The Polehampton Schools

A Memory of Twyford.

I think this picture could show Mr Farthing who was a teacher at the Boys School, near the railway bridge. When I was walking to and from the girls' school at the other end of the village I often used to meet him rolling along, puffing his pipe. I had schoolfriends who lived at public houses on the High Street. One pub was the Duke of Wellington - the name of the other escapes me. You can see a baker's shop. I won't divulge the name of the baker, but I can remember his dog devouring the icing off one of their birthday cakes. Mrs. H., his wife confided to us that they had re-iced it it, because they didn't like to waste a good cake! (I don't think we bought cakes there after that.)  I remember the mill at the bottom of the street being decorated for the Coronation. One of a group of passing cyclists commented, "Gosh, they've even heard about it here!" Perhaps it was a sleepy place half a century ago.