Mr George Bradford – Born in 1925 in Muirkirk, George was a popular secondary school English teacher from the mid to late 20th Century.
He initially taught at Gallowflat School in Rutherglen in the mid 1950’s. By the 1960’s, he was still living in Rutherglen and travelling to Blantyre for work, he was known locally as “wee brick.” An unsung hero of the Scottish Education system, George had one arm and it is unknown how he lost it.
He worked at Calder Street Junior Secondary School in the 1960’s, then later at Blantyre High in Boswell Drive where he was also Deputy Head certainly between 1973 and 1982 assisting head teacher Mr Montgomery and later Mr Peter Moncreif.
George’s wife was also a teacher working in Burnside. In the 1960’s he drove a Ford Anglia Car and it is said, he was partial to a Lightbody’s pie! He was well respected and fair and could turn his ability to be able to stand in for most other teachers if they were absent. He even allowed the children to call him by his first name, which was something unusual for that time.
A story is remembered where he held a class on limericks, with an opening suggested line by him being “There once was a teacher called Brick”, and you may imagine how the children found delight in filling in the subsequent missing lines.
He was also strict and a draw of his belt would be enough for any child to behave again. His belt was with him at all times, kept over his shoulder, under his jacket although a wooden ruler usually sufficed for minor offences. He was certainly stricter with boys than girls. He was known to give out some corporal punishment with that leather strap, as was commonplace in those decades and was a good aim with a blackboard duster. There is even an urban myth that he once broke a desk with his strap.
However, the belt was used seldomly and he had a kind side too, even known to have loaned children money if they had forgot their cookery class money or reward them with a sixpence for having the best essay. He appreciated hard work, made children believe in themselves, appreciated honesty from those in his class and returned that sentiment by giving career advice to older pupils.
He was also known to have a sharp sense of humour. He would often produce a Daily Record newspaper and read some of the day’s current affairs with pupils, the paper said to have been easier for his one arm, than reading larger broadsheets.
His interests extended to being involved in running the local football team and he was a keen gardener. Upon his retirement in the mid 1980’s, following his long and illustrious career, he moved to Ayrshire not far from Robert Burns’ House, coincidently with poetry being another dedicated hobby.
George passed away in 2001, ahed 76 and is is fondly remembered as being a gentleman, a scholar and one of the finest teachers that Blantyre schools ever had.
From “Blantyre Explained” by Paul Veverka (c) 2017
On social media:
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😠 spoke to wee brick told him what was wrong he gave me money for a pair of gym shoes think they were a pound from tandem penny blacks 
😅😅at that time saved me from the belt 😉cheers the brick
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👍 great memories of Him
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Re: George ‘Wee Brick’ Bradford
From: “My Granny Made Me An Anarchist”
“The One-Armed Dominie
…. MY NEW SCHOOL in Blantyre was Calder Street School and the person who made most impact on me there was the English teacher, George Bradford. He was a one-armed Socrates (I never found out how he lost his arm) who epitomised everything a good teacher should be — interesting, stimulating, encouraging, non-judgmental and inspirational. He gave me a wide-ranging interest in history, culture and people and taught me the value of language. He was pivotal in stimulating my thirst for knowledge and helped me to understand some of the practical and moral complexities of the world in which I was coming of age.
“On one occasion he was briefing our class on an English exam we were to take the following day and reminded us that there would be no excuse for not showing up. Exceptions would only be made in the case of serious injury or illness, or a sudden death in the immediate family. A bit of light-hearted banter ensued and one smart-arse asked if ‘extreme sexual exhaustion’ would be acceptable as an excuse. When we had stopped sniggering, George smiled sympathetically at the boy and shook his head. ‘Not an excuse. You’ll just have to write with your other hand.’
“George was obliged to take us for Religious Education (RE) at least once a week, which involved a short reading from the King James Bible and then a general discussion. Inevitably, however, he would end the reading and close the Bible with the words ‘… And you can believe that if you like!’ …
… Hank Janson Meets Lady Chatterley
“CENSORSHIP WAS ANOTHER irritant in the cold war between ‘them’ and ‘us’ in the 1950s. It all came to a head in 1960 with Penguin’s publication of the first paperback edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, provoking a major confrontation with the establishment.
“Lobbying by church groups had resulted in the introduction of modern censorship with the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. Magistrates were given the somewhat limited power of seizing and destroying work which existed ‘for the single purpose of corrupting the morals of youth and of a nature calculated to shock the common feelings of decency in any well-regulated mind.’
“By 1868 the Lord Chief Justice had widened the interpretation of the test of obscenity as to whether or not it depraved and corrupted those whose minds were already open to such immoral influences. Saturation point was reached in the late 1950s with various nonsensical trials and judgements such as the banning of Boccaccio’s Decameron by Swindon magistrates while permitting the sale of such seedy US imports as Hank Janson’s ‘Don’t Mourn Me Toots.’
“The Old Bailey jury trial and subsequent acquittal of Lady Chatterley’s Lover felt as though another battle had been won in the war for ‘freedom’.
“Shortly after the trial, I was seen reading it on my way up Calder Street by one of the nymphophobic spinster teachers. This was to provoke a massive row in the school staffroom between the reactionary and liberal-minded teachers. The latter was led by Mr Bradford, our English teacher who was believed by these pathetic hags to be a corrupter of youth and intent on undermining their moral authority.
“The teacher in question, a sour old bitch of a spinster who taught ‘religious education’, vented her spleen the next morning, in the RE class, by lecturing me. We had been having fairly animated discussions about censorship in Bradford’s English class the previous day so I immediately adopted a self-righteous, truculent attitude and more or less told her she was a narrow-minded reactionary. Unfortunately, I went so far as to imply that this was a view shared by other teachers. This left her flabbergasted. Unfortunately, it also got Mr Bradford into trouble and led me to being hauled up before an embarrassed headmaster who quite simply didn’t know how to handle this new situation….”
… and another reference to George from “General Franco Made Me A Terrorist”:
“… Prior to my court martial (Council of War) in Madrid, Special Branch in Glasgow vetted my background. This involved interviewing my English teacher, George Bradford (‘Wee Brick’) in Blantyre. They asked George if they could read through my school essays in order to get some insight into the development of my political ideas.
He refused. No doubt the police of two countries were annoyed to find a stand on academic freedom and confidence between teacher and pupil should be made, not in a historic university, but by the dominie of a secondary school in Blantyre….”
May the earth rest lightly on you, George!