West Hill High School-Montreal, Quebec

West Hill High School

West Hill High School was a massive school located on Somerled Avenue in N.D.G., a district on the west side of Montreal. It had an indoor swimming pool, an auditorium, and a huge grass covered sports playing field behind it. I say the word “was” because it hasn’t been a high school for many years.  I am not sure quite what is today.  I had read some time ago that it was being utilized as some kind of warehouse.

At one time, there were about 1200 students attending West Hill High. By the 1970s, with many English speaking  Montrealers  moving away from the city, enrollment was dipping dramatically. The demographics of N.D.G. had changed. I’m not sure what year the school finally closed its doors.

I first discovered West Hill when I was at Willingdon Elementary School. In the summer, for most of the 1950s, for 15 cents you could spend about an hour in the swimming pool at West Hill. The  field behind the school was a great place to play scrub baseball, touch football, or watch some kid try to get his model airplane airborne. You might even see British ex pats playing rugby on a Saturday morning. Or cadets marching around the paved parking lot.

I did two hitches at West Hill. Altogether I was there for about 2-1/2 years. My memories are not the same as most others.  For some it may have been the time of their lives while others might recall their anomymity.  Some remember favourite teachers while others remember very little.

September 1960. Grade 8 at West Hill.

Back at Willingdon School there had been 4 classrooms for each grade. At West Hill there were at least 15 different classrooms for grade 8. Back at Willingdon after 7 years, anyone the same age was recognizable.  West Hill was a much bigger pond.  Kids came from a number of other elementary schools including  Somerled, Herbert Symonds, Royal Vale and Kensington.

It all looked like a giant mass of humanity to me. And a lot more rules. My first home room was the music room and the home room teacher was a Mr. Archie Etienne who taught music but not to us.  I remember him telling our all boy class about “the order of the royal boot” if anyone got out of line.


8-0 Class Picture

Top Row: L to R. Me, Ian MacIntosh, John McFadden, Paul Dean, Don Armitage, Albert Katz, Alan Besner, Peter Garnham, Bernie Mlynarski, David Bates, Dalton Brown
2nd Row: Jerry Wolfe, Andy Elliot,?,Garth Holsworthy, Morley McKee, Louis Yacknin, Doug Feltmate, Mike Agnew, ?, Jeff Shorrock
Front Row: ?, ?, Steven Keirnander, ?, Bob Madden, Kjel Christiansen, Jack Rosenheck, Jack Bracken, George Thompson

About a month into grade 8, a decision was made by the powers that be that the classes in grade 8 had too many students in them and that another classroom needed to be added. I guess there had been a lot of sexual activity going on around 1947 in NDG.

Each class was identified by the class grade with a letter beside it.  The kids that were deemed to be the brightest and the future of our fair country were in the classes at the beginning of the alphabet. It wasn’t all that subtle. In later grades there was also a “commercial class” where those with limited academic interest could learn typing and composing a letter. This class was sometimes referred to as “Bobo” which must not have helped the typists with their self esteem.

I was one of the boys assigned to the new classroom that had been formed.  8-O. There was no other classroom as far down the alphabet. The classroom was an all boys one. I think the other grade 8 teachers were asked who they wanted to give up. I don’t think it was because there were more boys than girls. I suspect that back in grade school, where all the teachers were women, that little notes had been written for many of the girls suggesting that they be put in the A, B. C classes.

The new class teacher was a Mr. Garth Rolls-Wilson.  He was from England. Probably in his late twenties. He took the bus to school and wore the same clothes every day. A tweed sports jacket and tan coloured  trousers.  Having seen The Bells of St. Trinian’s,  I could see that it was obvious that he had been steeped in the practices of English boarding  schools.  He addressed his students as “Master” so and so.  One of my classmates had the last name of Bates. There was a joke about that for a day or two.

There is no doubt about it. I was an undisciplined 13 year old. I probably had Attention Deficit Disorder. I certainly could be distracting and liked to get attention. These assets did not sit well with Mr. Rolls-Wilson and I found myself being frequently thrown out of class. I could also be used as an example to others who were considering rocking the boat. I remember once being sent out of class for opening and closing a math kit repeatedly.

I certainly wasn’t  the only boy to see this teacher’s wrath.  He used to carry a wooden ruler around with him and if he thought a boy wasn’t paying attention or was whispering to another boy he would either whack them on the knuckles with his ruler are smack it hard on the desk behind them scaring the bejesus out of them. You never knew when the viper would strike.

(I once heard a story about a teacher at West Hill who had been a tail gunner in the Second World War. Apparently some kid dragged a ruler across a bumpy radiator and the teacher hit the floor. Shell shock?)

