Cherry Rogers remembers her school days

I remember my first day at school.  I told mum I didn’t want to go and I should make a fuss, so she was dreading it.  I went with a girl called Rita who was the granddaughter of Mrs Parrot who lived at the old Manor House.  When it actually came to the point of going into school and leaving mum, I turned to her and said “Goodbye” and then marched in.  It was mum who was the one who cried.  I remember leaning on the classroom door with some other children to stop Rita from escaping, she wanted to go home.  When Mum came to meet me at the end of the day, I said, “Oh well. I have done my bit!”, thinking I only had to do one day.

I think my first teacher was Miss Parr, who lodged in a house on Thetford Road, right next to Monkey’s Style.  She rode a motorbike.  I was always sent in with the nursery children on a Friday when we had a story.  I hated a story where things all went wrong for people or animals were hurt.  I never waited for the happy ending.  I used to bawl and get so upset that the teacher sent me off before she even started.  I am a bit the same today, I don’t bawl, but I walk out of the room or skip the sad bit in a book sometimes.  I don’t just like a happy ending I like a happy middle and beginning as well.  I remember Miss Pollard was Headmistress in the infant’s school and Miss Risdale had taught there for years.

The first teacher in what was called big school was Miss Huke.  She frightened the life out of me.  I remember having to knit a doll’s bonnet with needles the diameter of telegraph poles and short with it, not easy, like knitting with bits of kindling.  Boys had to do it the same as us, but I can’t remember any boy in my class who would want a doll’s bonnet!  I remember cast iron stoves, the smell of wool coats drying on the fireguard, wet shoes standing underneath, chalk dust, squeaky blackboards, pens you dipped in inkwells, ink stains on clothes, blots on my work book, small bottles of milk with cardboard tops – you pushed out the hole in the middle for your straw (those milk bottle tops were used to make woolly pom poms and they were covered with raffia and joined together to make shopping bags, table mats and all kinds of things).  I remember nature walks, all marching along in a crocodile with a tin to collect samples to write about when we got back to class, sometimes on a hot day we sat outside for a lesson.  Sports days, I hated em, I couldn’t run to save my life.  I remember chanting the tables with Miss Stevens, being caught passing a note to a boy, asking him to meet me after class, getting caught and Mr Cook reading it out.  I didn’t care, I had no shame, but the boy did, he was embarrassed beyond words.  Country dancing, again Miss Stevens, I always got told off for being too exuberant.

Singing lessons with Miss Downy.  I got in the choir by being recommended by Catherine Talbot.  I had to mime because as soon as I let out a sound Miss Downy said “Someone is out of tune.”  Guess who?  Mr Smalden who took us for geography, he had a cane in the cupboard called ‘Nothing’.  If he asked what you wanted and you said “Nothing sir”, you got it!  I remember having to chant all the states and cities of Canada.  He took us for music after Miss Downy and he had a tuning fork that, when he banged it on the desk, you had to sing the note.  He went round the class and we did it in turn.  I wanted to die, I dreaded it.  Mr Smalden used to put his glasses round the door before he came into the room and we thought he was daft.  I never realised he could see us in the reflection in his glasses.

Mr Jackson was locum, he had been retired some years, so when a teacher was ill he stepped in.  He always taught maths and the theme was always working out your co-op divi.  He smoked like a chimney and his moustache was yellow.  Sewing lessons.  I was making a dress for three years, had to keep unpicking it, talk about fussy.  It didn’t fit by the time I had finished!  I had grown about four inches.  Art classes with Mr. Cook.  I couldn’t do that either, mine would have been more suitable for the Tate Modern.  I went home wearing more paint than was on the paper.  Mr Wintle was Headmaster and so many other teachers – Mr Lee, who was a wartime hero, Mrs Crane, Mr Tweedie, Mr Alan, Mrs Hall, Miss Dibley, Mr Hall, Mr Dannett, Miss Davies, Mr. Fish to name a few.  Going to see the bridge opened with Miss Killengrey, having the ruler from Mr. Froud – expect I deserved it!

We had to go to Mildenhall for the last year, picking up other pupils from Lakenheath and all the surrounding villages.  Mr. Lee was there and Mrs Hall was back there as my form teacher, and I think Headteacher.  She used to ride a bike with a large basket on the front and used to send me and Mary Adams to the bank with the dinner money.  She put the money in a bag and put it in the basket on the front of her sit- ‘up-and-beg’ bike, saying, “Now, keep it in there and walk with it.”  We said “Yes Mrs. Hall”, and walked sedately down the drive.  As soon as we were round the corner we got on the bike and pelted down to Mildenhall, giving us time to look in the shops.  Mr Star was Headmaster and his wife was games teacher.  Mr Lee was deputy head.  We had to go to Mildenhall on the bus.  We were so rowdy and uncontrollable the Baptist Minister, the Rev Morris, was sent to take control on the journey to and from school.  We used to sit and flick bits of pastry from our cookery lesson at his hat, some of that pastry was as hard as hell, like firing cannon balls.  Mum used to ask, “What happened to your cooking today?”, to which I would reply, “Dropped the tin.”  Someone got chucked off the bus for trying to pack a parachute in his satchel and then jump out of the bu.  He had to walk home.

I was rubbish at maths, although I knew my tables.  The silly thing is I worked with figures from the time I started work, adding up ledgers and balancing books without even an adding machine in the early days.  I wrote letters and did all kinds of office work, so I guess I must have learned something.  I always hope my spelling is reasonable.  It should be after having to chant the word and then the spelling.  You learn quickly if you must stay until the work is correct and you have a date.  They were happy carefree days.

We all had an autograph book in those days.  I have all the teachers from Brandon and all my classmates from my last year at Mildenhall.  This one is Mr. Froud, he was always popular because he did a drawing instead of a boring signature.  Below is the autograph from Mr. Froud, the book is a little tattered now but I have all the pages.