Barrack Hill School

A Memory of Bredbury.

I think the school was demolished in 2007 as I seem to remember there was a foundation stone built into the brick that said the school was built in 1908 and I thought it was a pity it didn't make its centenary. I agree, it was a piece of vandalism to demolish it and thought it a shame that the facade might have been adapted or recycled like some city centre buildings. Yes, I can remember right back to the infants' classes I was in; the first was in 1955 and it was Miss Wrigley. After this, the other infants' classes were run by Mrs Guiton (Guyton?), Mrs Palmer and Miss Heaton. After Miss H we passed into the juniors and I remember Mrs Liddiard, Mrs Lambert, Mr Hibbert and Mr Garlick. As I recall, I also spent a term in a class run by a Canadian teacher called Mrs Taylor but this was a bit of a disaster. The junior classes went in reverse order from J7 to J1 and Mr Garlick took J1, as I recall.
I always thought Christmas was a special time even though it tended to follow a similar format year after year with potted beef sandwiches in the canteen followed by a film show in the hall. Weren't there cartoons and Laurel and Hardy films? I am not sure as I was more interested in the magic of the cine equipment at the time, and was fascinated how the light from the projector expanded in the darkness and on to the screen. As one contributor observed, there were some pretty cold winters during the period 1955 to 1962 - followed by an even colder one in 1963 but I had moved on by then. The school was always comfortably warm and I remember heating our school milk on the radiators. The caretaker was a rather gruff man called Mr Walker but he came up trumps with keeping the school warm, and filling a fireplace one year with chocolate Santas - one for each of the kids. The head was Mr Kimblin who was mostly a kindly man - though he could wield a deadly slipper as I recollect when one day I was caught climbing on the PE apparatus in the yard! He always managed to supply a summing-up comment on my school report that was fairly complimentary without going overboard. I also seem to remember a rather stern woman teacher called Mrs Nuttall who had red framed glasses - or is my memory playing tricks with this lady? It was all a very long time ago now. I'd better also mention Mr Hulme, my brother's favourite teacher, he of the ever present packet of Gold Leaf ciggies on his desktop. He used to take us for handicrafts: weaving egg cosies and things. Happy and relatively simple times really - I didn't believe it then: that schooldays were the best days of your life - but in many ways they were.