Early School Days

A Memory of Lemington.

I started Lemington infants school in 1937, making the journey morning and night on foot from West Denton, my only memory of the teachers being a Miss Hayes and a Miss Robson, whom I think lived half way up Union Hall Road, packed lunches had to be carried daily.
I subsequently moved up to the junior school with Mr Robertson as headmaster, Mr Yuil (woodwork), Miss Moyes my form teacher when I left, Miss Hall (geography and art), Mr Tasker (he left to go to Wallsend Grammar School), Miss Vincent and Miss Cundell, both hard and strict but excellent teachers of the old school.
I was lucky to move on to a Grammar school and by that time lunches were being provided in the cookery room across the girls yard for two shillings per week, the most hated meal being cheese pie.
My contemporaries at Newburn Hall School included, Jimmy Kerr, Alan Saybourne, Thomas Teasdale, Alan Hodson, Alec Freeborn, with Jean Whitehead and Muriel Hutchinson (both of whom went to Wallsend Grammar School with me)
The Friday night ritual after school was the tram journey along Scotwood Road to visit my grandparents in Elswick
After school activities often included a visit to the glass works to search for "glass pea shooters" and during the winter the fields between Nixons Bank and Claremont Avenue were favourite for sledging for children from upper Lemington and West Denton
During the early post war years Lemington had a thriving cricket club with two teams in Tyneside leagues  playing on a nice ground behind the glassworks, it can still be seen today but is now covered with rubble

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