Early years of school in 1940s war-time Britain

My first school was Edgware Primary School in Edgware, north London. I started when I was 5 in 1944 while the Second World War was still on, and left at 11 for my grammar school.

The reception class

The first class was known as 'The Babies', and my teacher was Miss Reebold. That was how her name sounded, but I have no idea of the spelling. Although the main playground was at the front of the school, we 'babies' had our own small grey stone-walled playground leading off our classroom. I always thought how neat and friendly it looked.

The classroom furniture was tables and small chairs.

After the first few days when our mothers walked with us to school, we always walked just with the other children in the road where I lived, Brook Avenue. It never occurred to anyone that it might be dangerous. I suppose there was some safety in numbers, and there was certainly less traffic around then.

My year class at Edgware Primary School: I never knew how to spell my classmates' names, and their names here are as they sounded to me. Left to right, where I can remember: Back row: Christopher Cooper, -, -, Michael Shiner, James Ballantyne, Stephen Newing, -, Stephen Golland, Robert ? Second from back row: -, Christopher Richardson, Roger Warrington, David Arnold, -, Colin Brooks, -, -, -], Ian ?, - Middle row: Rhona -, Janet Steele, Helen Davis, -, -, Ann Dempsey, Brenda Miles, Daphne -, - Second row from front: -, Hazel Waterfall, -, -, Ginny Saunders, Pat Clarke (me), Jennifer Moss, Margaret Rennie Front row: Susan ?, Ann Rogers, Corrine Less, Jean Breedon, Susan Turner.

The classrooms

There were 30-40 children in a year group.

The classrooms were simply large rooms and the furniture was identical to what my mother described for the early 1900s classroom: a wooden high desk and chair for the teacher, a wooden-framed blackboard on an easel and two-seater desks for us children.

The caretaker

To the back of the playground was the caretaker's house where Mrs Milner lived. I suppose there must have been a Mr Milner although I don't remember him. Mrs Milner, like most women of her age, was large, as if she had had many children, and she was always sour and bad tempered. Maybe she had good reason to be: it was war time and who knows who she had lost in her family.

Free school milk

It was Mrs Milner's job to wash the beakers that we drank our free school milk from, and they always stunk of sour milk. I always tried to find a mug that didn't smell - but so did all the children. Mrs Milner would see the children smelling the mugs and she got very cross. Much later, the milk arrived in crates of small 1/3 of a pint glass bottles and the children drank directly from them using drinking straws.

Air raids and school air-raid shelters

Although the war stopped the year after I joined the school, I do remember one air raid while I was there. When the siren went, we all had to troop out into a field at the back of the school and be led what seemed quite a long way to climb down into an underground shelter which I later learnt was called an Anderson shelter. If a bomb had dropped, we would never have reached the shelter in time. There must have been other shelters for the other classes because the one our class was in wasn't particularly crowded. What stuck in my mind was how wet, muddy and dark it was inside because it was some way below ground level. There were benches to sit on but they were not particularly inviting because the dampness and mud seemed to have got to them too. Fortunately the air raid wasn't a long one and we were let out quickly.

School lavatories 1940s style

Another thing that stands out in my memory from Edgware Primary School is the lavatory floors. They, like other loos of the time were of a stone-like composite, particles of which glistened in the light. I used to try to get to one of the 'sparklers' to pick it up, but by the time I reached it, the light was no longer on it and it had turned to dull grey stone. The toilets themselves were low, and they flushed with a pull-chain - so things in the 1940s had improved since my mother's experience of school lavatories in the early 1900s!

Teachers' favourites

Once the war was over, Britain was gripped in even worse austerity, particularly with food shortages. My class teacher was a Mrs Harmer and I used to wonder why certain children in my class were so obviously her favourites, as I couldn't see any difference between them and me. Only later did I realise the significance of their parents being managers of food shops.

The 11 plus exam

In my last year at Edgware Primary School, we children were prepared for the 'scholarship', ie is the '11 plus exam' as it later came to be called. All the children in the class sat for it, and the outcome determined whether their next school would be a grammar school or a secondary modern.

 The class teacher was a man, a Mr Perrett who was wonderful at his job. I don't know whether he was back from the war or whether he had reason never to have been called up for service. In that year, I was awarded the class prize for progress - even though as far as I was concerned I didn't do anything differently. I suppose that Mr Perrett was interesting and logical, and just made work a matter of course. In his care I also passed the 11-plus exam to Copthall County Grammar School, the best grammar school in the area. I remain eternally grateful for the excellent and free education I got there under the headship of Mrs Heys-Jones. She even bothered to summon my father to the school when she found out that I was to leave to train as a shorthand typist. "That girl", she told him, "deserves a university education, and there are grants available so that she can get it." Her word was law, and to University I went. That was the beginning of a career that I have found stimulating and enjoyable.

This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as Join me in the 1900's and is © Pat Cryer.