Fletchers Pond

A Memory of Carisbrooke.

I first used to cycle to this school - which was split between Newport Priory Boys' Secondary Modern School and Carisbrooke Grammar School - in 1961. The long, low building to the left of the picture was the Priory Boys' School, the taller building to the right was the Grammar.
Every day I cycled from my home in Clatterford Road, round the back of St Mary's Church, past Fletcher's Pond, and then down the track you can see in the photo to the school. The track crossed the old railway line from Newport to Freshwater just about where the first hedge line is, and Carisbrooke Station was to the right, out of shot. I only remember it as rubble, because the line was closed before I went to the school, and I think there was a fire at the station, but I may be wrong. Anyway, there was nothing much left.
I remember the school was set on several levels with a gymnasium at one end, and the canteen at the other. There was an outside Technical Block on the village side, and shared playing fields (with the Grammar) behind the school.
I made Prefect before I left in 1968. Quite how, I shall never understand!
Fletcher's Pond, just out of shot behind the camera, sometimes iced over in winter, and I remember people skating on it. That may have been the winter of 1962/63 which was pretty severe.
I recall the school fondly as being a place of security and long summers in a decade which grew steadily more reckless.
It was good to be a child here in Carisbrooke.