St Marks School Dukinfield

A Memory of Dukinfield.

I went to this school from 1964 - 1970. It has now been demolished. The head teacher was Mrs Finneran and some of the teachers were Miss Baba, Mr Sloane, Mr Cook, Mrs Bintcliff and Miss Hooley. On the corner of the school was a sweet shop called 'Blue Taylors' because the owners were called Taylor and the shop was painted blue. We used to go to St Mark's Church for services at Christmas. I used to go home for my dinner as I lived very near. There were 2 playgrounds, one for the infants and one for the juniors. When I was in the infants, we didn't have paper to write on, but had a small blackboard and tin which contained your eraser and chalk. We kept them on the back of our chairs in a little bag which you had to take home at the end of term to get washed.
I remember being in the choir and we stood on a small stage in front of the school for assembly. All the hymms we sang were written on large sheets hung on the wall so we could see them to sing. There was a recorder band and I played a tenor recorder whilst my friend Gillian Battye played a treble. We used to play in the playground but the boys would kick footballs at us, especially when it was wet or cold.
We used to play rounders in the large playground and one kid, Stephen Sellers, used to hit the ball outside of the playground, and such hits were called 'sloggers'. At harvest time, we used to have to take in fruit plated on a small paper plate and covered in clear wrappings. One girl, Maxine Palmer, lived at a greengrocers so she would bring in a boxful. We used to then take the fruit around the parish to the old. Whitsun was fun as we had Whit Walks with the church and you wore your best clothes.
Summer holidays were great as the weather was always nice and warm, melting the tar in the roads. Everyone went away to either Blackpool or the Isle of Man in the last 2 weeks in August, known as Ashton Wakes Weeks. All the factories and mills closed down for 2 weeks so there were no shops open.