St Pauls Cray School Memories.

A Memory of St Paul's Cray.

I was living at the time at the top of what was called Chalk Pit Avenue, then an unmade and often muddy road in bad weather, at the bottom of the garden was a field and across the field was a fairly large house with what must have been a glass covered veranda as in the sunshine it shone a beautiful pinkish colour.
My mother and I and one of our neighbours used to spend lots of time up in the lovely fields at the top of the road, where houses are now but I believe you can still get to the fields through an alleyway.
The house with the pink glass was I believe in Chapmans Lane.
I hardly recognised the top of Chalk Pit Avenue when I last visited my parents grave in St Mary Cray cemetery, it was so built up and all the green and overgrown area was gone.

I attended the small school at the bottom of the avenue next to a church which was possibly St Paulinus church?
The school has many memories for me as it was where I first attended school and by all accounts was not best pleased and made my feelings very clear to my poor mum who had to put up with this very loud child!
One winter the heating failed in the school and we had our lessons in the church, that was an adventure.
Also the vicar of the church used to take us on a nature walk up in the fields and woods and that was where I first learned not to be afraid of stag beetles as he handled one as if it was just another small creature.
The caretaker of the school was I believe Mr Nicholl, his wife was connected to the school and we saw her often but I cannot recall her position, they I think, lived in the house next to the school.
Another lady was Mrs Underwood who wore a crisp white overall coat and was playground attendant and a really nice lady.
I can recall a man associated with the school (possibly Mr Nicoll) towing some of us children around the playground in a box when it snowed one year, can you imagine it now?
My next school was Rectory Paddock that was then made up of wooden huts and Nissan huts on the main road, the old Rectory was still standing then, sadly as with many of our old building, long gone.
Derek Stocker

---

---