1939 – 1962
By Roger Chadwick
In September 1944,
aged 5, with my mother, on the first day only , I walked down Mottram Road, up
Grange Road, along Tinkers Ginnel and through the playground of LEIGH STREET
SCHOOL to Miss Beaumont’s class in The Infants Building. Clutching a
small bag of cocoa and sugar, my first experience of education was making fudge
sweeties! The noise of other children was a bit frightening at first but the
room, festooned with pictures and charts, was a fascinating experience. Miss
Beaumont was a tall lady with violent red lipstick and wore Lisle stockings
with small tufts of red wool dotted about all over. I could not take my eyes
off this “fashion statement” and when I got home, my mother told me
they were “clocks” – an ornamental design either woven in or
embroidered on the side of a stocking. Miss French was another tall
teacher and noted for smacking unruly infants so I kept out of her way! Miss
Moore, a smiling, motherly and wonderful person, was the Head Teacher, who
I came to know better in later years at church.
Leigh Street School.
The war was on,
everything in short supply. Even in the Junior Department we were told to write
on the inside covers of exercise books and across the margins. Any sheet of
paper with a clean side had to be used. Sugar bag paper was used for art
work. Those waxy cardboard milk bottle tops had to be brought to school for
further use: raffia was worked around any available container to make
“spell” boxes, those things we used at home with “spells”
of wood to light the fire! Nothing was wasted. Old blotting paper lined
precious jam jars for the beans and peas to grow on the window sills. Tops of
carrots were brought on saucers to grow foliage. Woe betide any child who
wasted anything! The one third pint of milk had to be drunk even if it was
frozen. No child could leave anything on the plate of a school dinner.
“Get that down yer and stop messing about; the convoys brought that
across the Atlantic”, warned my
grandmother!
I still do not
leave a plate with any food on it!
My first teacher in
the Juniors was Miss Taverner but she could not keep order and the
classes were rowdy. Believed to be quite bright I was “expressed”
through Miss Halton/Haughton’s class and into Miss
Emsley’s third year. Miss Emsley became Mrs Andrew and was
just lovely! I well remember her as a younger teacher with a quick stride and
a handbag. Likewise Miss Lees, who was always smiling but reputed to
be a strict disciplinarian. Mr Drewett, a quiet and lovely man and Mrs
Gaunt were responsible for Year 4 pupils (present day year 6’s). Then
there was Mrs Shaw who cared for the youngest class of entrants, seeming
to be always asleep on canvas beds in the afternoons!
I found myself
under the tutelage of Mrs Gaunt for two years and she was certainly the
moulding of my education. Being “expressed” meant two years in
what was then called “the scholarship” class. In those days it
was the one great aim to get as many children as possible into grammar schools
via the 11+ and at our school to make sure that we always beat St George’s CE School, our nearest
rival educational establishment. From 9.00.a.m. to 4.00.p.m we were kept at
the grindstone. “First Aid” English text books were studied and
relevant parts memorised. “A verb is a doing word”, we had to
chant - “An adverb modifies the verb” “An adjective is a
descriptive word” – chanted in class, these phrases were never
forgotten. Grammar training and correct sentence formation both on paper and
in speech was repeated over and over again and again until we knew how to
write, how to speak and how to communicate.
Then of course,
there were the tables – up to “twelve times” of course and
for those who were expected to manage it – up to 13 and 14 times tables.
Highest / Lowest Common Denominators, Fractions, Percentages, Interest and
Compound Interest, Mental Arithmetic both written and verbal had to be
mastered. Imperial Measures, Rods, Bushels, Pecks, Acres, Pints, Jills, Quarts,
Pounds, Stones, Quarters, Hundredweights, Tons, 1760 yards to the mile 5280
feet to the mile, 4840 sq yds to the acres…… Yards, Feet, Inches,
Eight Furlongs to the mile… All these details were printed out on the backs
of some exercise books and they had to be learnt. Most days we had cash sum to
multiply like - £14.19s 4pence three farthings multiplied by 29. Thence, in
neat columns sums transferring farthings (960 to the £), halfpennies (480 to
the £) pennies (240 to the £) sixpences “tanners” (40 to the £),
threepenny bits(80 to the £), shillings “bobs”(20 to the £) half
crowns(8 to the £) florins/2 shillings(10 to the £). These sums had to be got
right, especially when the Headmaster, Mr Walter Hugh Renwick entered the class
at 3.40.p.m to set the homework for the “scholarship” children.
Children did not get much praise. “You can do better….not good
enough…poor work…untidy… write out the correct spelling 10
times.”. Et cetera!
Does this bring
back memories to those born just before, during and just after the war?
I cannot say
whether this kind of education was right or wrong. Suffice it to say that even
though I am no mathematician, mental arithmetic has stood me in good stead
throughout life as has the grounding in grammar. Class 8 at Leigh Street
School in 1949-50 had 53 pupils presided over by a teacher who knew what she
had to do, brooked no nonsense or interference, gave favours to none and
criticism to all and made sure that everyone in that class could read and write
before they went into secondary or technical education. She wasn’t there
to be liked or loved: she had a job to do and did it magnificently!
It did me no harm
at all and I owe everything to that school and its staff.
Leigh Street 1949
Many thanks to Roger for sharing his memories and to the "Hyde Schoolday Memories" book that was sent to me by Joyce and Graham Sharp.
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