The best introduction to Roger Worrod is to be found at his website: www.rogerworrod.com
He started at Bablake in 1951 and although he was there in 1955, when I came as master, our paths did not cross.
When I first contacted him, he was planning a trip to Hanoi, or linguist that he is, Hà Nöi. Because of Roger's aversion to flying, he is to travel overland on the Trans Siberian railway. More later.
 
  Vietnam venture:
"I'm giving a 2-week course on 'Making Documentaries'.... how different European countries do it and what you might need to do or to change in order to sell documentaries in the potpourri European market. What needs to be addressed in order to break into the lucrative American market and, of course, to learn from them the best approach to their and their neighbours' markets. Then I will give a 3-week course on TV series, including soap operas, with similar criteria to the above.

As most of their training came from Russia until long after independence and China has always had a strong influence, they have very rigid formats and parameters that are difficult to broach or breach. In fiction, the studio lighting leaves a lot to be desired and cutting between characters seems to be done 'by numbers' rather than for any dramatic effect. We're there to learn, to exchange, to share and to offer advice. Not "This is the way that it should be done", not from me, anyway.

 
  Bablake times:
Roger Nixon and I started off in Shell Z together with Colin West, David Whitehouse, David Barham, Trevor Bowron, Roger Thompson, Bill Weston, David 'Flossie' Newcombe, Graham Hayles, Spud Murphy, Shadlock, Ian Norman, then others who wit John Alfred, DW West and Paul Wylie who joined in 3G, Lr4G, Ur4G. Later the pot was stirred, creating a 'pure' German strain in 5G, a hybrid German + Biology in 5C plus a class made up of those who had had problems with Latin, German or Biology who went into 5P and there was some belated talk about giving them practical hands-on experience in the year before 'O' levels. I found myself in 5C but still doing German. We did have 'very Good, very Hot' Van Hee (The Mekon) as form and Maths master.
  
   
  I was a weekend trainspotter but some weekends a group of us cycled across to a disused (bombed-out?) cement factory near Southam to reenact the Battle of Stalingrad. Roger and I also explored the local slag heaps for fossils. I had been battling for well over a year with Seaborne about restarting the Dramatic Society or at least putting on a play or give a play reading. He obviously disapproved of my involvement with the local theatre companies in general and the CASSON family in particular (links to Ellen Terry, Gielgud, Sybil Thorndyke & Hugh Casson). I was told to concentrate on my results that did not at all reflect my ability.

(Re your photo of Mr Duffield) Often his first remark after sitting at his desk and reacting to our satchels on the desks was; "Put down your barricades, or I'll pop a grenade over!". I think Jock Falla's "Every time I open my mouth, some fool speaks" or "Every time I open my mouth, someone puts his foot in it", were quite deliberate self send-ups. I'd like to believe the same of his "I just did it to see if you were still awake" after having one of the boys correct something he'd written on the board. At different times I had him for General Science, Chemistry, Physics AND Maths. He was a good rugger ref and ran round the field with us before we played and people liked the way he 'bumbled'.
  
   
  Paul Wylie sat in front of me and David Whitehouse was behind me. My sharpest memory of Paul Wylie (apart from doing 'bombs' off the top board with Chris Chandler after we had finished official swimming training practice) was a rather loud 'bang' from a precipitate of Ammonium Tri Iodide in a little hollow on top of a piece of balsa wood covered with lint. In class he shook it and warmed it with his hand. That particular bang came in class during a pregnant pause. The (confused or quick-thinking) teacher thoughtfully, slowly, looked out of the window to search for the cause. They were not however, as dangerous as the bombs made by screwing two bolts into a nut with homemade explosive compressed into the small space between. One of those made a hole in our garden shed.
Peter Hurford took us several times to The Umbrella Club in Little Park Street to listen to classical music on the Brolly Club's fine equipment but I had already been taken there by a couple of Henry VIII teachers who were acting at the Talisman. I was co-opted to become subscriptions manager for the 'Umbrella Magazine'.
 
