You see the kids don't wear uniform and, supposedly as a result, they're far too individualistic to conform with either present educational conventions or their social destiny, as foreseen by the blank-faced men on high who make the rules. THE RYHOPE SCHOOL just outside Sunderland couldn't be more notorious in the North –East if the Headmaster were to invite Harold Wilson to the demolition of the staff toilets, insisting that he wore only a cod piece and filled his pipe with hash.Įver since the school was created (five years ago – by the amalgamation of the old Grammar School and Secondary Modern, which were and still are separated by a main road), controversy, as they say, has raged unabated. Is British youth going to the dogs? (Hurray!) Will the forces of civilisation and morality triumph in the end? (Boo!) Read it and find out……… Like commandeering the entire school in order to put on a full-scale production of a rock opera written by some geezer in a boiler-suit. But nowadays, well – they get up to all sorts of subversive stuff ….

Fun was few and far between, in a manner of speaking, your worship. It was all long division, P.T., hymn-practice, and stewed prunes for afters. It wasn't like this in our young day, we can tell you.

Tommy rock opera