Campsbourne Junior School Around 1960

A Memory of Hornsey.

I attended Campsbourne Junior School between 1958 and 1961. I arrived during the 2nd Year at the age of 8, having moved from St Michael's School in Highgate. I was placed in the top stream and my class teachers were Mrs Atkins (2nd yr) and Mr Aston (3rd and 4th Yr).
Among my classmates during this period were my best friends Raymond Souster and Christopher Mears. Also there were Alan Friend, Betty Sharkey, Stephen Hunt, Peter Brown, Danny Spendiff, Lesley Ellaway, Angela Holdford, Angela Walford, Jennifer Green, Wendy Godsave, Elizabeth Torunska, Carla Aserati, Norman Jackson, Donald Collins, Anthony Wright, Marie Chogna, Brian Stynes and Jamie Spencer. Apologies to any whose names I have misspelt or those I have omitted.
Let me tell you about Mr Aston. A strict disciplinarian, he was a stickler for good behaviour. He insited on any pupil who walked in front of him to say first, 'Excuse me, Sir.' Before assembly at the start of each morning, he would stand at the front of the classroom and shoot out questions to test our mental arithmatic. He became exasperated if we were slow or hesitant with our answers. If we made a mistake in our exercise books, instead of crossing out the mistake or writing over it, we had to put a bracket around the incorrect word and then write the correct one. As we were in the top stream, I expect Mr Aston was under a lot of pressure to get us through the Eleven Plus.
Us boys were all addressed by our surnames, the girls by their Christian names. Also, only boys were caned for misdeeds. Mr Aston kept a cane, a short length of bamboo, in a pot kept on the windowsill. Miscreants received two strokes on each hand. I said only boys were caned: there was one occasion which will be remembered by most who witnessed - also the one who received - it when a girl was caned. She'd broken the golden rule of writing over a mistake in her book.
Needless to say, Mr Aston's authority was never challenged, all except when we had a new boy arrive at the school. His name was John Fernando (or Fernandes) and he was from Mauritius, the only non-white pupil at the school then. Being new and in an unfamiliar place he was cossetted to some extent and even called 'John' by Mr Aston. But his parents never bought him any item of uniform as he was unlikely to stay for very long. This irked Mr Aston who, with increasing exasperation, kept haranguing 'John' to get his uniform. In the end, Mr Aston could no longer keep up his 'cossetting' act and 'John' became 'Fernando'. John left not long after: he was a nice, quiet kid.
Mr Aston was in fact an excellent teacher, a stickler for standards and inpirational when teaching History. I later became a history teacher myself in no small part because of the love of the subject he instilled in me.
Another memorable member of staff was Mr Tether who formed a Morris-Dancing troop of which I was a member, also the Headteacher Mr Coulter and his deputy, Miss Welch who was a tatar. Many a leg was slapped by her.
Our class left Campsbourne in the summer of 1961 but, a few weeks before the end of term, we went to St Mary's Bay in Kent for a week. We were housed in a collection of dormitory huts and spent the week swimming in the sea, playing team games, visiting Dungeness lighthouse and travelling on the Romney, Hyth and Dymchurch Railway. On our journey there we visited Bodiam Castle in Sussex and on the way back to London, Canterbury Cathedral. Happy memories.
I'm grateful for the three years I spent at Campsbourne School. It was a very good grounding for my education afterwards.
(Alaric Birkett)

---

---