Now I'm not trying to go "head to head" with you here, Margaret. Your latest blog, though, has brought back a lot of memories for me. Not 60s memories, I've been there already, but school. I tell my granddaughter what primary school was like when I was her age and she finds it hard to believe. Mind you, when I compare it with today, it does seem hardly credible.
Who remembers St Mary's School on Moscow Mill St.? The building, built of stone and black like every other stone building in the area, was long and narrow. Some classrooms were only accessible through others and the widows were just high enough so that children couldn't see out. The school was heated by huge hot water pipes that ran all round the outer walls. There was a small, flagged yard for the infants to play in and the older children played on an unenclosed, cinder area between the school and the TA barracks next door. All the toilets were outside and you risked a soaking when you had to go. Mind you, it was not at all unusual for the request to "leave the room, please" to be denied and it led, on more than one occasion, to a steaming puddle on the floor under a desk and a poor, unfortunate child being screamed at.
At the bottom end of the school was the hall with a stage where, every morning, the headmistress, Miss Heaney, took assembly. She was a buxom woman, though quite short in stature, who wore heavy glasses and dyed her hair maroonish-black. We pupils were convinced it was a wig. She had a vile temper and would stand on the stage and stamp her foot in anger - most days. She enjoyed caning pupils on the hand and did so at every opportunity (being late for school, talking in the playground after the whistle was blown, talking in assembly, sneezing, coughing, breathing.......)
The infants' teachers were Miss Clegg - nice, spinsterish and "whispy" - and Miss Hunt, no-nonsense, barely-smiling, always wore grey woolen stockings. Next class was Miss Ellis who was blonde and pretty, didn't believe in using the cane, never shouted and was loved by every child.
I went into Mr Cosgrove's class when I was 8. He wore half-moon reading glasses and looked over them at the class in a very disconcerting way. He was one of the "old school" type and believed any subject could be knocked into any child if you knocked hard enough. I remember the day my pencil broke and he gave me a pen-knife and the waste bin and told me to sharpen it. I had no idea how to do it and whittled about half of it away, in big chunks, before ending up with a stump of lead. I was almost a gibbering wreck by that time, terrified of what he would say. Thank God he wasn't watching and my friend, Betty, gave me a spare pencil she had. Maybe that's why we're still friends 58 years later.
From his class I went into Mrs Harrison's. We were all 9 or 10 years old and we were the 11+ class. There were a few children who weren't going to be put in for the exam, at least 2 of whom should have been in special schools or, at least, remedial classes. One girl was bright but couldn't read. I used to be given the task of sitting with her, as I was a precocious reader who used to be sent to read to the infants when their teacher was busy, to help her but it just didn't work. Of course that poor girl would be diagnosed as dislexic, today, but back then she was just made to feel stupid, which was very unfair because she wasn't.
Mrs Harrison would be condemned as a bad teacher, now, because she had a group of us 11+ers who she was very confident would pass and to whom she gave extra coaching just to make sure. There were about 15 of us and we gave up half an hour of our lunch break, every day, to do "Cotswold Tests", which were previous years' exam papers. We all passed, God help the rest.
When I was there, St Mary's still had pupils up to age 15. Miss Smith took the next class but also took younger pupils for "crafts"; actually, the girls did sewing and knitting while the boys went to Moor End School for Woodwork. Miss Smith was vicious. She was accurate with a stick of chalk in a finger-flick, had been known to skim a blackboard duster off the top of a pupil's head, as one does with a stone on the surface of water, and had a penchant for dragging girls around by their plaits. When thoroughly annoyed she would scream like a banshee and spray all seated near her with spit. Somehow, though, she taught me to sew.
The next class up was Mr Vandome's. I believe he became head in later years but, when I knew him, he was a young, enthusiastic teacher with a special interest in Art and Music. I learned to sing in Fred's choir lessons. He also took us younger ones for Art and I well remember, at the age of 8, when he caned my left hand because I forgot to take a pencil to his Art class. It was a normality, then, but it's something I still can't forget - or forgive - I was just a small child, and a well-behaved one at that. My God, the swipe of a bamboo cane, wielded by a grown man, on the hand hurt like blazes!
Miss Heaney herself taught the oldest ones, who were ready to leave school. Most of them, at age 14, didn't want to be there and weren't interested in what she could teach them. There was plenty of work around, the cotton mills were experiencing a "boom", and they couldn't wait to get out and get earning. They did that, most of them, on their 15th birthday.
