Author Topic: schools and teachers in the 50s  (Read 22857 times)

Akatarawa

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Re: schools and teachers in the 50s
« Reply #55 on: January 05, 2013, 10:22:34 PM »
Hi,  just joined this forum, I've been browsing through and it has brought back many memories.

I haven't lived in Brum since 1963, a lot will have changed since then  O0

I started school in early 1943 at Hastings Road Infants school in Perry Common, we lived in Abingdon Road.

In those days there were 4 classes in 2 years, I remember one teacher was called Miss Plum.  She had a cane which seemed at the time to be about 10 feet long.

During one summer, probably 1943, we took our desks out into the playground for outside lessons,  far above was some aerial conflict going on, we could see contrails criss-crossing the sky, twisting and turning,  but no sound reached us.

After school we used to make our way home via 'the rec' at Perry Common.  Google Earth shows that the swings and roundabouts are no longer there.

After Hastings Road I went to Hawthorn Road Primary for a year until my parents moved to Oldbury.

The headmaster at Hawthorn was a Mr Dainty, ex-world war 1.  He used to line us up for 'parade' each morning before school for hands and boots inspection.

He expected us to have shiny black boots, and if they were not clean would tell us how to apply spit and polish  :)

When I first went to Moat Farm Primary school in 1946 in Oldbury,  I was laughed at because of my Brum accent......this from black country boys...........a different world, yet only a few miles away.

Down the road in Old Hill they still spoke a form of Anglo-Saxon or Old English, yet even harder to understand.

If anyone wonders what my moniker Akatarawa means it is a valley north of Upper Hutt in New Zealand where we have lived for the past 35 years.

Steve White

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Re: Schools and Teachers in the 50s
« Reply #56 on: September 02, 2015, 02:48:58 AM »
Hello. I, too, have just joined the Birmingham Forum (some two and a half years later).
I attended the Tinkers Farm Junior and Infant School from the time I was four (1948) until after the "Eleven Plus." I have very fond memories of my time in this school. Miss Farrow was the Head Teacher of the Infant department, Miss Waite the Head of the Junior section; later followed by Mr. Green.
Mrs. Brodie was a warm and kind person. Mr. Gregory, who taught the senior class, told us tales of his experiences in Africa, including one about soldiers in the back of a lorry plucking locusts out of the air and eating them like popcorn. We were enthralled! Mr. Wickham was ex-RAF. Miss Shrimpton was a pretty young woman. Mrs Garrett, drove a two-door Triumph with small seats  in the back that folded up if you opened the boot.
There were others, of course, but these are the ones I remember.
We used to play a basketball-like game in which the goal was a wooden post that sat in the centre of a circle and was protected from being knocked down by a boy or girl who acted as goal keeper. On our own time we played piggy-back fighting. As a somewhat big kid I carried a somewhat smaller kid on my back as we went into battle. I broke a couple of teeth that way.
Four of us found a delightful way to spend one lunch hour... Shooting blotting paper soaked in ink at the classroom ceiling... which earned us a caning. One stroke by Miss Waite on each hand. Except for me. I had one stroke on one hand, as I had only shot the ink pellet at my friend, Brian. Even then I thought I deserved a harsher punishment than the others. And I still do!
But still and all a mostly joyful time.

H L M

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Re: schools and teachers in the 50s
« Reply #57 on: November 17, 2018, 04:44:39 PM »

 I was at Hawthorn Rd. Juniors four years before Akatarawa  ( 1941 to 1944 ) and I remember we all went out onto College Rd one day to watch King George V1 drive past. I know that he visited the Spitfire factory at Castle Bromwich at the beginning of the war but does anyone know where he went this time. He could have been going to visit again if the car had turned right into Perry Common Rd.


                                                       H L M

Edmund Fifield

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Re: schools and teachers in the 50s
« Reply #58 on: November 18, 2018, 12:16:20 PM »
When I was at Bloomsbury St school,we walked to by Aston Station in the 40s to see the King & Queen come past and were given a paper flag to wave,
Make every day a day to remember
Because this ain't no rehearsal
And you ain't coming back

Edmund Fifield

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Re: schools and teachers in the 50s
« Reply #59 on: November 24, 2018, 10:28:20 AM »
We moved to Kitts Green in 49 ,My dad used to walk us down Cole Hall Lane to Castle Brom to see the Spitfires.Remember the gates being pushed across Chester Road and the Soldiers jumping out of the Barrage Balloons.
Make every day a day to remember
Because this ain't no rehearsal
And you ain't coming back


 

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