Were you at Berridge?


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It's a strange photo, Stuart, as everyone on it was born during the last quarter of 1957. There is a parallel photo which shows a mix of children, some of whom were actually in the year above and some of my age. 

 

As you will know, children commence school in the term when they turn 5, or rising five, as it's known, although I began when I was 4. Many of my peers hadn't actually started Berridge when this was taken, due to being born in 1958.

 

Looking through my Berridge photos, the classes were often boy dominated. 

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Through this door...and it's the original, although painted black in my day...I walked with my mum one cold morning early in 1962. I was just 4 years old. The door led to Miss Smith's office and my mu

How many Berridge children have secreted themselves inside this niche situated in the playground which fronts the old infant building, hoping to be left behind when the bell rang at playtime's close?

Sitting on this exact spot, facing the stationery cupboard in Mr Parr's classroom, in spring 1969, I sat my 11+ exam.

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Just checked and found that a couple of children on the photo were born in the first quarter of 1958, including Richard Sewell, front row, extreme right, who lived in Grundy Street and appears on the following year's photo but then left. I wonder??

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And does that photo show the whole class ?  

 

In all the infants and junior photos of my days at Clifton, the classes were much larger - usually in the high 30s and frequently a long way into the 40s.

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Same with Berridge, CT, after the initial class.  The photo shows the first class children entered. It was just play based activity, sand and water, clay and painting. As I recall, they remained in there for around a term and then moved into the room next door where more formal activities took place. The next set of rising fives then moved into the play based room.  Not until what would now be called Year One did we all occupy the same room. 

 

Matters were further complicated for children like myself, who started at 4 years and 3 months. Nowadays, I would have been in the nursery. In those days, the nursery didn't exist. Early starters were lumped together with those who were of statutory school age.

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15 hours ago, Jill Sparrow said:

Loops can indicate a personality with something to hide!

Plenty to hide, still hidden, but thoroughly cured of loops. When at college the cleaner, a lovely lady from Clifton estate,  left me a handwritten note, 'If you keep leaving your bed in such a mess, you and me are going to fall out.' She might have told me earlier.

Just been told by a certain lady she would like some guzgogs from Waitrose today. You can take the girl out of Nottingham, but you can't take Nottingham out of the girl. Her sister has lived California for over 50 years, and sounds native until she says words like cup, up, and that uh sound comes in.

This is straying into the wrong thread ...

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Learning of The Engineer's aversion to the terrifying toilets in the infant playground at Berridge got me thinking about how times have changed.

 

In those days, 58 years ago, the only loos for the children were outside.  If nature called during lesson time, the teacher, the green and black striped Miss Walters, in our case would hand over one rectangle of pine-scented Izal toilet paper and instruct anyone whose bladder dared to be obeyed whilst the owner's fingers were mired in clay to go forth and run the gauntlet of the terror in the dark on t'other side of the playground.

 

As we know, the side gate was never locked. Most of the time it stood ajar,, hence the facility with which The Engineer slipped out, apparently unnoticed, during afternoon playtime, to return home.  To do so, he would have to cross Berridge Road. Can you imagine the furore today if a 5 year-old managed to do this?

 

That unguarded gate could also permit anyone, at any time, to access the playground and hide in the toilets. Child molesters are not a recent phenomenon. As if the water-spewing terror in the dark and a potential soaking were not nightmarish enough, there was the additional danger of a perverted maniac lurking in the shadows.

 

No one thought about such things in those far off times when there were buttered crumpets for tea at home (once you'd washed your hands, of course. Especially if one's fingers had gone through the sheet of wet Izal!)

 

Makes me realise what intrepid little soldiers we were.  Mind you, I will admit to presenting my mum with a bag of wet pants on several occasions at home time. After that first terrifying encounter with the self-flushing monsters, I vowed never to use them again...and I never did!

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I wasn't at Beridge but can confirm that Arno Vale Infant /Juniors had outside loos, with a covered walkway to them.

I can't remember being terrified of them, but maybe that's just blotted out in my memory.

 

Just checked Google and they're still there, although the walkway is covered on the sides now and it's Juniors only.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.9936504,-1.127768,50a,35y,39.55t/data=!3m1!1e3

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I agree  with you Phil about our first teacher at Arno Vale.

I cant remember much about the toilets but I do remember they were accessed by a covered walkway.  

In the Juniors  at Playtime I remember we used to play 'higher and higher' on the concrete walkway.  A skipping rope was held by two people - one on each side of the walkway - and we had to jump over it.  It gradually was lifted higher each time until you either refused to jump over or tripped over it and fell on to the concrete!!  Health and Safety wasn't invented all those years ago

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15 hours ago, Stuart.C said:

I wasn't at Beridge but can confirm that Arno Vale Infant /Juniors had outside loos, with a covered walkway to them.

Covered walkway. Luxury. Sheer luxury.

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The loos in the junior playground were slightly different. Two rows, facing each other with a walkway down the centre. The walkway was open to the elements. We weren't mollycoddled at Berridge!

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Jill, on that last photo (year above), I think middle row far right may indeed be me (apparently wearing a bow tie?)

My wife picked me out as well so that confirms it!

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Just looked at the list of names provided by letsavagoo for the second photo. His wife was in your year. She identified the boy with the bow tie as Stephen Wheat. Curiouser and curiouser!  I do have later photos of her class and I will look to see whether that child is present.

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As far as I recall, and I’m fairly sure that the boys toilets in the top corner of the playground had no roof so you if it was raining you got peed on while you pee’d. I’m not sure if the sit down lavatories were roofed in there as I don’t think I ever used one.

Jill. Just happened to be here when your reply popped up. There has been a break down in communication as Steven Wheat is the boy behind ‘bow tie’ on the back row. She doesn’t know who the boy with the dickie bow is. There is another boy with a bow tie in the centre. We think that’s Nicholas Harchuk.

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As someone who also knows who The Engineer is, I would tend to agree with Mrs Engineer re the middle row suspect, if it's not then I reserve the right to retract my claim.

I have the advantage of not having seen him for around 30 years so have a younger image of him in my memory.

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You may well be right. However, it's odd that in his PM, The Engineer thought initially that he may be the boy on the extreme right of the back row in the first photo. It turned out that although I couldn't remember this child's surname, I remembered his first name and it is the same as The Engineer's!

 

Do you see him on here?  If you can see the year 1961, ignore it. This photo is 1963, probably Autumn Term or could even be 1964.

 

1R1lSZ1.jpg

1961

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Jill, to add to the curiosity, one of my sisters married a Stephen Wheat who was my age but I don't know whether he was from that area.  I am now trying to decide whether the chap behind me is one and the same and that our paths crossed again in the mid 70s in Bulwell (where we and the Wheats both lived).

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