Embleton Infants And Primary Schools

A Memory of Southmead.

I attended Embleton Infants School and Embleton Junior Mixed School which were structurally attached but otherwise separate from September 1957 until July 1963. At that time the staff were very respectable and I liked almost all the teachers. The headmistress of Embleton Infants School was Miss Reece (this was how she was addressed but I never saw her name spelt). She was a middle aged kindly lady who wore spectacles and usually a smart matching skirt and jacket. Pupils were admitted at 5 years of age. Milk crates with 1/3 pint milk bottles were left by the steps outside the large main entrance doorway every morning with a box of waxed paper straws provided and the pupils were all encouraged to drink a bottle. Many pupils did not like milk, as I myself did not then, and so some pupils, usually girls, would drink more than one bottle. We were taught to read with 'Janet and John' booklets and simple arithmetic. We enjoyed building dens outside with numerous short wooden planks and sheets of tarpaulin provided as well as modelling in plasticine and using Lego type plastic building pieces in the classroom. I remember one summer day at 6 years of age embarrassingly being made by several boys to kiss a girl and she was made to kiss me, as a lark. She struggled a lot until she saw it was me and then relaxed which I thought of as a compliment. At 7 we had to transfer to Embleton Junior Mixed School in the adjoining building. The headmaster there was Mr James, a gentleman in his forties who parked his grey Austin Cambridge car on the driveway with only about two other staff members owning cars. He enjoyed singing with the pupils at the morning service in the large hall in a deep baritone voice - a favourite hymn being "Jerusalem" - while Miss Carter, a teacher in her thirties, played the piano. He also was fond of cricket and a good breakfast and would tell pupils he had eaten 6 slices of buttered toast and drunk 4 cups of tea. The staff consisted of; Mr Horton, Mr Jones, Miss Barnes, Mr Hunt, Mrs Brown and Miss Carter. Both Mrs Brown and Miss Carter I especially liked for their kindness. Mr Horton tragically died suddenly leaving a young family in about 1962 from cancer which deeply upset the headmaster as he had known him most of his life and Mr Jones, a young man in his twenties, left to be married. Miss Barnes, who resided with her parents in a large Victorian house by Durdham Down, was fond of Mr Jones and this distressed her. Mr Hunt, a gentleman in late middle age, slim and balding had known Walter De La Mare the poet and would teach us English in a most fascinating manner being meticulous about neat handwriting. My early appreciation of poetry came from his inspiration. He rode to school on a bicycle and attended to the small school garden by Wigton Crescent. At Christmas we would be taken to sing carols at an elderly persons residential care home in Greystoke Avenue. Mr Wotton joined the staff for a while and was one of the best teachers I have ever known! He also made Christmas 1962 very memorable with his interesting games. Paradoxically he did not want to be a teacher but would have preferred a career as an officer in the Royal Navy. He lived in my road and I knew his family. He died barely a month after retiring on the same day as my father in 1970. Occasionally we would be joyfully taken to St. Stephen's Church for a service and the vicar was a quiet young gifted clergyman. Almost all the pupils came from Southmead except Mrs Brown's daughter, Janey, and myself from Westbury-On-Trym. Her mother usually was given a lift home in the headmaster's car. I possessed several friends there and all my memories are extremely happy! I was always head pupil of my year and when I left I was told by the headmaster I had collected more merit awards at every subject than any other pupil since the school had opened about 9 years before. The schools are now amalgamated and renamed Little Mead Primary Academy.

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