School Days

A Memory of East Meon.

We lived in Langrish village, but seeing there was no school there we had to take the public bus to East Meon School. I remember the first and last days at junior school in East Meon.

The school building was made from local flint stones, with shimmering diamonds (crystal of course) embedded in the flint and the front yard was surrounded with wrought iron railings. It was located next door the the vineyard (now a beautiful home). It had three separate rooms and a pot belly stove for warming up our half pint bottle of milk each day in the winter, also for roasting chestnuts on the top of it, plus a kitchen where our main meal of the day was cooked with local produce from the farmers.

I only remember two teachers names - Miss Hastings and Mrs. Paul, both beautiful kind ladies, I can't remember the third teachers name.

I met my best and closest friend to this day (sixty five+ odd years later) her name at that time was Anne Golding, whose parents and great grand parents lived in the village of East Meon.
After school we would cross the street, go over the stile to the foot path and down to the village stream and search for minnows and tiny shrimp, and after, we would go to Anne's Grandma's on the corner of "Work House Lane" and get either a cookie or a boiled sweet.
Some times we would visit the lovely majestic church and the "creepy" (at that age) - huge vaults in the church yard, plus checking names and dates of birth and deaths on the tomb stones, of which there was many, many very old ones.

Then a few years later, the local store "De Wit" opened up by the bridge, lots of candy!! and I'm sure lots of other things for the local people to save them going on the bus into Petersfield, the local town.

Of course as we got older, we went to the brand new Petersfield High School, which was very, very different....

Thank goodness for our East Meon Junior School, it's kind teachers, quiet surroundings, good farmers vegetables and meats - I'm sure that's what makes us close to 70yrs and healthy today!
Maureen Gartry/Cable

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