The red-brick frontage of the Victorian main building seemed richer in colour when I passed by today, as if refreshed rather than dampened by the recent prolonged bout of wet weather.  No doubt the ‘Old Girl’ has seen a lot worse winters than this in her time, however depressing near constant rain might feel.  And, despite having been cut off from its roots, the ivy cross looked almost green again too.

I noted one of the four dormer windows in the eaves (of Brenda Cavagnah’s Assistant Bursar’s Office) was open to the elements today indicating work was underway on the top corridor once again.  A white worker’s helmet visible through the window of Room 4 also suggested there was a lot of activity inside the main building today.

Speculating what might be happening in the main building was always intriguing, but the main objective today was to discover how far the new build roof had progressed since Monday evening and I wasn’t disappointed.  On arriving at the old Junior School gates, it was clear that the roof was already nearly three quarters complete.

Traffic was heavy again on site today and an open-topped lorry parked just in front of the gate helpfully provided a striking red frame for a shot of the two new steel structures side-by-side.   I have my Dad to thank for the tip of trying to get red into a frame.

Unlike on Monday evening, I could see the progress on the main building’s new extension for myself now and was curious to discover how the pile of steel photographed on Monday had been utilised.  However, on approaching, my eyes were drawn to the ground floor first of all where a fluorescent-jacketed man was hard at work.

The man was named Mark and was just in the process of putting ‘another brick in the wall’ which was now being re-erected between the new extension and what used to be the old kitchen storage areas.

Beyond Mark and the steel supports, the new flight of stairs to the rear of the extension looked even greyer than it had done at the turn of the year now that steel flooring had just been laid on its first floor.

Despite the steel flooring of the upper level being not quite finished, the steel structure was now beginning to look more like a building.

It is funny how watching changes to a familiar building makes you notice structural details you weren’t consciously aware of before.  Although I must have walked past it thousands of times, if anyone had asked me to describe the layout under the Dining Hall windows I wouldn’t have been able to.  And as I walked back past the main building on my way back to work today, I saw a set of black railings standing up against the wall I hadn’t noticed as I’d passed by before.

Without the railings in place, I now became aware of a deep recess beneath the windows where yet another new site of work was clearly underway.  I realized from its position it must lead down to the Boiler Room.  Although vaguely aware of its existence, this was one of the few areas of the old Church High building I had never visited.

I mused that this unexpected little discovery proved that even a building you know very well can present you with the odd occasional surprise.  However, this would be nothing compared to the hugely serendipitous surprise still awaiting me on Tankerville that day.

As you may know, Newcastle High School was founded by the Church Schools’ Company and, because of this, a strong Christian ethos was always at the very heart of the school even before it became The Newcastle upon Tyne Church High School.  If I was ever in any doubt over this, it was made clear to me the moment I walked through the door for my interview with Jill Mortiboys, who would become my Head of Department, mentor and a very dear friend.  This smiling, vibrant figure in a white blazer, with sleeves pushed up ‘Miami Vice’ style, greeted me with huge apologies for her lateness as “Revd Macey’s Ascension Day assembly for the School had rather overrun.”  And so it began.  Although I don’t recall the date of this particular ‘Holy Thursday’, the Internet tells me it was May 16th.

The Church calendar was on my mind today because January 6th marks ‘The Feast of Epiphany’, or ‘Twelfth Night’ as it is more commonly known.  Epiphany Eve is the Twelfth Day of Christmas which brings to an end all yule-tide festivities.  It is also the day by which, traditionally, all Christmas Trees must be taken down.  And often, as was the case this year, it also coincides with my return to work.  The only saving grace today was that it was a Wednesday.

The word epiphany means ‘manifestation’ or ‘showing forth’ and this is often what it feels like for me each Wednesday as I venture up the road to ask “What’s new this week?” of the Wates’ workmen.  The rate of physical progress each week never ceases to surprise & thrill me and, this particular week, my first visit of 2016, was no different.

Epiphany is also ‘The Day of Lights’, a fact I mused on with some irony.  2016 may be the year that will return the school to Tankerville, but, yet again, another Wednesday camera day had turned out dull and very wet.  Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night: Or, What You Will ends with the song ‘For the rain it raineth every day’ and recently in the North-East this had certainly been the case.  However, despite the incessant rain over the holiday period turning the newly-concreted floor of the new-build steel structure into one big ‘Tankerville Puddle’, it was still exciting to learn that the nondescript stacks of grey material visible in the distance would soon become a roof.

