School Days

School Hill c1955
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I was a pupil here from 1954 until passing the 11+ in 1959 & going to Calday.
My teachers were:
Mrs Sullivan - year 1
Mrs Bentham - year 2
Mrs Nettle - year 3
Mr Jarvis - year 4
Miss Earl - year 5

I remember Miss Earl used to come in every day from North Wales by public transport - not many cars about then.

The headmaster was "pop" Edwards who had been there for donkey's years - he was there when my dad was a pupil at the school !

Much of the school had been damaged during the war, and for all the years I was there no repairs were done and there were huge mounds of rubble which were once classrooms. These were strictly off limits. Today's Health & Safety bods would have heart attacks if they saw where we learnt & played.
The kitchens had been destroyed & food for lunch was brought to school from (I think) the Puddydale Council School kitchens. I remember the food was always lukewarm, but very tasty otherwise.

We used nib pens and the best job in the world was to be ink monitor. This involved mixing powdered ink with water in a large metal jug on a Friday morning & then going around every classroom to fill up the inkwells. I don't think mum was too happy when we returned home more blue than white !
No hot water, outside toilets & old coke fuelled heating which smelled wonderful but wasn't very effective at warming such an old damaged building. Yet we all survived.
My final year classroom was "the prefab" which was stuck on the playing fields next to the main school & was the only modern building on the site.

The photo of School Hill brought back many memories of walking up there when the road was covered in sheet ice - made even more slippy by us "skaters".
The sweet shop at the top of the hill was run by a Mrs Sharpe and was a treasure trove for us youngsters. On a recent visit I noticed that what was the shop is now another cottage.

I loved my time there, and it was very traumatic moving from this small caring friendly place of about 300 children to Calday Grammar with 900 boys which was run as if it were a public school and very impersonal.

It was only a lifetime ago !!