St Peters C O Fe Junior School

A Memory of South Weald.

I started at St Peter's in South Weald at the age of four in 1955. This was in the old school which is no longer there. Our teacher was Mrs Fox and we were taught to write on slates. When we became proficient we were allowed to use thick black pencils on paper. I will always remember the carbolic soap in the sinks and the outside toilets with spiders and shiny Izal toilet paper. Mrs Waite's classroom next door had a big stove with railings round it. I lived in Brentwood and arrived at school courtesy of Mr Tiffin's taxi, later replaced by a Tiffin's coach as numbers rose. I think the Mivvi ice lolly was invented while I was a pupil at St Peter's and I can remember purchasing Mivvis and assorted sweets from Mr Pottle's post office in South Weald village. The conker tree was just outside the shop and there was great competition to get the best conkers.  The new school was completed before I left and we would walk in a long crocodile through the village. Mr McAllister was the vicar at the time and he would come to school on Fridays to teach us our Catechism and prepare us for Confirmation when we got to the final year of school. I remember that at one stage pupil numbers rose so rapidly due to the new houses built around the Hillside Walk area that we had two year groups in one class numbering some 50 pupils. This class was taught by Mrs Hurlstone and her son Ian was the same age as I was. Once a year the school fete was held at Colonel Laurie's house and I remember walking across the fields to Brook Street to go home with a schoolfriend. There were farmworkers' children in school from St Vincent's Hamlet - Wheeler and Bush were two of the names which I remember.
Happy days and happy memories of South Weald.

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