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| St Paul's, Constable Lee School |
I began school at St.Paul's two months after my 4th birthday. Miss Parkinson, assisted by Mrs. Nolan, cared for us.
The infant department at St. Paul's was in a separate building at the back of the school. It seemed a wonderful and happy place to be: Toys and Wendy House - - and the small matter of learning! Mum and Dad decided that once I had started school that they would donate my trike. I rode on it all the way to school one morning - but the same evening I had to take it home as I would not let anyone else play on it and apparently had caused no end of mayhem.
The "juniors" were housed in the main school building. I can only remember being taught by Mrs. Pickup during these years, when we reached the "top class" we were taught by the Headmaster.
Mrs. Pickup taught everything from country dancing, sewing, art, maths and english. She was always in school - when we arrived and when we left for home. I had the notion that she lived there.
We had to learn our "times tables" as homework - learn over the week-end and then we had to stand in class on Monday mornings to answer questions and were not allowed to sit down until you answered your question correctly.
Arts and crafts meant painting with powder paint which was dispensed from big tins and mixed with water and using Gloy glue with the paddle spreader. We also made little baskets from canes or from stiff waxy card that was cut and then threaded with brightly coloured wool.
There were two break times: morning and afternoon. At the slightest bit of sunshine and warm weather we would put our coats alongside the school wall and sunbathe! During the morning break we could buy biscuits and crisps from a trolley or hope that Mr. Clark, a local farmer, would stop off during his milk round to give us large ginger oat biscuits.
Free school milk was available (School Milk Act 1946) and each child received a 1/3pint. In the winter months it was quite often delivered frozen and was thawed out on the class room radiator! This probably explains my hatred of the white stuff!!
At Christmas time we had Christmas parties at school, each child had to take their own cutlery and crockery labelled with your name so as to avoid any confusion. We would stand out in the playground and look for Santa's sleigh arriving, but as if by magic when we returned inside he was always there laden with presents for us.
As far as I can remember there were three Headmasters during my time at St. Paul's: Mr. Cocker, Lloyd and Ashby. For those of us who were there on 12th April 1961 we witnessed something that was a huge day in space history.
All the pupils were rounded up and taken to the main hall where we were summoned around a large and cumbersome radio. We listened intently as the Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, became the first human in space, making a 108 minute orbital flight.
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| Yuri Gagarin 9.3.34 - 27.3.68 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin |
12th April 2011 is the 50th Anniversaryof this historic moment
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12975006
