Accrington Grammar School Old Boys

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Comments regarding the above article may be inserted here.

Good item that, it certainly applied to me, our house had gas lighting and no hot water, outside toilet (long drop) and my dad was on a very low wage.
I don't want to be negative but some folks criticising this web site must not appreciate the old school quite as much as I do. It and Pug  and others like him,set me up for life.

It's funny,when we were at AGS all the teachers were 'boring old farts' who had probably never been human and were only there to give us a hard time. Now I'm a 'boring old fart', and after reading Lou Portno's comments I realise they may have been human after all. AGS certainly gave us boys from working class families a realisation that there was a world out there waiting for us which our parents had never known. And the teachers made us realise that we could go for it( and we did ).

Regarding the item on Lou Portno, what the article does not mention is the remarkable length of time he taught at the school; from 1927 to 1967. The school was indeed fortunate to have such a gifted French teacher for that long period of time. The colour photo of Lou was I believe taken in 1952.
 
The article is reproduced from 'An Accrington Mixture' edited by Bob Dobson. Included in that book is an item by Antony Portno( Lou's son) called ' Childhood in Accrington (1950s)' I've just re read the article after a lapse of some years and I can recommend it to anyone who was at AGS in the 1950s.
 
The book itself is now out of publication but I believe it can be seen at Accrington library.
 
Jim Sherry

After performing well enough with Louis' help at Ordinary level French to be offered some award by the examination board, I recall his visit to the Moorhead site in retirement (his, not the school's). He entered Jean Scull's physics class, saw me, and must have quickly concluded that I didn't pursue the language at Advanced level. Though I speak French every day now, it's that feeling of letting him down that I remember.

Louis' teaching was so effortlessly effective: his influence was and remains so powerful that I am learning Polish - I'm on lesson 12 of 90 from Pimsleur - at age 57 last time I checked, and I'm in love with languages. This comment is intended to be an aggrandisement of him, not me.

Well, yes he did appear greater than is the case. He was OK, but certainly not a major influence on me. It's 40 years since I was at AGS, and I now look back on my time there as like "a foreign country", which is how L P Hartley described the past in his book "The Go-Between".   

Thanks, Conway for your less effusive view of Louis' work. He was a native French speaker - well, Channel Islands - which among teachers in UK was uncommon then and remains so. When I heard him converse with another native who visited our class I decided that I'd speak as well as them. His teaching was effortlessly effective: I knew what I had to do: but the learning wasn't effortless.

Well, Hartley, we are all entitled to our own opinions. Previously, you were not effusive about Ralph Bailey, who I liked. Another correspondent was not all that effusive about Ben Johnson, while others have sung his praises. We all had our favourites and others we did not like or care for as much. But so what?         

I confess to bias against Ralph, for at least the parochial reason that he expelled me - for more news of this sort, try grahamhartley@hotmail.co.uk