Idyllic memories

2 Harrinton Road - formerly St Michael's School
©Tony Mould: all images copyright protected

A distinctly unorthodox curriculum

My year group was the very last at St Michael’s School. The school had long been at the Victorian villa in Harrington Road by then and pupil numbers were in decline. I have such idyllic memories, though. I remember lessons in rooms that had clearly been living-rooms, still with mouldings and cornices and fireplaces; playtime in the garden, with its lawns, its pond, its woodpile and lunch at a single long table. We had basic literacy for the first year and then onto Miss Willis’s distinctly unorthodox curriculum. Even in the mid-1960s, as modernity assailed the worm-eaten fabric of British life, we still learned poems by Wordsworth, Latin nouns, the geography of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and St Paul’s itinerary through the Holy Land.

Cook made our favourite dishes

We sat exams, played cricket — though there were barely enough of us to form two teams, sang hymns and listened to Miss Willis read each morning from a Bible on onion-skin paper with gilt edges. And yes, we still rested on grey blankets after lunch. One of my favourite memories is of Miss Willis inscribing my name and the year (1965) on Kennedy’s Latin Primer, a copy that followed me around for decades. There was the cook who came in each day and would prepare our favourite dishes for us; mine was at the time was gooseberry tart. I distinctly remember a raw winter morning when it was suddenly decided that every child should have hot milk and Lincoln biscuits to fortify them.

Are you an ex-pupil of St Michael’s? If you can share your memories, please leave a comment below.

The spell was broken

If I remember correctly, the school moved to Preston Park Avenue briefly. Then in the summer, on the last day of term, the teachers were selling off the fittings: parents took away infant desks and chairs, children acquired tantalising packets of coloured chalks that had languished in cupboards for years. Sadly all at once, the spell was broken. In recent years, I thought about revisiting the house in Harrington Road, but it is now divided into flats and there is probably little trace of the school. But they were such happy days.

Comments about this page

  • My brother Roger and I were pupils here in the early 1960s. Your reminiscences revived many of my own. I owe a lot to Miss Willis, especially an appreciation of poetry. Somewhere I have a copy of Palgrave’s (?)  Golden Treasury signed by her. What along time ago and what a legacy? I have been very lucky in life and owe a good deal of my successes to her. 

    By Geoffrey Munn (18/05/2017)
  • Yes-I have very fond memories of Miss Willis and St Michael’s.As 6 year olds we were taught French (Madame Souris) and Latin (Hillard and Botting-Cotta will attack the Belgians) etc.I remember Miss Keywood and of course Sir-Tony Willis.And going on the bus to play games and collecting the reel of bus tickets.

    By John Polsue (21/11/2020)
  • I remember Roger and Geoffrey Munn.And my days at St Michael’s.In my book the teaching was to a very high standard.For a while I lived with the parents of William Shingler because my parents were in Nigeria.I remember boys like Johnathan Ham and Campfield (Joffey?),the Ball brothers etc.Lovely school in a funny old way!
    John Polsue.

    By John Polsue (21/11/2020)
  • I remember Roger and Geoffrey Munn.And my days at St Michael’s.In my book the teaching was to a very high standard.For a while I lived with the parents of William Shingler because my parents were in Nigeria.I remember boys like Johnathan Ham and Campfield (Joffey?),the Ball brothers etc.Lovely school in a funny old way!
    John Polsue.

    By John Polsue (23/11/2020)
  • Thanks for sharing your memories of the school. I’m one of those now living in one of the flats in the building. If anyone can share any photographs of the inside, I’d love to reference it’s history. Was the top floor in use at all? How were the rooms used? Thanks!

    By Jo (22/03/2021)
  • Old boys may be interested to know that I have been working on some reminiscences and St Michael’s school features prominently. I hope they will be published early next year. I have had a wonderful life and I am convinced I owe a huge debt to the formative influence of Miss Willis (“S’Willis”) I still have the copy of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury inscribed by her with my name and the date 1961! Tempus Fugit! (she would like that?) http://www.geoffreymunn.art

    By Geoffrey Munn (28/06/2021)
  • I remember you Geoffrey and your brother Roger.I am still in touch with Nigel Robinson and,vaguely,William Shingler. I too have my Palgrave and a couple of other text books inscribed in Miss Willis’ distinctive hand-in ink of course.
    St Michael’s was a wonderful start in our education.
    I was reading a book by John Barclay-ex Sussex CCC captain- and it seems that he was at St Michael’s .

    By John Polsue (04/07/2021)
  • I was there from about 1952 until 1956, initially at the Church Hall in Knoyle Road and then at Harrington Road. Some random memories:
    – football. we played each year against Brighton College, Eastbourne College, and Ardingly College. All much bigger schools so we inevitably got beaten. Miss Willis insisted on us playing in thick jerseys (in the school colours) rather than football shirts like the kids at the other schools. If the weather was too cold she wouldn’t let her boys play football so instead our games master (nice guy, forget his name) took us on walks. A favourite was along London Road, and up the Droveway (past Davigdor Dairies) to Hove Park.
    – I still have my Golden Treasury of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English Language.
    – Also my Form 1B prize (July 25th 1955), Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.
    – Learning French and Latin at 7. Wow!
    – A lasting memory. Grace before lunch. “Artra Batra See May the Lord Make Us Truly Thankful”! As we were learning Latin I was convinced that the first words were Latin. It wasn’t until many years later that I heard grace being said again and realised it was “For what we are about to receive”!
    – a couple of names I remember. Jonathan Beale, John Tarling.
    – all in all an interesting experience, very different from the education I would have received at Henfield Primary School.
    – what was the name of the shop in Western Road where we bought the school uniforms? Long gone.

    By Rohan Alce (28/12/2022)
  • The school uniform shop was Cobley’s. There were 4 forms; the oldest children were in the First Form, the youngest in the Fourth. Miss Allen, Miss Anderson, Miss Keywood were teachers when I was there. Miss Willis’ Latin report in my first year – I was 5 or so 1959 – said “Has not yet mastered this subject”.
    I think ‘Sir’ taught gym. The garage was a cloakroom with lots of coat hooks and shoe racks for outdoor and indoor shoes. I remember Jonathan Ham, Nicholas Hackman, Graham Baker, Andrew Keir, Nicholas Houghton-Brown, Ramsbottom, Matthews, Jonathan Leeson and brother Graham I think.
    I have a photo somewhere – about 30 pupils.
    Miss Willis did not believe in illness or disease, considering it merely a mild form of possession – “the evil coming out of the child”. Miss Allen, as was common then and amazingly not extirpated yet, thought left-handedness a sign of sinister demonic familiarity, and worked hard to ‘cure’ pupils of it.
    St. Michael’s was eccentric but that too was usual then. And we did learn things: some useful, some perhaps too adult for very young children, such as the politics of the Cuban Missile Crisis, many poems and little useful rhymes by heart.

    By Andrew Edlin (30/01/2023)

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