Pontnewydd Church School

A Memory of Pontnewydd.

As I remember, the discipline there was tough, but at least you knew right from wrong and if you did something wrong you could expect punishment - nearly always the cane.
We all had to attend the church for assembly once a week and were marched there from our lines in the playground. At other times, except in bad weather when the interior glass panelled walls were pushed back to form a huge hall, we stood in our class lines in the yard and sang our hymn - the words for which were on a colourful roll of material suspended from the high windows.
Lessons were generally silent. The teacher would explain what was to be done in that lesson; give three examples on the blackboard, then tell us what page to turn to in our 1920's text books and told to get on with it.
Each day two boys were dispached to deliver the milk, in third of a pint bottles, to each classroom. Once, after my return to the classroom, I sat at my double desk next to Harold Thomas and realised that I'd missed the maths explanation given by our form teacher, Mr Davies. He was a large man of about 50 years old with greying hair and huge hands and had his cane hanging from the side of the blackboard.
I whispered to Harold asking him what page we were on and how things were done as I opened my exercise book and carefully wrote the date at the top of the page. He did not answer me and as I began to ask again one of Mr. Davies's huge hands slapped the back of my head which went forward on to my book.'NO talking', he said. If that wasn't bad enough I'd let go of my pen, the pointed nib type that was dipped into an ink-well and I watched in horror as it rolled down the page leaving drops of ink as it went and finally fell on to the floor. The rule was one cut of the cane for each blot of ink. For a spit second my world stopped, but Mr. Davies told me to pick it up and I actually said, 'No!' I saw his hand coming to grab me, but I managed to slip under it and ran from the room with him shouting at me to stop.
I thought it most unfair and was running home as fast as I could go. Unfortunately, the gravel on the Church Path, which is still there today, was loose and I slipped over grazing both knees badly. I banged on our door at 36 Commercial Street and my mother let me in. I explained to her what had happened as she bathed the wounds with iodine and bandaged them. She was obvously annoyed with me and sent me to bed. About 30 minutes later as I tried not to think of the pains on my knees, I heard a knock at the front door and voices. Mum shouted up to me to get down there immediately where I was met by Miss Gale, the Dept Head, who thanked mum then grabbed me by my right ear and marched me all the way back to school. The people we passed smilled at her and scowled at me on the way.
I was taken straight to Mr. Hill, the Headmaster, in his huge room where he raged at me for having run away; made me say sorry to Miss Gale for having disturbed her and then gave me just two cut of his cane across my backside because I'd fallen and hurt myself. I never ran away again.