Category: Past pupils, staff and personal stories

The character of a school is formed by its community. Brought to life through correspondence and personal memories, these are the people and the stories which help give a real sense of what it was like to be be at Moor Allerton School over the last 100 years.

Dinner Ladies

The thoughts of all pupils and staff, present and past have been with the family of everyone’s favourite dinner lady Margaret Cummins who sadly passed away at the start of the year. Margaret was at the school for over 20 years. We’ve not found any pictures of her so far in the archive, but here’s one of Margaret’s predecessors taken some time around the early 1980s. If you remember being given your lunch by one of these ladies, let us know and help us put names to faces.

1980s Dinner Ladies

Memories of Moor Allerton in the Sixties

In response to this website, ‘1960s Boy’ writes with the following high praise for the school and his time here:

“I went to Moor Allerton in the 1960s. It was the best school I went to, but I had to leave because we moved away. You don’t always appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

Mr Pugh was outstanding as a headmaster. Looking back I think he was a an educational entrepreneur, always trying new things and looking to expand and improve the school. The academic standards in maths and English were very very high though perhaps not so good in French and Latin. I think I owe Mr Pugh quite a lot in that respect. It was a bit disconcerting that he used to teach something and then move on before most boys (and we were all boys) had quite grasped everything about the topic. I remember him explaining that this was the right thing to do as if you went to the next stage you would grasp the previous one. It was good to have Mrs Amor for maths from time to time so that we could catch up!

The staff were all very nice people, very down to earth and approachable: Mrs Savage, Mr Green, Mrs Wagstaff, Mrs Amor and of course the Mssrs Clark (older and younger). I did not appreciate this at the time, I thought all teachers were like that. This was not the case in the 1960s and probably isn’t now. At my next school they were straight out of the pre-war (probably the 1914-18 one) era. Above all Moor Allerton was a very happy, forward looking and independent (in the best sense of that word, i.e. not just fee-paying) school and having looked at the website it seems it has stayed in that tradition. Long may it flourish.”

Thank you very much for telling us about your time at the Moor Allerton. If any other visitors to this site have their own recollections to tell us about, then this is exactly the kind of material we need to add to our ‘living archive’ of the school, in this, its centenary year.

Please submit your stories in the panel below, or email [email protected]

Old Boys 1914–1924. Part 2

A further selection of old boys’ portraits from the earliest days of Moor Allerton. Are you related to any of these? Let us know!

Old Boys 1914–1924. Part 1

In the Moor Allerton archive, we have a photo album dating back to 1924 which records the names and details of some of the pupils from the first decade of the school’s existence. It contains beautiful portrait photographs and provides dates when each boy was at Moor Allerton, and what schools they went on to afterwards. Here’s a gallery of some of those boys who attended during the very first years of the school. Was one of them your relatives? Please let us know.

Famous ‘Old Boy’ No.3 – Danny Betesh

Photo of pop promoter Danny BeteshWhat Brian Epstein was to the Beatles and the Merseybeat scene of the 60s, former Moor Allerton pupil Danny Betesh was to the Manchester Beat scene at the same time. In fact, in 1963, he helped promote the first major tour for the Beatles!

Starting his career as an accountant, Danny Betesh set up Kennedy Street Enterprises, one of  one of the most respected and successful promotion agencies in British entertainment. He had originally entered showbusiness as a ballroom owner but switched to agency work, booking such local acts as Freddie And The Dreamers and Dave Berry. In 1964, he launched a Manchester invasion of America, which culminated with Freddie And The Dreamers, Herman’s Hermits and Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders holding the Top 3 positions in the US singles chart.

Since that golden era, Kennedy Street has continued to flourish as an agency and management organization. Among the acts they have represented are 10cc, Sad Café, Barclay James Harvest, Tony Christie and Godley And Creme. The number of tours they have promoted has been countless and include celebrated appearances by such stars as Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Morrissey.

Famous ‘Old Boy’ no.2 – Anthony Blond

Photo of Anthony BlondAuthor and publisher Anthony Blond attended Moor Allerton in the 1930s before continuing his education at Eton then Oxford University.

His father was Major Neville Blond CMG OBE, one of the founders of the Royal Court theatre in London. He set up his first publishing company in 1952 and was publisher and director of Private Eye magazine. Blond wrote two books about the publishing trade, The Publishing Game (1971) and The Book Book (1983) and a humorous novel, Family Business (1978).

Find out more about him on his Wikipedia entry or obituaries published upon his death in 2008 in The Guardian, The Independent, and The Telegraph.

Some Anthony Blond press clippings from the Moor Allerton archive:

Famous ‘old boy’ no.1 – Joe Mycock

1947 England Rugby Union Team with Captain Joe Mycock.

1947 England Rugby Union Team with Captain Joe Mycock, middle row, second from right.

Joe Mycock  is one of Moor Allerton’s famous Old Boys getting to the top of his game – captaining the England rugby union team in the late 1940s.

Joe Mycock newspaper article c.1970s

Joe Mycock newspaper article c.1970s

Joe was born in 1916, so would have been a pupil at Moor Allerton in the mid-1920s. He became captain of Sale Rugby Club in 1936 and also had spells with Harlequins and  Lancashire achieving five England caps between 1947 and 1948.