I had left at age 11 to go to Paddock House, a totally different environment. Discipline was just as strict there but punishment was imposed in a mental, rather than physical, way. But, that's another story.
Who remembers St Mary's School on Moscow Mill St.? The building, built of stone and black like every other stone building in the area, was long and narrow. Some classrooms were only accessible through others and the widows were just high enough so that children couldn't see out. The school was heated by huge hot water pipes that ran all round the outer walls. There was a small, flagged yard for the infants to play in and the older children played on an unenclosed, cinder area between the school and the TA barracks next door. All the toilets were outside and you risked a soaking when you had to go. Mind you, it was not at all unusual for the request to "leave the room, please" to be denied and it led, on more than one occasion, to a steaming puddle on the floor under a desk and a poor, unfortunate child being screamed at.
At the bottom end of the school was the hall with a stage where, every morning, the headmistress, Miss Heaney, took assembly. She was a buxom woman, though quite short in stature, who wore heavy glasses and dyed her hair maroonish-black. We pupils were convinced it was a wig. She had a vile temper and would stand on the stage and stamp her foot in anger - most days. She enjoyed caning pupils on the hand and did so at every opportunity (being late for school, talking in the playground after the whistle was blown, talking in assembly, sneezing, coughing, breathing.......)
The infants' teachers were Miss Clegg - nice, spinsterish and "whispy" - and Miss Hunt, no-nonsense, barely-smiling, always wore grey woolen stockings. Next class was Miss Ellis who was blonde and pretty, didn't believe in using the cane, never shouted and was loved by every child.
I went into Mr Cosgrove's class when I was 8. He wore half-moon reading glasses and looked over them at the class in a very disconcerting way. He was one of the "old school" type and believed any subject could be knocked into any child if you knocked hard enough. I remember the day my pencil broke and he gave me a pen-knife and the waste bin and told me to sharpen it. I had no idea how to do it and whittled about half of it away, in big chunks, before ending up with a stump of lead. I was almost a gibbering wreck by that time, terrified of what he would say. Thank God he wasn't watching and my friend, Betty, gave me a spare pencil she had. Maybe that's why we're still friends 58 years later.
From his class I went into Mrs Harrison's. We were all 9 or 10 years old and we were the 11+ class. There were a few children who weren't going to be put in for the exam, at least 2 of whom should have been in special schools or, at least, remedial classes. One girl was bright but couldn't read. I used to be given the task of sitting with her, as I was a precocious reader who used to be sent to read to the infants when their teacher was busy, to help her but it just didn't work. Of course that poor girl would be diagnosed as dislexic, today, but back then she was just made to feel stupid, which was very unfair because she wasn't.
Mrs Harrison would be condemned as a bad teacher, now, because she had a group of us 11+ers who she was very confident would pass and to whom she gave extra coaching just to make sure. There were about 15 of us and we gave up half an hour of our lunch break, every day, to do "Cotswold Tests", which were previous years' exam papers. We all passed, God help the rest.
When I was there, St Mary's still had pupils up to age 15. Miss Smith took the next class but also took younger pupils for "crafts"; actually, the girls did sewing and knitting while the boys went to Moor End School for Woodwork. Miss Smith was vicious. She was accurate with a stick of chalk in a finger-flick, had been known to skim a blackboard duster off the top of a pupil's head, as one does with a stone on the surface of water, and had a penchant for dragging girls around by their plaits. When thoroughly annoyed she would scream like a banshee and spray all seated near her with spit. Somehow, though, she taught me to sew.
The next class up was Mr Vandome's. I believe he became head in later years but, when I knew him, he was a young, enthusiastic teacher with a special interest in Art and Music. I learned to sing in Fred's choir lessons. He also took us younger ones for Art and I well remember, at the age of 8, when he caned my left hand because I forgot to take a pencil to his Art class. It was a normality, then, but it's something I still can't forget - or forgive - I was just a small child, and a well-behaved one at that. My God, the swipe of a bamboo cane, wielded by a grown man, on the hand hurt like blazes!
Miss Heaney herself taught the oldest ones, who were ready to leave school. Most of them, at age 14, didn't want to be there and weren't interested in what she could teach them. There was plenty of work around, the cotton mills were experiencing a "boom", and they couldn't wait to get out and get earning. They did that, most of them, on their 15th birthday.
I had left at age 11 to go to Paddock House, a totally different environment. Discipline was just as strict there but punishment was imposed in a mental, rather than physical, way. But, that's another story.
