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| I would like to help fill in the 10 year gap in your school entry. I joined the school in 1940 aged 7. Miss Richens was head mistress and there were three rooms. One for infants, the other two classes were mixed sex. Subjects were the usual arithmetic reading and if I remember correctly attention to hand writing. The history book had coloured pictures. I do not remember any mention of farming but do remember "helping" bringing in the harvest. There was a chance to get saving certificates according to the number of cabbage white butterflies you managed to kill. I am not sure whether there might have been more damage done with our rampaging about the green crops. We also learnt to knit and sew (I expect just the girls). I managed one sock! I left to go to secondary school when I was about 11 but came back to sit the 11 plus. Finally left the village aged 14 (I cried for weeks). I will always remember it as the most idyllic time of my life. Have visited several time but have of course been sad at the changes. There was a large yew hedge at the front, full of holes and we had great fun running in and out. In the playground we had lots of games, skipping being a favourite, it could be quite complicated. There was country dancing - Sir Roger de Coverly and Strip the Willow. Singing too - Tom Pearce, Early One Morning and one about Trelawney and Cornish men, a bit odd but it was rousing and the boys gave full voice to it. We were all inoculated against diphtheria, quite painful in those days. The school used to visit regularly and 'operated' in a small hall almost opposite the shop. You had to spit any blood into a bucket of sand by the chair! In that same small building we viewed Queen Mary's dollshouse, I think. One day we all marched up to the main road and supplied with Union Jack flags awaited the King George VI and Mr Churchill drive past, presumably on their way to Lyneham. Now am positive it was still war time so how anybody knew that was going to happen is a mystery. |
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