Geography at Edge Hill

Year group 1974 – 1977 (or 1978)

I spotted Helen Leach [Helen Chase] over on the Edge Hill University Alumni page on Facebook and she sent me this fabulous photo of a first year geography visit to RSPB Martin Mere. That started a guess the name game. I blundered in identifying Helen but, of course, she took the photo! Can you help identify these people?

Geography group at Martin Mere. Photo: Helen Leach [Chase]

Corrections and suggestions welcome
Left to right: standing John Rice, Richard Beaumont leaning on the chair, in distance Freda Wincott, 2
Left to right on chairs 1, 2, 3 David Lomax, 4 Julie Benson, 5 Andy Moir, Carolyn Rose, 6 Val Webb, 7, 8,
Left to right on rail 1 Jane Williams, 2, 3, 4

The accompanying lecturer would probably have been David Halsall (died 2013) or Steve Suggitt.

This is the list of those who gained their Certificate in Education 1977 (Edge Hill College of Higher Education). The “4” indicates those on the B Ed 1978 list.
Valerie Archer
Julie Benson – 4
Elizabeth Boam
Stephen Cottam – 4
Gillian Exley
John Goodwin – 4
Helen Leach – 4
David Lomax
Andrew MacCandlish – 4
Judith McDowall – 4
Andrew Moir
Kathryn Rawley – 4
John Rice
Kathryn Shaw
Sandra Statter
(James) Richard Sykes
Lynne Thomas – 4
Anne Travis
Julie Ward
Valerie Webb – 4
Jane Williams
Angus Willson – 4
Freda Wincott – 4

This list is incomplete as a group of 31 started the geography course in 1974.

Helen also posted this brilliant photo of her room in JD Hall

And Helen has provided these from the trip to North Wales in 1976. We stayed at Bangor Normal College (first photo). I think John Goodwin has been distracted by someone not in our group! We also walked up a peak in Snowdonia in a heat wave. One lecturer managed to get arms blistered from sun-burn. This was painful when we visited the Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station and had to put our arms into a radiation detector on the way out. Any other memories?

Back: John Rice, Angus Willson, Kath Shaw, John Goodwin
Front: 5, 6, Freda Wincott

John Goodwin standing. Val Archer stood sideways on the hill with inset material in her flares. That’s me in the orange vest looking the other way. Anyone else?

I posted this on the 1960s/70s Edge Hill College and Friends Facebook private group:
GEOGRAPHY – where would you be without it!

I remember the geography course as fragmented and without much depth at anything. The content was little help towards secondary geography teaching. Some topics were new at the time, such as plate tectonics, and swiftly became mainstream geography (Year 8 anyone?). The best part of geography is always fieldwork and trips. Helen Chase (Leach) has some photos of us field-sketching from a peak in Snowdonia and measuring stream flow. We stayed at Bangor Normal College (1976) and I remember visiting the Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station. There was Ainsdale dunes, of course, and RSPB Martin Mere. Glasgow was memorable including the enormous housing estate of Drumchapel (I think) where bricks were thrown at the coach as an objection to poverty-tourism. A group of us went deep underground at Golborne Colliery near Wigan and this became an important touchstone later when teaching in a mining town during the industrial strife. I conducted a fieldwork assignment on use of a formal town park and this probably relates to my voluntary activities in public open space years later. I enjoyed being involved in writing geography resources, CPD and various interesting projects so studying geography turned out alright for me.

Go geography!

Rick Sykes posted this photo, taken on the very same day in Snowdonia, on the 1960/70s FB page. Me and John Goodwin at the back. Then L to R: John Rice, Andy Moir, Rick Sykes, Jane Willimas. Front: Julie Benson and Gill Exley.