Mulberry Trees At Whitgift Middle, Leaves Eaten By My Silkworm

A Memory of Croydon.

My father Oliver Berthoud was Headmaster of this school from 1956 until his death in 1972. The name of the school in that era was never Whitgift School, it was called "Whitgift Middle School" and then "Trinity School of John Whitgift", a name that sounded less like the "poor relation" of the "real" Whitgift School in South Croydon.
The trees on this photo are mulberry trees. I know this exactly because I went to school at Croydon High School on the other side of Wellesley Road. In our Junior School science lessons in about 1960 we had to look after silkworms until they produced cocoons of real silk threads. The silkworms fed almost exclusively on mulberry leaves and I was very proud that my father gave permission for the girls to go to this avenue on the Trinity School premises to pick the requisite leaves.


Added 06 December 2020

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Comments & Feedback

I attended Trinity School at Shirley Park from 1966 to 1973. I remember your father well. He was an inspiring man.
Some years back I found out he was a observer at the Nuremberg Trials and I believe he spent some time at Bletchley Park, as I suspect did several of the other teachers.

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