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We are approaching what would have been my father's 92nd birthday and I've been reading some of his recollections of school life.

 

From the age of 4 years old until I was 10, I attended Church Street schools: not willingly because I thought there were much better things to occupy my time, such as going fishing for tiddlers with my net down at Robin Hood's Fields or scrumping apples and pears round at Nelly Clarke's.

 

To me and to many of my little friends, these things seemed for more worthwhile than listening to some teacher droning on about scripture. We could make precious little sense of "Yea, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels..."

 

When I was very small, I recall a teacher named Miss Downes. Who could possibly forget her? She lived in Queens Road and owned two huge, shaggy, sheep dogs which were almost as big as she was. If it hadn't been for their tails, I don't think anyone would have known which end was which! Miss Downes used to take them for a run on their leads, one in each hand. They galloped along, dragging the poor little woman behind them and it would not have surprised me to learn that they had eaten the poor soul for breakfast!

 

The infants' headmistress was a woman by the name of Miss Hammond. She seemed to dislike me and regularly complained that I had not washed my neck! It wasn't true!

 

Later on, in the juniors, the headmaster was Mr Arthur Cossons. He was the only teacher who had a cane. He used it too- whenever he could remember where he had put it last! We didn't know it then but most of his spare time was spent researching and writing about the history of Beeston, from its origins as a settlement and he must have found the history of Beeston as fascinating then as I do now.

 

Miss Poole also taught at Church Street but, unlike Mr Cossons, she did not possess a cane. No, she went one better and brandished a chair leg as she marched up and down the narrow aisles between our desks. If our little hands were not neatly tucked under our armpits, she rattled our knuckles with it. A painful collision as I recall. She often said she dreaded coming to school to face us but I'm afraid that we felt much the same about her!

 

Discussing Miss Poole among ourselves, we decided she only did the job for the money, since she was saving up to get married. To the 8 or 9 year old children in our class of 47, Miss Poole seemed to be getting on in years but must, in fact, have been around 25 years old.

 

"I wouldn't marry her," one boy remarked. "I'd have to sleep with my hands tucked under my arms!"

 

There were two boys whose surnames were Tebbut and Hawkins and they were also in our class of 47 pupils. These unfortunates lived at the orphanage in Imperial Road in Chilwell. This was where my father had spent a brief time as a baby and where he was constantly threatening to send me!

 

Tebbut and Hawkins were the best behaved children in the entire School. They had to be because Miss Poole made it crystal clear that one wrong move from either of them and she would soon let the Matron know about it. They were plainly terrified of the orphanage matron.

 

It must have been a very grim place that orphanage because we boys heard how they had to say their prayers before their breakfast of lumpy porridge. Always porridge. In our household, we had eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes and fried bread- without the prayers.

 

From time to time, we had student teachers for a while and we all looked forward to this because we liked to put them through their paces. I recall one named Mr Ablewhite. Thin, bald headed and around six feet tall, he took us for science and I remember well the day he took it upon himself to demonstrate to us that light travels faster than sound.

 

Having given us strict instructions to stand outside the school and observe him, he positioned himself at the bottom of Church Lane near to Colonel Venn's Manor House, armed with a dustbin lid and Miss Poole's chair leg. Banging away on the dustbin lid for all he was worth, he found, on looking up, that we had all disappeared. Annoyed at this, Abelwhite came storming up Church Lane to find us. He was further enraged when he encountered two gossiping women who looked at him and remarked: "Silly bu99er! He's just like a big, daft kid hissen! Don't know what they teach these kids nowadays!"

 

This was in 1933!

 

Mr Abelwhite was wasting his time. He eventually saw the error of his chosen profession and took holy orders instead. It had to be better than teaching urchins.

 

We boys already knew that light travels faster than sound because we had read about it in the Wizard. In fact, I think we learnt more from these tuppeny weekly Comics such as Wizard, Hotspur, Triumph, Gem and Magnet than we ever did at the hands of the teachers of Church Street schools and it was thanks largely to Mr Walter Hayes.

 

 

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Walter Hayes opened a second hand bookshop in Chilwell Road where we could swap back numbers of Comics. We boys would bring two back and he would give us one comic we hadn't read- no money involved. Bring two in, exchange for one, not counting one up the jersey when Mr Hayes was not looking! If we had none to swap , then Mr Hayes would charge us one halfpenny for a book.

 

Yes, Mr Walter Hayes did a sterling job in helping us boys to read but, according to my daughter who edited these recollections, he was not so hot at teaching us how to spell!

 

The Magnet was a great education. Greyfriars' School for Boys. I even picked up some Latin words and tried them out at school. It was noticed and I was asked who was teaching me Latin when I couldn't even speak English properly!

 

The teacher who asked me was amazed to learn that Magnet and Gem were still being published and even asked me whether I would lend him some copies. Perhaps he learnt something from them, too!

 

Back at Church Street schools, there was a new teacher named Mr Friar. A short, bouncy little man who spent more time recounting tales about life on a farm in Calverton than teaching us anything. We boys reckoned that 'Daddy' Friar was carrying a torch for Miss Poole, because when he wasn't spinning us a yarn, he was spinning her one. What else could account for the fact that his knuckles were always covered with plasters? We could have warned him about that merciless chair leg but perhaps he found out the hard way.

 

There was also a teacher named Miss Jones who managed to make me think she was not quite honest. Walking to school along Church Street one morning, I had to pass a shop called Nidd and Horsburgh, Drapers and Outfitters, which also offered a pawnbrokers. I found a small envelope outside the entrance and, on opening it, discovered a ladies' ring with stones inset. I told anyone about this but later, in Miss Jones' class, I was looking at the ring instead of paying attention to her and she called me out to the front where she confiscated the ring and placed it in her desk drawer. She asked me where I got it from and I told her the truth. Miss Jones said I could have the ring back on Friday but, when Friday came and I went to ask her for it, she said she had already given it back to me. Make of that what you will!

 

Myself, I think that if she didn't sell it, she wore it herself because it was probably the only way she was ever likely to get one!

 

 

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Dad was a highly intelligent chap but, as with his daughter, he didn't like school. He was blessed with an enquiring mind and preferred to work things out for himself in his own way. Conventional education bored him. I suppose all those NS members who are, or have been teachers, myself included, have encountered such children. They will educate themselves, in spite of anything their teachers do or say, but on their own terms.

 

At times, dad amazed me with his knowledge but then he spent most of his spare time with his head in a book. 

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6 hours ago, Jill Sparrow said:

Later on, in the juniors, the headmaster was Mr Arthur Cossons. He was the only teacher who had a cane. He used it too- whenever he could remember where he had put it last! 

 

From time to time, we had student teachers for a while and we all looked forward to this because we liked to put them through their paces. I recall one named Mr Ablewhite. Thin, bald headed and around six feet tall, he took us for science and I remember well the day he took it upon himself to demonstrate to us that light travels faster than sound.

 

Memorise the names Cossons and Abelwhite, and then look at this. http://www.beeston-notts.co.uk/churchst_teachers1.htm

 

If you haven't seen the whole site where that came from, start here http://www.beeston-notts.co.uk/default.htm

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  • 7 months later...

churchst1930-1.jpg

 

 

Class of 1930 ...all born in 1924....Church Street Schools, Beeston. My father is on the middle row, second from the right, looking every inch the little bu99er he undoubtedly was!

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