Going To School In The First World War In South Norwood

A Memory of South Norwood.

My aunt Doris Lacey (nee Allen) lived in Apsley Road, South Norwood. She started to lose her sight in her late 80's and therefore the pleasures of reading, watching television or going out became impossible. However she loved to receive visitors and took great pleasure in remembering family events. I saw her regularly and on my visits would write down all she told me. What follows are some notes taken on my visits to her over many years when she was aged around 90 and still living independently in her home at Winston Court, Headstone Lane, and later when she moved to residential homes for the blind at Pocklington House, Northwood, and the RNIB and BUPA homes at Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset until her death aged 99. She retained an excellent memory of her many Allen relations around the Croydon area and greatly enjoyed these talks which helped to keep her memories sharp:
Auntie Dorrie remembered her school – she would get into trouble for talking and had to stand on the landing waiting for the Head Teacher to deal with her. If she heard the Head coming she would nip into the cloakroom and hide under the coats! She remembered a Jewish girl, Rita, the daughter of the local greengrocer. She was allowed to miss assembly and stood outside on the landing. Dorrie was form captain but she only got her friends' votes because she was naughty. She went to the same school as Auntie Patsy [her sister Winifred] but later transferred (”oh Doris Allen why can’t you be good like your sister Winifred?”). She then went to Portland Road School (the next street to Apsley Road?) Only she and my Mum [Hilda Florence Allen] went there. The boys were downstairs and the girls upstairs – the entrance was in Sandown Road. Dorrie liked netball. She left at 14. She looked after Mum for a year before getting her first job. Her years in schools in South Norwood were probably 1914 until 1922.

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