Walter F. Edge

Teacher: 1949 - 1964

Letter to Liobians after a visit from Bill Grove and John Harrocks, 2008.

Jim Lycett writes:

During my brief trip to Cornwall last week, I visited my old Inny History Master of the years 3B and 4B - Wally Edge and his wife Rosemary, at their home near Hayle - close to Land's End.

Both Wally and his wife look fit and well, though Wally says his legs give him problems at times. He is now 86 years old and was absolutely thrilled to see me - not me personally - but me as a representative of those he taught from his years spent at the Inny.

We chatted for about an hour and a half about ourselves, our memories of the Inny, and about various Inny people we had come into contact with since leaving - and had a glass of Sherry. His memory is still very good. It was a very pleasant visit indeed. Rosemary was out at a Ladies Social meeting when I arrived, but returned home about half an hour later.

Wally said he felt so pleased that students from the Inny times still remembered him ------ I explained that he was often mentioned in our Liobian discussions about the school.

I phoned him briefly yesterday evening to check something. He said that following my leaving them they had talked together about my visit, and that they really felt very thrilled and proud that someone from those days would remember him and come all that way to see him. It made me feel really good.

My visit was prompted by a suggestion from Billy Morton that I might be able to go there when down in Cornwall

Thank you Billy M.

Wally (aged 86) and Rosemary Edge at home in Cornwall, 15 July 2011.
Photo courtesy of Jim Lycett.

Diamond day for Beatles teacher Walter and wife Rose

By "This is Cornwall" posted 23rd June 2009.

A history teacher who taught two of the Beatles has celebrated his diamond wedding anniversary.

Walter Edge and his wife, Rosemary, both aged 85, have lived at Angarrack for 20 years although they have owned their cottage for more than 40 years.

When he was a teacher in Liverpool, his pupils included Paul McCartney and George Harrison. He remembers them both as average students, although McCartney went on to the sixth form.

Some years later, when the now Sir Paul was asked whom he would otherwise like to have been, he replied 'Cliff' Edge, his history teacher.

An old school photo on the front cover of Harrison's album Dark Horse also includes Mr Edge.

He later became a lecturer at Edge Hill College, Ormskirk, for 23 years and on retirement moved to Cornwall.

Mrs Edge's grandfather, the Rev William Brooks, was a Methodist minister at Penzance.

The couple met on the dance floor in the Isle of Man in 1944, where she was serving with the WAAF and he was posted with the Royal Navy.

They kept in touch by letter and married in 1949 at Southport. The couple celebrated their anniversary on Thursday with their many friends.

A keen artist, Mrs Edge is a former chairman of Hayle Arts Society and a member of the Tuesday afternoon group as well as the WI and U3A.

Mr Edge has been a member of Tehidy Park Golf Club for 40 years, runs a wine tasting group in Angarrack and is winemaster at Praze.

The Recording of the 1956 Assembly

(Available for download here.)

In 2011 I wrote to Mr Edge:

and recieved this reply:

Obituaries

Word has come indirectly from Cornwall that Walter "Cliff" Edge passed away earlier this year (2015). He outlived his wife, Rosemary, who died in 2012.

Rosemary Emma Edge

ROSEMARY EDGE died in hospital on July 3, 2012. Following her own wishes, a cremation service was held at Treswithian Downs, followed four days later by a memorial service at Angarrack Methodist Chapel; both services being conducted by the Reverend Vinaya Moses.

The daughter of a Lloyds' underwriter, she joined the WAAF during the Second World War.

It was on the Isle of Man that she met her husband-to-be, Walter, who was on a training course there in the Royal Navy.

Walter F. Edge

Of all those who educated me at the Liverpool Institute, Walter Edge was the most memorable. He not only taught us the meatier and drier aspects of the Tudors, but also, with his fellow vice-president of the Historical Society, Gareth Rogers (who died at the tragically early age of 48), introduced us to some of the ancient houses and hostelries of England. More influential still were the school coach-trips (1958 and 1963) that they led to the cultural centres of Europe, giving a generation of over-16s a life-long appreciation of the Impressionists and of champagne and its more humble siblings. Paris was for me particularly illuminating, in the broader cultural sense, and my three best memories are of a) an evening at Les Folies Bergères, b) an encounter with the 6th formers of an Edinburgh girls' academy, and c) an after-breakfast coach pause outside a hospital, where the ladies of the night were queuing for their monthly check-ups.

I met Mr. Edge again in later life, with Bill Grove, when Walter and his wife, Rosemary, introduced us to their bit of Cornwall, to their local pub (the Angarrack Inn) and to the cottage they had bought - because of its proximity to the pub - when Walter left the Institute for Edge Hill College in the late 'sixties and to which they retired 23 years later.

I last saw Walter in June 2013, when my wife - a Parisienne - and I spent a long weekend in Cornwall, and took him to dinner at the Inn. We talked mainly about old times and about Rosemary, who had died in July of the previous year. He said that the best part of his job had been helping to give us as broad an education as possible, that the Inny had played a very important part in his life and that he had been moved by, and greatly appreciated, the resumption of contact in the past few years. With Rosemary gone, he no longer went far from home and had no wish or reason to. He said they had had a great life. They met on a dance floor in the Isle of Man, in 1944, she in the WAAF and he with the Royal Navy. They celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2009.

John Harrocks, Liverpool Institute 1957-1964