Dogdyke County Primary School

A Memory of Dogdyke.

Being born in 1957 I attended Dogdyke County Primary school from 1962 whilst living with parents in Witham Drive, Chapel Hill. We used to walk or cycle to school in those days. Shortly after then we moved to Tattershall bridge and my parents ran the corner shop only a few hundred yards up the road from the school. Living by the river Witham we saw lots of boats and anglers and I specifically remember us adopting a swan we called Fred during a particularly bad winter when the river froze completely over. My parents also rescued several drivers from the icy water after they had misjudged the approach to the old bridge and driven into it. My mum used to help the then owners of the Royal Oak pub, run a cafe in the car park behind it where she served chip butties to the bus loads of anglers who visited from areas such as Sheffield, Mansfield and Nottingham. We left the shop and we moved to Elizabeth Avenue whilst I finished my education eventually passing the eleven plus and commencing my secondary education at Carre's Grammar school for boys in Sleaford. After leaving I continued to play in the Youth orchestra led by the then headmaster of Dogdyke school, Mr Packwood. He even organised a tour of the Netherlands for the orchestra culminating in us performing Elgar's 'Pomp and Circumstance' live on local radio in the university city of Leiden. During his time there Mr Packwood also successfully did fund raising to build a heated outdoor swimming pool where I was taught to swim like so many other pupils. Unfortunately the school and pool closed only a few years after I left.

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