I remember a number of Stanmore’s teachers, including Mrs Cooper, and Miss Glover, who feature on the website. Mrs Cooper was known as ‘scooper’ – children eager to answer a question shot a hand up and shouted ‘scooper’ (at least that’s the way ‘Mrs Cooper’ came out). Miss Glover read beautifully and with expression – even 60+ years on I can still remember the thrill of listening to ‘Moonfleet’ (for the uninitiated – a tale of smuggling, treasure and shipwreck set in 18th century England, written by J Meade Falkner). One less fond memory was Miss Glover’s habit, at the end of the school day, of having us stand on our chairs answering maths questions – if you answered correctly you sat down – I was usually one of the last standing!
This may have been Frances’ come back for us making an ice slide in the depths of winter, across the tarmac play-ground, starting at the bottom of the steps to her timber clad classroom. Miss Glover unwittingly gave this obstacle a test run, sliding along it on her bottom (not too many marks for style, but high marks for speed and fairly loud exclamations of shock!).
Her classroom was one of two in a block, the other occupied by Mr Harrison (an un-named teacher in the group photo including John Wright). This block was separated from the main school brick building by a narrow passageway. In these pre-Health and Safety days the boys played ‘King’ which was essentially flinging a tennis ball at each other – or aimlessly into the passageway, the ricochet making a ‘hit’ almost certain, whether another pupil or a teacher!
Both Molly and Frances were deacons at Winchester Baptist Church, which we attended as a family. Rev Joe Tweedley, also on the Stanmore website, was a Liverpudlian, an Everton supporter and not only Chair Of School Governors, but the Minister of Winchester Baptist Church – he conducted a number of our family dedications, baptisms, weddings and funerals in his 30+ years there.
I also remember from my time at Stanmore School: Mr Kent (he once ‘measured’ the palm of my hand with a ruler – and I deserved it!) – he is also un-named in the teacher group photo; Miss Brown; Miss Percival; Mrs Blake (she had us learning times tables by rote – that should be a requirement today); my sister-in-law to be, Dorothy Whone, taught at Stanmore for a spell, and (I think) she is also an un-named in the teacher group photo. Other teaching names spring to mind: Valerie Barton and Miss Cavell, but I’m not sure whether my memory is playing tricks.
Some more of my disjointed memories of Stanmore School:
nature trips to St Cross meadows, when we did pond dipping and brought all kinds of swimming or crawling creatures back to school in jam jars;
swimming trips to Bull Drove (off Garnier Road, St Cross) when we endured bathing in cold river water (off the Itchen) and the equally basic and exposed changing facilities;
sports days (I was the fastest at 100 yds in my year until Keith Harfield arrived – and he later got to Peter Symonds as well!!) – the three-legged and sack races were always good for a laugh, at others and ourselves;
rounders matches out the front of School were an opportunity to get the hard ball rocketing into Stanmore Lane!;
home inter-school football matches at Stanmore Recreation Ground (I was usually right back). Handily this large open space was at the bottom of our garden in Stuart Crescent;
the School outside toilets freezing in the winter - a new block was built later for the girls, as I remember;
also in the winter, the pupils’ daily bottles of milk would freeze, the cream pushing out of the top with the silver lid as a hat – the cream survived so long as the blue tits didn’t get there first – and oh, the honour of being chosen as class milk monitor!;
school concerts (brilliant, particularly the Christmas ones, with ‘proper carols’), I once got to sing Schubert’s ‘The Trout’ to the gathered audience including parents and relations – don’t know how that would go down in the X Factor generation;
at one concert the Clark brothers (twins I think) played a piano duet, which left an indelible memory;
a very late apology to Susan Ames, who presented me with a toy car, which ended up in the boys’ toilet cistern! – how, I don’t remember, and it may be disingenuous to suggest my school mates had a hand in this, out of jealousy. The contractors who pulled down the toilet block years later would have made an unusual discovery.
in the infants, we boys would run round the play-ground shouting (something like) “Illy ally oos playing cowboys and indians – no girals”;
the wartime bomb shelters were quite a significant feature in the school landscape, and while they were supposed to be out of bounds, I am sure that did not deter some of us! – our play was still heavily influenced by what had been experienced just a handful of years before we were born;
this was the Cold War, and I guess this was a reason not to remove the shelters - we occasionally heard the haunting wail of the air raid sirens on the Stanmore estate being tested.
In the days of the school ‘cook-house’ being over towards the railway line, the teachers’ lunch was transported in tins on a wheeled trolley, through the school to the staff room on the other side of school. Selected children were responsible for the delivery – nothing happened to the food on the way (honestly!), but after lunch the leftovers were further ‘reduced’ by we hungry kids in transit – recycling at its best! The waste food was consigned to pig bins, collected daily by the local pig farmer.
This last memory brought back a rhyme from the Stanmore playground “Say what you will, school dinners make you ill, and Davy Crockett died of shepherds pie: our school din dins come from pig bins, out of town.” I can still sing the tune, which I think was based on a popular song of the time (Max Bygraves – ask your grandparents).