LEON - The name behind a school

Did you attend Leon during the headmastership of David Bradshow and/or Bruce Abbott ? If you did read on and remember some special times. Pleae share them with me - I am looking for anecdotes to add to this text for the IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SAMMY LEON writing project. 

e-mail me dashford566@gmail.com or FRIEND me on facebook and message me.

LEON THE NAME BEHIND A SCHOOL:

I have joked in the past and will joke again that re re-naming of Leon School to The Sir Herbert Leon Academy may well have started a family argument. Sir Herbert, Sammy I am sure would

glow with pride but Lady Leon who was a formidable character would have spoken out at every opportunity saying it was she and not her husband who was involved with the school.

An extract from In Search Of The Leons:

During the 1930’s the school had an Education Week to promote the activities of the school in the community. The programme for 1934 shows Fanny Lady Leon to have been the driving force in such events. Within the souvenir programme she wrote:

The Education Week is an important function in Bletchley, for it tends to focus the mind on the real need for Educational development of a progressive kind. The re-organisation of the schools in the near future is a splendid venture in as much as the Senior Girls and Boys will receive an equally good education on the lines of The Hedow Report with which every Educationalist is familiar and understands. I wholeheartedly support this system of reorganisation, my views being clear and concise.

Fanny Leon

It was not until June 1938, four years later and not in Lady Leon’s lifetime, that the boys’ and girls’ departments united.

During this Education Week funds were raised towards the purchase of sound cinematograph apparat us for use in the school. Activities included: two concerts, speech day and prize giving, a special service in Bletchley Church, sports day held in Bletchley Park, a variety of educational visits and a special football match.

Lady Leon was also involved in the promotion of adult education in the area through the Bletchley Evening Institute and was a governor of Wolverton Secondary School.

The School Board used to meet in a special board room located in what is now Fenny House on the Knowles School site. These meetings were open to the press and were reported in the North Bucks Times and the Bletchley Gazette.

Lady Leon was not only a manager by name, but she took a deep and genuine concern in the welfare of the Bletchley Road School.

One of her duties as a manager was to visit the school on tours of inspection. She had to check such things as the registers to see that all was in order. There are many, many entries in the school log books written in her own hand where she states:

Visited schools and found everything satisfactory. Fanny  Leon

Immediately prior to becoming Leon School it was Bletchley Road School occupying the present day accommodation of Knowles School and, of course, backing on to Leon Recreation Ground. In the 1960’s David Bradshaw was appointed to be its headmaster.

Prior to Milton Keynes Bletchley Urban District Council and The Greater London Council combined to build a vast new housing estate in Water Eaton for overspill families from London, The Lakes Estate. Part of the development was to relocate the school to the Lakes, to significantly enlarge it with classrooms and all to accommodate 1,410 pupils. That plan was for five school year groups each of 250 pupils and a sixth form of 160. It soon significantly passed that number ! In the school year 2018/2019 the roll was 619.

Moving the school away from Bletchley Road in Fenny Stratford it could hardly keep the name, Headmaster Bradshaw came up with Leon as the new name taking it from Leon Recreation Ground and the adjacent heritage of its former location.

When I came to live I Bletchley Park, attending teacher training college, in 1971 there were four schools in Bletchley:

·  Leon School - Fern Grove Lakes Estate

·      Wilton School – Rickley Lane West Bletchley

·      Denbigh School – Cornwall Grove West Bletchley

· Bletchley Grammar School – Sherwood Drive – Located on former Bletchley Park land

Denbigh School migrated from West Bletchley to Shenley Church End

Wilton School and Bletchley Grammar School combined under comprehensive education to form Lord Grey School on the site of Wilton School. The name coming from Lord Grey of Wilton.

Only Leon School remains from those day s fifty years ago.

As a student teacher the last, the very last place to which we wanted to be assigned for teaching practice was Leon School on the Lakes Estate. Kindly many referred to this new development as The lakes Mistake while I clearly remember the local newspaper in report using the words Bletchley’s infamous Lakes Estate !

Strange how I applied for a post, I think I was the only applicant, and joined Leon School in January 1976. I  can now say how fortunate I was to become a Leonite and how I loved every single day I worked there. No, I am not looking back through rose-tinted glasses, I loved every single day within the twelve years I was a member of Leon’s staff. No pupil ever swore at me, no pupil ever showed me disrespect and in the 1980’s when my daughter was seriously ill with chronic renal failure my students showed me so much love. Now decades later I am in contact with so many former students who I am proud to call my friends.

Sammy Leon when Headmaster Bradshaw took your name for the new school he displayed great wisdom honouring everyone with y our family ‘s name.

Headmaster David Bradshaw, what a special man he was. Many people think that I founded Leon Disco but that is not right, Headmaster Bradshaw started it before I joined the school but within my interview to join the school he made it clear I was to become a part of this Tuesday evening activity. The moment the last record was played and the lower school hall lights turned on I oversaw the exit of the pupils while Headmaster Bradshaw picked up the broom and began to sweep the floor. How many headmasters of any school today would lower themselves to sweep the floor ? How many headmaster’s today would know how to run a weekly school disco ?

David Bradshaw was a unique headmaster who loved his school. When he retired another unique headmaster came in. Headmaster Bruce Abbott, another headmaster who loved his school.  It was Headmaster Bruce Abbott who started to hold up the Leon Family as examples to the students.

Proudly on display in Headmaster B H Abbott’s office were two signed photographs, now with an antique value, one of Sir Herbert and one of Lady Fanny who looked down on the day to day running of the school. I wonder what ever happened to those images.

I spent time reading through the old school log books from which I had an idea to trace the Leon Family and introduce them to the school. That idea became the project IN SEARCH OF THE LEONS. Sir John Leon wrote the introduction immediately following this Headmaster Bruce Abbott added:

FROM THE HEADMASTER: I am an historian as well as a headmaster, I am especially pleased with all the hard work that our young people have put into this book. Some of us probably have memories of history as a rather dull subject, not in any way connected with real life. All the young people in this project, however, have shown tremendous interest and enthusiasm for the research that have undertaken into the Leon Family.

Sir Herbert and Lady Leon, in the early decades of the twentieth century, contributed to the life of Bletchley immeasurably. They were particularly interested in education and it is right that our school should commemorate their service.

Congratulations to all those who have helped to produce this book. It is a task well done and furthermore it is fascinating to read.

Bruce Abbott  Headmaster Leon School

Leon School on Bletchley’s Amazing Lakes Estate was the only school in Milton Keynes to have its own indoor swimming pool. It had an all-weather floodlit football pitch and ambitions which would make Sammy Leon and his family glow with pride.

When I joined the school final preparations were in place for an expedition – L E O N – Leon Overland Expedition to Nepal. The brainchild of Head of PE Trevor Garner.

I will be adding some of my memories but tell me yours so they can add to the STEPS OF SAMMY LEON.

e-mail me dashford566@gmail.com or FRIEND me on facebook and message me.