Garth Rolls-Wilson’s finest hour might have been when he decided to send several boys outside in their gym shorts and running shoes in 6 degree farenheit  temperatures  to run around the huge field behind West Hill that was covered in 2 feet of snow.  I think a few parents got upset about that.

Word spread in the teacher’s lounge that I was incorrigible and I had a target on my back.

Things went from bad to worse for me. The 8-O classroom was very close to the principal’s office.  At first, I would just be sent out of class for a period. Then it became longer. Eventually it came to a point where I would go to school and stand outside the room all day. I can’t say that I enjoyed other students  going from class to class and shaking their heads when they spotted me.

A letter was sent to my parents and my father came to the school for a meeting with Rolls-Wilson. My father had also grown up in the UK. And he was an asshole in his own right.  He informed me, after the meeting, that they had hardly discussed me at all but spent the major part of the time discussing English literature.

During that school year I was expelled for refusing to take the strap from the principal.  I was also suspended a few times. One time, when I was suspended,  I rode my bike around the front entrance to the school and waved at my classmates.  Perhaps the worst thing I did that year was at a play in the auditorium. It was called Thunder Rock. I would start clapping at inappropriate times which would start others clapping.  I’m not sure if they grabbed my ear as they threw me out.

The school year came to an end and I failed badly. It had been the worst year of my life. At home,  in the neighbourhood, and at school. While all the turmoil was going on at school another event occurred that was rather significant.

I knew two brothers who I thought were my friends. They were being raised by a single mother which wasn’t common in NDG back then.  The MLA for NDG at the time was a man named Eddie Asselin.  I think Eddie met the two brothers through his son and realizing that their dad wasn’t around much, invited them up to his country place a few times.

One day, one or both of the brothers  told me where we could get some soft drinks for free. They said that Eddie Asselin had a stack of the stuff in his garage. For a few months we would sneak into the garage and help ourselves. Then Eddie moved about a block away. One of the brothers decided to up the ante this time.  We went into the finished basement and swiped some booze which we later sold to older boys at the YMCA.  I was later grounded at home for some other reason and when I asked another boy  (there were now others involved)  about my cut in the profits I was told that the booze had been stolen from him. When he went inside his house I decided to look under his front steps and found the booze. I had been cut out of the loot.

This was my total involvement in this escapade. But it isn’t the end of the story. One of the brothers and some other guys ventured further into Eddie Asselin’s house. One of the things they stole were Montreal Canadiens hockey tickets. The jig was up when strangers were found occupying those seats.

The mother of the two brothers phoned my father and identified me as the ringleader. I didn’t know Eddie Asselin from a hole in the head, I certainly didn’t know where he lived, and I never stole any hockey tickets. Someone knew all of that stuff.

Back to West Hill High School. The long and the short of it I was not allowed back at West Hill the following year. My father had to make some choices as to what to do with me. He phoned the two brother’s mother and she told my father about The Boys Home of Montreal also known as Weredale House.  It is a complete other story for another time. I ended up staying there for almost two years.

Two years later I was back at home and back at West Hill. I was there for about a week or so when I was summoned to the principal’s office. I was accused of getting back into the school under false premises.  Although this was not true at all I was given the alternative of either admitting it or finding another place to go to school. Some alternative.  I lied that I lied. And I hated having to do that.

I tried out for the senior boy’s football team with a borrowed pair of cleats. My father had little interest in sports and I never was on any organized team growing up.  An assistant coach on the football team who was from the southern US told me I had a great pair of hands but they had some younger guys coming up. I was the manager of the hockey team the same year. I never could skate worth a damn.

Having been at Weredale House for almost two years I was pretty well aware of what BS was and wasn’t as far as fighting goes and got into a number of scraps while at West Hill, all of which I won.  Outside of the Hampstead Hop, a few times by Bellman’s restaurant  around the corner from West Hill and other places.

In grade 10 I was the lone recipient of a suspension for being involved in a spitball fight between classes.  Chuck got off Scott free. How’s it goin Chuck?  It was the end of my days at West Hill.

I can’t say I cared much for most of the teachers.  I never quite understood why one hung around with his students.  A teacher, Mr. MacKenzie, once told the class that there was good money operating a crane. I wasn’t sure if he meant there wasn’t much other hope for some. The one teacher I had wished that I had known better was a Mr. LeFevre who taught English Lit. I ran into him at a dance at West Hill a few months after dropping out and we had a nice conversation.

A few years after leaving West Hill I was in a bar in downtown Montreal and ran into some guys I had gone to school with. One of them asked me if I was still stealing cars. Stealing cars? I couldn’t even drive a car let alone steal one!

I have 23 year old twins. A boy and a girl. Both received scholarships when they graduated from high school. My daughter was valedictorian.  So…..here’s finger for all of those that passed me in the hall those many years ago and shook their heads when they saw me.

Not my car but my finger