   
  I had the doubtful privilege of breaking Jack Pilbin's nose while only half evading his tackle in a house match.
There's no doubt about it, I had (to a lesser extent still have) a big mouth; that's where most of my report card punishment came from. Taffy Phillips was usually more physically expedient and he did sometimes enjoy verbal Ping-Pong. Whereas I might do quite well on "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" or "The News Quiz", very few teachers wish to participate in repartee with jumped-up, little class clowns.
Roland Beard in Art once accused me of cheating. The exam was about lettering, words which had to be illustrated. I was illustrating 'RODENT' when someone looked over my shoulder and said: "I don't think a shrew is a rodent". So I asked my neighbour, Shadlock, to lend me his dictionary which had previously used quite openly. If RB had punished me for talking or interrupting the lesson, but cheating? Never. I'd been brought up to 'own up' when I'd done something wrong but only then.
Injustices followed me abroad. When I was at the South African College School in Cape Town in 1948, we had to learn a poem, 'Vita Lampada - The Torch of Life' by Sir Henry Newbold. I'd done it well and the teacher asked me why I had put so much into my recitation. I explained that it was "different to" other poems I had learnt. Shortly afterwards the teacher left the room then a bell rang for general assembly. In a full hall of, the Headmaster called me up onto the stage and pointed out that: "This English boy doesn't know the difference between 'different from' and 'different to'"!. Language development? However, we would have both baulked at 'different than'!
The only real problem I ever had with homework was one "happy" day when I had forgotten my swimming togs at home and we had a training session at Livingstone Road Baths in the afternoon. I cycled back home, collected them and arrived late for school. "Give me your card, Worrod", said the prefect on the gate. I had collected my swimming togs but left my satchel on the floor in the hall at home. What to do but to report my lack of satchel. "Very sad, Give me your card, boy" he intoned. But then, I couldn't hand in my homework, any of it. So I had my card signed 3 MORE TIMES for 'No Homework'. With a circled H in the margin, I was off to see Flap Atkinson who was 'replacing' EAS. "What a sorry mess. You'll have to come back to see the Headmaster" said Flap. A double detention and one of the tiny collection of unjust punishments that still stick in my craw 50 years later.
  
   
  Midnight 1958
My 19th. birthday at the 'Confreres Dance' at the Police Ballroom. L to R. Roger NIXON, Roger WORROD, Terry MAYO, ???, Pete CLARKE
  
  I certainly was and still am in awe of Seaborne. I once had bad concussion playing rugger and because of Ray Lund's broken neck, everyone was very preoccupied. EAS left me in his office to wait for my mother to arrive from work. When they both came in after what seemed like a long time later, he was 'surprised' to find me standing, one shoulder holding up the wall, rather than sitting 'comfortably' in a chair.
After we did 'Tiger at the Gates' at the MTC/ Technical College at the Butts, I mentioned to EAS that the actor who was rehearsing 'Richard III' at the MTC asked us whether C'U'ventry was local dialectal pronunciation but I did point out that Christopher Plummer was a 'colonial' from Canada. When I first got involved in phonetics at RADA, I amused myself transcribing different accents and dialects, including EAS's 'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter' and his 'vac-u-um' has stayed with me all my life.
 
   
  Switzerland 1955
'Gusty' Gale, Jake Irons, MISTER Finch going to Rheinfalls.
  
  The only explanation I have of EAS's behaviour was perhaps his 'class' attitude to professional theatre; I know he was keen on its didactic side, but I don't think he was ever able to adjust to my equalling the highest marks ever awarded by the Northern Board for GCEs and equate that with my wishes. When I was in my final term at RADA, an ex-Bablake Bug (I forget his name) started the Stage Management Course. He had been ASSURED that he was the very first B.O.B. to attend the Royal Academy and the news of my scholarship was never ever published in the Wheatleyan. I would have thought that ex-School Captain Don Trelford's sojourn with Tiny Rowland and subsequent rise and fall would have been more shaming in his eyes!
I had been battling for well over a year with EAS about restarting the Dramatic Society, or at least to put on a play or play reading. He obviously disapproved of my involvement with the local theatre companies in general and the CASSON family in particular (links to Ellen Terry, Gielgud, Sybil Thorndyke & Hugh Casson). I was told to concentrate on my results that did not at reflect my ability.
 
   
  My actual 'O' level results, later in the year, are written in the left hand margin. I went through my 'O' level Maths papers like a dose of salts, handed them in and left early to go and buy a 2nd bag of over-ripe cherries from the market. Van Hee looked through all my Maths papers and told me that he had found zero mistakes, but that I might be lightly penalized for having missed out a couple of lines of working. As it turned out, 90 was the highest mark they awarded.... and I know for a fact that there were kids in the class who scored in the mid 30s in real terms, but who were awarded pass marks of 45% when the results were adjusted nationally. But that was the reason why EAS put pressure on my parents to 'convince' me to stay on in the science 6th.  
  My life AB (After Bablake) coming later.