Chertsey, School Of Handicraft 1904

Photo ref: 51720

This was St Thomas's RC secondary school when I attended between 1957 and 1962. We had some fun and didn't learn much. More memories from past pupils are on the Friends Reunited website.

I still remember Carl Hazeltine who was regularly beaten up by the Noel W......s gang who ran the school. During that period, there were two very large older boys, Goodwin and Baxter. They were the two biggest boys and I remember the day they had a really dramatic fight which lasted for quite a long time, starting in the assembly hall and ending in the wash room. Goodwin, the bigger of the two won! I also remember Goodwin ...see more

This photo does bring back memories. At the start of the war in 1939 at the age of 8, I was sent off to Welwyn Garden City from Hastings. The family was split, the start of that unwanted feeling. For some reason I was again moved, this time to Chertsey and the school of Handicraft a place of no compassion and bullies, I feel that cattle had better treatment. I can understand the stress of those war years. but I could not ...see more

After the war (1945) an elder brother was sent to a boy's home in Sidcup, Kent and two years later, I was sent to Chertsey. WE WERE SEPARATED. We had been sent to a family in Epsom Surrey for the duration of the war and with an even older sister were treated very badly, being regularly beaten and starved, Miss W.......y, a Surrey County Council child welfare officer was useless and was only ...see more