choice back then.

The class version of the game was to split into teams of three and try to convince the rest of the class to vote for bluffs rather than the true definitions.

My team was given the word MCCARTHYISM. I must have recently learnt a passage of Hebrew in Hebrew classes with the word “machar” (מָחָר) in it. I quoted the short passage and explained that the word “machar” means tomorrow. I then strung out this small truth into a flight of fancy that there is a sect of Judaism, known as MCCARTHYISM, that venerates the future.

I know what you are thinking. The word would surely be spelt MACHARTHEISM if it had that definition. But such subtleties were probably beyond almost all of us at that age. I must have made the idea seem convincing.

When the class voted on the three definitions proposed for the word MCCARTHYISM, the true definition came second and my bluff got the most votes.

For some reason, this moment of smartarsed glory must have resided at the back of my memory all these decades, only to be revived by seeing Here In America.

But I also recall that, even at the time, I learnt quite a lot from this tiny episode. I learnt that using a grain of truth to disguise a lie (or bluff) is a very effective method of concealment. I learnt that nobody likes a smartarse, because the episode, while momentarily pleasing the teacher, did not make me popular with my class. And I subsequently learnt that my possession of a moral compass and my lack of a poker face would make me a very bad candidate for a future in bluffing.

But did we play that game in 1S, with Ian Sandbrook, or in 2AK with Mike Lempriere? I don’t recall.

Still, McCarthyism is all about naming names and I have named names for both of those classes:

My First Class At Alleyn’s School, 1S, And Some Nicknames, guessing 8 January 1974
My Second Class At Alleyn’s School, 2AK, And Some Nicknames, guessing 1 January 1975

So if you are, or have ever been, a member of one of those classes…

…and if you recall playing Call My Bluff in class…

…please let me know everything that you know. Yes, I mean everything.

Just answer the question.

And, of course, name yet more names…

My Second Class At Alleyn’s School, 2AK, And Some Nicknames, guessing 1 January 1975

I have already published a piece about my first class, 1S and the names/nicknames I recorded at the back of my 1974 diary – click here.

In the same notes space at the back of my 1975 Letts Schoolboys Diary, I recorded the names and nicknames of the boys in my second class, 2AK:

1974-diary-2ak_0001

This material is even harder to decipher than the 1S equivalent – my use of bold tempo pens playing havoc with the thin paper of those diaries.  So, I set the text out below – apologies for replicated spelling errors, inability to decipher errors and for some of the ghastly nicknames:

Allott

Athaide

Bateman – Batman

Bedford – Bedders

Bradshaw – Brad

Brassell

Dalloway – Dallers

Deacon – Doormouse

Dwelly – Bone

Feeley

Forrest

French – Frog

Geere – Gottle

Goodwin

Gurney – LEFT

Handy

Hanton – Brucy

Harris

Hollingshead – Beachhead?

Jennings – Jumbo, Juggernaut, Jet

Johnson

Kelly

Masson – Chimpy (thanks to David French for the correction).

Pullinger – Tug

Proctor – Superproc

Reeves

Rowswell – Sandy

Spence – Spike

Stevens

Wahla – Gob

I don’t think Gurney was nicknamed “Left”, I think that is a note to say that he left the school.

Now many of the above nicknames are weaker and thinner than a supermodel on a crash diet. I know some of them were genuinely used, but I find it hard to believe that all of them had common currency…

…and surely the rest of us must have had nicknames of some sort at one time or another. My work in early 1975 was only part done and then I got bored – typical kid.

Surely some people out there can help fill in the blanks or put matters right, even after all these years? Comments and suggestions, please. Those from other classes are welcome to add their names and nicknames to the pile.