Growing Up In Harrowes Meade

I attended the temporary infants school in St Andrews church in Lynford Gardens from 1938 to 1941, where I too have fond memories of Mrs Dennison, who seems in my memory to have had a great empathy with young people. I had wanted to go to school for the previous two years, from the age of 3, but I recall that on my first day I cried copiously until taken in hand by Mrs Dennison - and from then on I was a star pupil and enjoyed every day of it.

Were we in the same class, as we attended the same school at the same time?

Did you know my brother Stanley Goodwin, he might have been in your class. Does the name Miss Heron mean anything to you, she was either a teacher or headmistress at Broadfields?

Mrs Dennison retired in the year I moved from infants to juniors at Broadfields School I wrote to her for many years sending Christmas , Easter cards and postcards from holidays so she obviously made a big impression on me too. I was so pleased to read your comments. I can remember feeling very small in the school where the classes were set around a quadrangle

I was at the temporary infant school in Lynford Gardens from 5 to 8, 1938 to 1941, then Edgware School for one year as the building of Broadfields School had been interrupted by the war. The teacher for our class at Edware School was Sybil Barr, whom I remember as being charming and 'beautiful'. Friends from the Broadfields Estate were there with me - Shirley Rappaport, Valerie Hill, Norman Rabin - and others from Edgware itself - Blanche Wax was one. While at Edgware School I remember one day listening to a young drummer practising in the cloakroom - Victor Feldman, one year younger than me, who later became a famous jazz musician. He might have been practising for his appearance in the film 'King Arthur Was a Gentleman' which came out around that time, and which starred the comedian and xylophone player Max Bacon, who was Victor Feldman's cousin according to what I heard at the time. The art teacher was, as far as I remember, named Olwen Chew