Do you recognise yourself, or any old school friends here?
If you can add some names, please leave comment below.
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Do you recognise yourself, or any old school friends here?
If you can add some names, please leave comment below.
Click on the photograph to open a large version in a new window.
Comments about this page
I believe this was these children are aged 6 and 7. I was born in 1954 -this would be Miss Clothiers class,she was the headmistress at the time. These are the children I can identify for sure: Left to right Front row X legged: Christopher Moore, Rosemary Brown, Martha Sands (me), Barbara Jenman, Phillip Melling and Linda Walford Middle row: Judith Botting, Christine Preece, Christine Parks, Sylvia Tester, Anne Waddington, ?can’t remember, Ian Harber, ?can’t remember, Grace Hambleton, David Bowman, Colin Smith Back row: Gillian Woodruff, Georgina Braden, Elaine Clevett, William Want, Peter Forrest, James (Jimmy) Taylor, David Solly, Derek Harland?, Pauline Bohannon, Margaret Woolgar?, Can’t remember?, Sandra Herring, Eileen Maidlow, Susan Scott and Shirley Carden. We might have expected to have seen in this line-up Howard Attwater, who was definitely in our class at St Peters, and Jacqueline Hawkins who I also remember but I don’t think they are amongst the ones I haven’t named. Anyone any ideas? I don’t remember much from those early years of mine at the Infants school except a couple of incidents. I was an escape artist and would occasionally leg it home to St Andrew’s Road at playtime only to be returned to school by my mother. I dropped a jar of my mother’s homemade jam taken for the harvest festival in the first year I was there and being told off for bringing a glass jar into school. I was very sad at having nothing to put on the display and grizzled most of the day. I peed on the floor of the hall after being scolded for not coming back into class after playtime and was made to get a mop to clean up. We were invited to make a knitted egg cosy cover but only if we could already knit. Desperate to make one, I raised my hand and I was not a knitter. We queued at Mrs Collins (school secretary) door for dropped stitches, casting off and on. I was permanently in the queue and each time I reached the front, she would say ‘Haven’t I just seen you?’ Mine was the neatest egg cosy of all, yellow with a green satin ribbon. I remember it now, the pride I had in taking it home. Miss Clothier always seemed to have it in for me. I really wasn’t ready for school and structured learning. I remember being called to put an addition sum on the board and placing there 21 and 12 = 33, so it was right but not complex enough and I was told to get out. I spent a lot of time outside the door in the very large corridor opposite the cloakroom. The most serious incident – one day I was accused of taking something from the coat pegs, I professed my innocence and sobbed my eyes out, my mother would be told – yet another misdemeaniour. The item subsequently turned up and Miss Clothier had to make an apology to me; she brought me in a satin homemade pussycat. She was a teacher of the old school, stern and rather harsh but kindly at times. Sometimes a small packet of sweets appeared under the plastic water beakers in the dining hall, tables were properly laid for dinner then . The school always reeked of cabbage and polish as I remember. I think almost everybody from this class photo graduated to Benfield Primary School, although I think Peter Forrest went on to St Mary’s RC School I recall. I was sad to hear that he had died quite young. Someone told me when I visited the school when it had a fete a few years back now – I was at the time visiting my parents in St Andrews Road when I went along there. Virtually all the children in the photograph ended their school careers at the Boys and Girls Secondary Schools in Portslade. The clever ones here were Judith Botting who won a scholarship to Brighton and Hove High School for Girls and William Want who went to the Boys Grammar School. Still some of us did rather well later on and developed professional careers. We must have learnt something here then at this school and we started writing on slates with chalks and reading with Janet and John and Dick and Dora!
Thanks for this Martha. It brought back lots of memories of school days.
Does anyone have any photos from 61-65? I can’t remember much about the school but I can remember wanting to marry Helen Petit!
I can remember walking to school with Tracy Porter and her mum in the 1960’s. Keith Banks.
I attended between 1967 – 1969. I remember lots of ill children, some of who died. Standing in the corner wearing a dunce cap, being force-fed lunch and being bullied in the outside loos, by a girl with a broken nose called Jill. Also watching my brother and other children being forced to stand on their chairs through lunch.
Amazing to see this photo I remember a lot of the pupils ‘ happy times’ apart from miss Clothier didn’t take to me ! Put me off school life for ever would be lovely to see how everyone is ? Memomories where has time gone ?
My cousin, Philip Melling, passed away due to a variety of long term illnesses on 25 November 2019.
Hi Martha, do you remember me? I’m Christine Baffin now Robert-Shaw. My mum and I often came to visit you. Lovely picture by the way.
Yes a few names I remember in the comments and some news too. Yes Christine née Baffin I do remember you! Our Mum’s were quite friendly and your Dad John? Worked for the railway. You lived in Norway Street..on the corner of Symbister Road. I left Portslade in 1972 and I now live in South Wales. I became a teacher. Sad to hear Philip Melling has passed on and Peter Forrest too. To the contributor who mentioned illness and child mortality I do remember outbreaks of scarlet fever measles and mumps. I always had styes and boils on my knees, chilblains in winter and I remember excruciating episodes of toothache. I remember a boy dying from St Andrews Road from a strep infection, croup? His name was Philip or Phillips..a ginger haired boy with a brother Andrew. We weren’t very healthy and our diet was not as good as children’s today. I remember tea in our house was monotonous jam sandwiches and stale cake, we had dinners in school. But at least in our house we had butter where many households made do with hard Stork margarine which tasted ghastly.
Love to hear from anyone who remembers me. I’m on FB, but I have high privacy settings and if you find me you’ll have to PM me.
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