General Information
During the year 2000 D J Clark built a visual record of the Lancaster &
Morecambe district using photographs and information submitted by those that
feature in the pictures. The project was conducted in association with Lancaster
Museum and has been archived for future generations to look back at the district
at the turn of the new Millennium. For more information on the project visit
the information page. If you find a caption is
wrong or there is a fault with the page please e-mail D
J Clark.
Date:
June 28th 2000
Location: Central High School
Photographer's Diary
Central High School 28th June
A school had always been on the list from day 1 but it had proved to be the one subject I had not thought to go ahead with in the early days. Bumping into an old friend in Folly Cafe, I talked to him about the possibility. Derek Rodenburg had been through a number of jobs in early years and had finally settled for teaching. After a number of short term posts he managed to get a full time post at Central High. The school (formally known as Castle) had a poor reputation from the 70's and 80's but had since made giant leaps forward and was to my knowledge an excellent school.
I started the day at 10 AM photographing Derek teaching a smallish class. He was an inspiring teacher and all the kids were clearly enjoying their education. He made me explain who I was and what I was doing which only seemed fair. The next class was in isolation and to my horror I found half the children I play football with in the evening sitting their. "Are we playing tonight" they would whisper to me as the teacher turned around, "6 'O' clock" I whispered back feeling slightly guilty for breaking the silence.
At lunch time I ate with the children and staff but was keen to discover what else was going on. I split up with Derek and went wandering. There were a multitude of lunch time activities in progress, music sports and African dance ? The school was gearing up for a big show at the end of the year. I was still not convinced I had reached all that was going on so I wandered further asking pupils where the kids went to have a smoke. "Behind D Block" I was told but there was no smokers to be found. There was some boisterous behaviour as ids play fought for attention - that was it. When I found a group of Asian girls they turned their heads from the camera not wanting to be recorded.
After lunch I watched an assembly followed by PE and Art lessons. It was fun, at every point the children seemed happy - I can never remember so much fun in my school days. After school I was encouraged to stay on to photograph the show rehearsals. This school did no A levels expect Drama, and they were proud of their Drama department which had won many prizes. I shot a roll of film but it was all moving too fast.