Thursday 2 September 2010

Municipal Library Top Shelf - He and She



Incorrectly placed on the top shelf and given a proto-Ghost Box cover, He and She was written by Kenneth C Barnes, the Head of Wennington School. Wennington was a co-ed boarding school with parents paying what they could. As a result, pupils came from a wide variety of backgrounds. A progressive school that encouraged pupils to call staff by their christian names, older pupils organised the chores that underpinned the running of the establishment and even assisted with construction projects such as concrete tennis courts and a sewage treatment plant in the grounds.



These two beatniks are enjoying the benefits of the staff's more enlightened approach to teenage downtime. For more information look at this gentleman's site.

Wennington was a succesful attempt to create a progressive school for children of all social classes, and what's more it was near Wetherby in Yorkshire. Like all good things it came to an end, in 1975.

2 comments:

  1. Funny, there's an earlier green/yellow version of the cover that my wife and I actually used as a template for our "save the date" cards for our wedding.

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  2. Blimey. Kenneth Barnes would have been delighted. Seen at the time of the publication of 'He & She' as a sexual progressive, he disapproved of any notion of sex outside wedded bliss. And when Kenneth disapproved it had all of the imperative force of a verbot from the very Godhead.

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