| I was ready for a new stage in my
life - junior school! This was the same school that I already attended, but now
I was moving to the main building. It was 5 weeks before my seventh
birthday. |
| South Ockendon village
school was very small, the juniors consisted of 2 classes and the headmasters
corridor. Mr. Sleeman-White, the head, lived in a house on the school premises.
School was so very different then, we had to line up to go in and, if you
dared, you had to put your hand up to be excused (go to the toilet). However,
we were supposed to control ourselves, regardless of the weather, until
"lavatory break": this took place before playtime and we had to line up in the
playground to use one of the outside lavatories - open to the elements. I quite
clearly remember that only one of the lavatories had a lock. Believe me it
could be very, very cold. My first junior teacher was Mr Heath, a wonderful
teacher, whom I liked very much. The class teacher taught everything, reading,
writing, arithmetic etc. |
| The very first craze that I
remember the children at school had was picking the fluff off each other's
jumpers. Knitting yarn was all wool in those days, so everything had bobbly
bits of fluff on it. The idea was to see how big a ball of fluff we could
collect over the weeks. The end of this craze came when many mums complained
that their childs' jumpers had bald spots on them. |
| I had no difficulty with
the schoolwork, my downfall was talking too much (now, does that sound
familiar?) and untidy handwriting. Children had wooden handles with a pen nib
fitted into the top which we would dip into the inkwell and, in my case, create
blots of ink all over the paper. One child in the class would be the ink
monitor, whose job it was to fill each inkwell each night. Two children shared
one double desk with an inkwell each. Each desk had a lift lid. The desk held
everything that any child would use at school. Every child who used the desk
wrote his or her name on it - not really allowed but happened in all
schools. |
| Each morning would start
with assembly, hymns and prayers. The school hymn was "He who would valiant be"
I can remember every word of that hymn even now. The first hymn that I ever
knew, when I was six, was "Morning has broken." Still one of my favourites.
When I was a second year junior our Christmas treat was to go up to the head
master's corridor, he threw up a few coins and we had to scramble for them. I
never got one, Oh well, that's life. My teacher in the second year was Mr
Pratt, an elderly man who always had a cane in his hand and beat the boys for
any reason. ... never the girls. I was given a prize for being the brightest
girl in the school - Mum and I had to go to the big house in the village, owned
by the Rowntree family, where I was hastily given six shillings. |
| The weddings of my aunt
Elsie (to Ron) and of my uncle George (to Sylvia) were the highlight of 1948. I
was bridesmaid at both weddings; each time I wore pink and the dresses were cut
down, for everyday use, after. |
| Bullying is not
a new happening; I was bullied for almost all of the two year's that I spent in
the village juniors. My tormentor was a girl called Maureen Braby; I shall
never forget that name. She always had a group of boys around her even at that
young age (7+) and she knew how to manipulate them. There is no need to
elaborate; she just made my life miserable. I would grasp at any opportunity to
be "friends" with her, sometimes I went to Saturday morning pictures with her
but, even then, she often let me down. After many traumas my mum solved the
problem, not in a way that would be approved of now, by holding back the boys
and letting Maureen and me fight it out. I won. End of problem. |
| Saturday morning pictures
were sheer joy. Bear in mind that there was no telly, not much money and few
toys, almost everything was still rationed - very few sweets or new clothes, no
holidays -just an odd day at the seaside. Saturday would arrive and a 3d (3 old
pennies, just over one penny now) bus ride away was another world. The Odeon
Cinema in Upminster was the location, 6d was the price (9d if anyone could
afford to go upstairs). The cinema was always full and we would start by
singing the song appropriate to that chain of cinemas. I wish that I could
remember it - oh well, age takes its toll. We would see cartoons, Westerns,
anything suitable for children. |
| The one thing that all
Saturday morning pictures had in common was a serial. This would end each week
at a vital, dangerous point - OH NO! The hero is going to crash over the cliff.
The next week would find him about a hundred yards away from the edge -Thank
goodness! SAVED AGAIN!! South Ockendon village had outgrown the school. A new
primary school was built at Cranham, a couple of miles away. This school was
opened for the summer term of 1950 and I started there in September. |
| The village children had to
travel to school on an old double decker bus. Oglethorpe school was so
different; it was bright, light and colourful with toilets indoors. There was a
hall for assemblys, PE. etc and a separate dining room, each class had its own
wireless built into the wall. This was sheer luxury, as exciting then as having
computers in class now. The head master was Mr Dance and my class teacher was
Mr Pearce. |
| We used to have
handkerchief inspection; every child had to spread his/her hanky onto the desk
just to make sure that we had one. Many didn't and were told that anything
could be used including flour bags. These were made of rough, thin cotton in
those days and could be cut up and hemmed. (Another teacher told us that she
used her dead husband's shirts for the purpose). I will just pick out the
highlights of my time at Oglethorpe school. At Christmas time we would march in
twos to Upminster Church for a Carol Service - no school coaches then. |
| 1951 was the
year of the Festival of Britain; one hundred years after the first Great
Exhibition. This really was a big event in our lives. Remember, it was just six
years since the Second World War had finished; many things were still rationed;
there was little money about; the only entertainment we had was of our own
making or the wireless. We did projects about the festival at school and
several classes went, by train, to visit it. This was really exciting. The
Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank was built as part of the festival, this
still stands (I am writing this in 2000) everything else was taken down. It was
a great success (what a shame that, almost 50 year's later, the Millennium Dome
wasn't as successful). I was in my school's netball team during my last year at
Oglethorpe; we lost every game but one. Say no more! |
| I sat for the scholarship
in 1952 (it was also called the eleven plus); passing this meant that I would
be able to attend the grammar school. However, changes were afoot. For some
time I had suffered from pains in my feet and shoulders; my headmaster noticed
that I walked on tiptoe and arranged for me to have a school medical. The
doctor decided that I had rheumatism and that I should have this checked at the
hospital. |
| The appointment for the
hospital was made for May 1952. The day arrived - as did a letter from the
council asking my mum and dad to view a new council house on Harold Hill near
Romford, IMMEDIATELY. As Oldchurch hospital was (still is) also at Romford, we
viewed the house in the morning and went to the hospital in the afternoon. I
was kept in the hospital straight away, stayed there for three weeks, during
which time my family moved to Harold Hill. This meant that I had not had a
chance to say goodbye to my friends at school or in the village and never
returned to Oglethorpe school. |
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