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| This is the page where we add your reminiscences of your days at school in Burton. Please share your memories. Just use the Contact Us button at the bottom of the page and e-mail in your contributions, however brief. Just tell us the one thing or the couple of things you remember most. We will honour any wishes to remain anonymous, and we should also point out that this page is subject to the laws of libel, so we reserve the right to edit contributions! | ||||||
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1950s
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"The two things I remember about Miss Clipson were the way she used to smack your thigh [click here for the details] and also that if she saw you with your hands in your pockets, she'd say "I'll sew your pockets up - that will stop you doing that!"
Robert Mills |
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"I remember when we were in the Council Infants School and I was in Miss Pack's and Miss Hornbuckle's classes. Their classrooms faced Evans' field with Evans' chicken farm on the other side. In the summer months when the wind blew from that direction, the classroom windows would be closed pretty quick!"
Trevor Cooper |
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"When we were in Big School [Council Junior School 1950s] I remember one of the teachers would take us to do Gardening on the bit of ground up Higham Hill near where the Medical Centre now stands."
Mick Stephenson |
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"What I remember about the Church School is us playing "1-2-3 British Bulldog" down in the bottom yard. It was really a rough game. Boys would fight and struggle like anything to get away if they were caught."
Ivan Gazeley |
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| "When I was in Miss Stokes' Class I used to sit in the front row with Jane Arnold, and when Miss Stokes had us all doing exercises at our desks, first thing in the morning, she used to be standing at the front, and when she swung her arms up in the air, her dress would ride up with her arms and you could see about six inches of underskirt. Well, I was chopsing [chatting] about it to Jane, and Miss Stokes asked us what we were chopsing about. When we told her, she said 'Right, well you can get your mother to buy me a new dress!' So we did - we went home and told our mums about it and they got Miss Stokes a new dress! My mum used to reckon that Miss Stokes had been a brilliant tennis player in her time. When she started to get thin, we kids used to reckon that she was taking special pills with maggots in them, and the maggots were eating her up inside!
The teachers (click here for images and more information) all had their own ways of punishing you. Mr Pentelow would use two rulers, back-to-back so that they were double thickness, across the back of your hand. Mr Norton had this big old white slipper with a hole in the sole - you got that across your backside. He also had a ring with its stone missing and he'd walk round and use the outside of that hand to whack you on top of the head. If Mr White got angry, he'd throw a bit of chalk at you - that's how he got his nickname - 'Chalky' White." |
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"In the Infants School, I remember having to take a rest during the afternoon. I remember having a bad fall while skipping and was well looked after, nobody worried about who was giving us a friendly cuddle and putting the plasters on!!
In the Juniors I used to love the craft afternoon with Miss Leach. She let us listen to the wireless - I think it must have been 'Listen With Mother'. That is where I learned to knit and remember making a scarf using a 'gypsy stitch', also a felt pincushion which I finally had to part with in 2010!! I remember playing in the air-raid shelters although we weren't supposed to, and also whenever there was an eclipse we all went into the playground to look through smoked glass at it. I remember taking the 11plus in the main hall and when we passed we were actually allowed to go home to tell our parents!! Loved making models in Mr White's class. Must have been studying Holland, as I made a windmill and a huge 'cheese sleigh'. I was very proud to be 4th in the class to be allowed to write with a fountain pen.
Celia Addis (now Harris)
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1970s
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"From my time at Meadowside Infants, I remember the medical exam - all standing in the corridor in your underpants, waiting to see the nurse. A bit daunting when you are four or five. I also remember the site of the Junior School being waste land we used to play on, but slowly watching it become a school. I moved to East Lea Juniors before it was finished."
Rob Jolley |
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Memories of times at County Infant and Junior schools (in no particular order)– The smell of pine disinfectant in the infant school cloakroom, even now that smell instantly transports me back in time. The old chap who used to stand at the railings sticking his false teeth out at the children to scare them for a bit of fun, (have no idea who he was but was always walking around the High Street). Someone brought a real live bat to infant school and it escaped, eventually being caught in the girls toilets. Slipper bags and Duffle coats. Playing in the hollowed-out logs on the edge of the playing field. Playing rounders in P.E. and being trusted to fetch the ball from the corn field at the end of the playing field. Knitted woollen balaclavas and how itchy they were. Buying a cone of sherbet pips from Yeoman’s greengrocers in the High Street on the way to school after lunch, (I think there is an estate agents there now). Standing in the playground and watching the cornfields on the hills towards Eady’s garage being blown by the wind and thinking it looked like waves on the sea, (I had an imagination in those days). Wearing the toes out of my shoes trying to play football in the junior playground with a tennis ball. Outdoor toilets. Mrs Smith (wasn’t she tall!). Doing forward rolls over the metal bar at the side of the cargo net climbing frame, (they’d have a fit over health and safety these days!). All the girls, and some of the boys, waiting for Tony Blackburn to appear and open the new Spar supermarket. Mr White silencing a class with just a ‘look’, (I tried that with my kids….it didn’t work). Lesley Bettles being better at football than most of the boys. Mr Scarratt the lollipop man. Being collected early because of deep snow. Morning Assembly….”All things bright and beautiful…….”, “Onward Christian Soldiers……”, and the Lord’s Prayer. Playing headers and volleys in the Rec with an under-inflated football on the way home. |
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I was reading Dave Brown's account of schooldays and I too remember “The Polo Man” who used to bring us sweets through the fence but we weren’t really supposed to talk to him….how I’d love to know who he was… I started at Meadowside Infant School and can remember playing Cowboys and Indians and my first hearing of Apache by the Shadows….Meadowside, its your fault I grew up to love Sir Cliff Richard. I also planted the tree at the front of the Junior school, but I can't remember for the life of me why we were planting it…it was in the paper I think and I’m glad to say its still standing ! I moved away when I was eight but remember my friends..Christopher Miller, Danny Coles (who my cousin married), Janette from Station Road, Amanda Walden – my best friend…..Russell Cousins, the Prescotts, the Loake boys, Richard Page…. Sally Williams |
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