The Gateman has told me the construction work continues to draw a steady stream of visitors of all ages to the site gates, the common denominator always being a Church High connection of some sort.  However, despite the keen interest in the changes manifesting on the Tankerville site, today turned out to be the day the eyes of the world were much more focused on Jesmond Road, Newcastle High School’s first home, thanks to #DrummondPuddleWatch going viral.

Drummond Central are the strategic creative agency behind the marketing and sea horse marque for Newcastle High School for Girls.  They are also the people who, rather strangely, set up a live ‘feed’ of a puddle near the A167 in Jesmond which ended up being streamed online to people as far away as Denmark and the USA.

The ‘Drummond Puddle’ became the centre of a social media storm as thousands logged on to watch passers-by on their way to Newcastle city centre trying to avoid getting their feet wet whilst negotiating a 1.5 metre-wide puddle blocking the end of a pedestrian tunnel under the A167.  The Drummond office workers’ mischievous camera-watch and the sheer ingenuity of the folk tackling the puddle both seemed to me very well-suited to ‘tricksy’ Twelfth Night.

My hope is that this little ‘puddle interlude’ may have served to brighten up what could otherwise have been a very dull post indeed, the construction team having only been back on the job for two days after their long Christmas break.  In that short period of time, nevertheless, the steel frame of the new circulation extension to the old building had only just been completed, I was told – indeed it was so new that the tags still remained on the steel in one or two places.

However, in the context of the on-going construction process, the real epiphany moment on site today for me was the dawning realisation that, deep within the murky depths of the grey steel frame in the fading winter light, I was actually looking directly at a brand new flight of concrete stairs.  This jagged ‘stairway to the sky’ was certainly no-where near as attractive as the old, wooden one it was replacing in the building, but this certainly felt like real progress.  From now on in 2016, the stairs seemed to be saying, the only way was up.

I already knew from the site plans that one of the biggest physical changes to the main corridor would involve my teaching classroom, Room 5 (English 3).  I had mixed feelings about this fact.  In one way, it was nice to think that I would be the last person to actually teach a lesson in that particular room; however, at the same time it was also a shame that a room with such a lovely aspect would cease to exist.

When NHSG moves back into Tankerville, the rooms off the main corridor, other than Room 5, will all be designated to the Sixth Form.  This classroom is to be be divided up into three sections to create offices for the Deputy Head Academic and the Examinations Officer in addition to an open plan Group Room or Meeting Area.  Taken through the Hall doorway, Alan Younger’s photograph of November 25th 2015 shows the new partition walls are now in place.

In direct contrast to this situation, the two Church High Geography rooms, situated off the main corridor on the way to the Art rooms, have been knocked into one big space at the moment, as Alan’s photograph below makes clear.  This huge space will be familiar to some, as, initially, this room housed the School’s first Science Laboratory.  When I joined, it was known as the Large Geography Room and because of its size was used as the changing area for the School Play.  At present on the plans, it will house two Graphic Design rooms.

The modern 1998 Art Wing provided light and airy, state-of-the art, purpose-built Art rooms with glass panels in both ceilings and dramatic red beams on which artwork and sculptures could be hung.  One imagined that these rooms would need very little tweaking for the new school and Alan Younger’s photos show this to be the case.  The surrounding fixtures and fittings have all been stripped out, but both Art Studios are clearly recognisable still as Grant Wells’ spaces.

Before he left the building, Alan also visited the 1984 Science Block which can be entered at first floor level from the south end of the main corridor.  This floor of the block housed Church High’s two Physics Labs & Preparation Room and the flight of internal stairs leading up to the two Biology Labs up on the second floor.  Although the red brickwork exposed by the removal of plaster gives the corridors a much warmer feel than when they were painted steel grey, as with the Art Rooms, this stairway area has also changed very little.

The final shot Alan took looking back onto the main corridor again not only highlights the beauty of the newly exposed brickwork but also yet another distinctive Church High semi-circular door arch .

When I joined Church High in the mid 1980s, the School Caretaker was Mr Volpe, who I always seem to visualise wearing a woolly hat.  In the late 1980s and 1990s, the job of looking after the Church High buildings fell to Dave Stout.  When Dave Stout moved on, the role of Caretaker, later expanded to Site Manager, was carried out with great loyalty and passion by Gentian Qeku until the School eventually left the premises in August 2014.  When Alan Younger has the keys handed to him in August 2016, as I said at the start of this very long post, he will be the 4th Site Manager I have known.