Brushing The Cobwebs Off

A Memory of Upper Boddington.

My mother, Mrs Pat Bishop, was Headmistress of Boddington C of E School from November 1949 until sometime in 1962. In the beginning there were only about 9 children in the school, 5yrs to 11, no mains water or flushing toilets. My annual job was to dig a hole about 3ft sq. by 4ft deep, behind the school. The toilet buckets were emptied into this hole, disinfectant and soil scattered on top each week, and hope that it would last a year. Next year I moved sideways and dug another one.
As Maureen Simpson has already said, in her memory, Mom helped the children with extra tuition, in her own time, and enabled a number of children to pass for Banbury Grammar School. As the pass rate rose, families who lived outside the Boddington catchment area applied to the Education Authority for permission to send their children to " Mrs Bishop`s School ", as it was known locally.
As time went on, the school numbers rose and a second teacher was appointed, a Mrs Gottavick, and school dinners were provided.
My mother caused some feathers to be ruffled when she applied to be a member of the Parish Council, "Never had a woman on t`Council afore ! "......She was elected.
Mom was also the driving force behind the village Concert Party, who called themselves " The Madcaps ". A number of concerts were put on in what was then called the Badminton Hall and even " toured " local villages.
Mom retired at age 60, but still continued working, as a foster mother for for babies going for adoption.
A quick mention for my Dad, George Bishop,he was a bus driver for Owens Buses for a number of years and later moved to The Export Packing Co. at Chipping Warden.
A welcome innovation for the village was the weekly arrival of the fish and chip van. He would pull up at roughly the same time each week, park at different parts of the village,sound his horn. I don`t know how long this continued for as I had to leave the village in 1952, and take up lodgings in Coventry, to start my apprentiship at Coventry Power
Station. This was an exciting time for me but a wrench to leave the village as I had been very happy there.