b'What are your overall impressions of theschool now?The first thing I noticed is that the whole school seems light and airy as opposed to the dark and dreary of the 1960s. These passes [ID passes worn by staff and visitors] are great too for getting through doors!The technology here is fantastic. We certainly didnt have computers in schools back in the 1960s. One single computer would have been about the size of the whole of your room 29!There is a lovely calm and friendly atmosphere here. I can see lots of staff and pupils smiling which is just wonderful.It is great to see that the school uniform had not changed at all over the last 56 years. It is still the same tie and blazer. I still see the HGS badge being worn proudly around the city, even in Shirley where I now live, and its fantastic.school. We had bottles of acids and alkaliswhich I had never seen before, but only on the desks. Lets just say that health andbecause I had some of the boys on theIt was a real pleasure to meet and safety was not considered as important astrip, looking out for the security officersspeak to Richard Postill. He has it is now. who followed us everywhere. They werevery warm memories of the school I also remember the Woodbine pub, whichvery suspicious of me taking any photosfrom over sixty years ago, and was situated right where the modern sixthand must have thought that I was a spy! Iclearly it made a big impression form centre is. Can you imagine a pubcan even remember the name of the boy,on him. It is obvious that those being so close to a school? It was popularPriestly, who lost his passport in Moscow!early teaching years helped him to among some of the staff and also some ofThat cost us some time, but we were abledevelop the skills which would go the sixth form students. I think a sixth formto retrieve the passport and Priestly wason to serve him well in his future centre is a much better use of the space. able to carry on with the trip. We called allcareer as a minister in the Church.of the boys by their second names then. That was just the way it was. The trip was aShrey Kapoor, 10 HenryWhat was the area offantastic success and I suppose would be a bit like taking a school trip to North Korea Handsworth like at nowadays. We had a great MFL teacher that time? who spoke Russian and I even tried to learn Russian on my return.It was great and I enjoyed it. I could walk from the centre of Birminghamout to my bedsit (one room with a bed and a small kitchen) in Handsworth at 1:00 in the morning and was completely safe. Already Handsworth was becoming rich and vibrant and was a very interesting place with more people from the Caribbean coming to live here.Do you have any other particular memoriesof the school?I remember going on a school trip with pupils from HGS to the Soviet Union in 1964. Now remember, this was at the height of the Cold War, and we actually travelled to Moscow overland. I was, and remain, a keen photographer, particularly railway photography. I actually managed to take some photos of trains 51'