Hassocks Primary School In The 1950s

A Memory of Hassocks.

I was at the school from 1948 until 1955, at which point the 11+ sent me to Hove County Grammar. Starting in 1948 in Miss Wood's class I ended with two years in the top class with Miss Nichols. In between I was taught by Miss Lamper, Mr Kilby, Mr Bennett and Miss Bolter. Mrs Lake was headmistress. There was playground segregation in those days, the front playground in the picture being the junior boys playground. Girls and infants had the two back playgrounds. The picture shows the school after some work has been done to the central frontage. Up to the fifties the two side arches to the main front arch had concrete 'ballastrades' which have been replaced by bricks, which above the main entrance the school name 'Clayton and Keymer CP School' was etched in stone, but in the picture has been replaced by a brick topping to the entrance. Inside, in keeping with the design of victorian schools, those high windows ensured that children could not see the outside world, other than the sky, so as not to distract us from our lessons. In the 1950s this school handled all children in Hassocks, Clayton and Keymer aged from 5 to 11. As 'register monitor' in 1955, I remember adding up the attendance numbers each afternoon, and that the total was then just over 200 in 7 classes.

In 1948/49 the school was served by a school bus from the London Road area, where I lived. The bus, a very ancient vehicle, being garaged at Brook Garage, opposite the school, during the day.

At this time, the school did not have its own kitchen, school meals being brought in during the morning from an East Sussex County Council School kitchen (Hassocks then being in East Sussex, not West). My memories of those school meals are not so good - lumpy potato for example - until my mum stopped sending me to school meals after I'd been punished for refusing to eat some exceptionally fatty ham.

With all the initiatives in Education in recent years, its still hard to see that today's children are much better off. In the 50s school held no special fears for us and the education was as good then as it is now, if not in some ways, better.