Every picture tells a story

I went to school in what are now the tea rooms at Moreton. We had to wear a dark dress, apron and white starched epaulettes.

One day we were having our school photograph taken and my apron was all creased so I took it off for the photo, but when I came home that night, my dad said to me ‘you did wear your apron, didn’t you?’ and I didn’t want him to know so I said, ‘yes I did!’

I didn’t know the photo would tell the truth! There’s still a photo of me in my uniform on the wall in the tea room!

Written by Gwen Spicer.

School Days

From nursery to National Service

After I left school aged 16, I went to live with a friend of the family at Wimborne.

I worked on their nursery where they grew tomatoes and flowers. Then I worked on a farm near Martinstown working with the shepherd and the dairy girls who milked the cows.

Then I was called up for National Service, which had the advantage of learning to drive. I trained at Dorchester Barracks and then I was posted to Hong Kong and Korea. The fighting in Korea had finished and we were keeping the peace. The country was beautiful.

When I was demobilised I went back to work on the farm I had worked on before. I got stood off. I went to the Labour Exchange and was sent up to Bradford Peverel to make TV ariels.

Then I went to work for SNOOK, a small general builder, as a painter and decorator and I stayed there for the rest of my life.

Written by Brian Matthews.

A childhood in Seatown

I was born in Bothenhampton nearly 90 years ago. I first started at the general school in Bridport and then we went to live with my Grandma in Chideock. I went to the catholic school there.

Our family was not catholic but my mother thought that the nuns were the best teachers in the area. The nuns came to Chideock by bus every day from Bridport. I remember Sister Christine who taught the older children (7-14 year olds) and my lovely teacher, Sister Helen Joseph who taught the infants.

I was the fourth of five children. I had an older sister and then came my twin brothers, followed by me and lastly, my kid brother. My sister was 6 ft tall, my twin brothers were respectively 6’6” and 6’3” and my youngest brother grew up to be 6’3”.

I remember being quite put out that I was the only short one in the family at 5’4” and chiding my father about it!

We moved to Seatown taking my grandmother with us to Seatown House that my mother ran as a boarding house. She was a brilliant cook and I took after her with a real love of cooking. We had lots of interesting visitors including members of the Dickens family who came down regularly including the Dickens’ grandchildren.

I remember Canadian visitors as well who we really liked. My father cycled to work in Bridport every day while my mother looked after the boarding house and we children walked up to school in Chideock.

We had a lovely childhood at Seatown House. I remember going down for a swim before breakfast, coming back up to the house in the early morning to help mother look after the guests. We had a hammock hung between the apple and pear tree in the garden.

There was just a plank out in front of the house where there is a bridge now and open ground where we used played cricket is now a car park. I was quite a tomboy and used to love playing out with my kid brother.

We used to go up on the cliffs – I remember a little cave in the cliffs where we used to go and hide out, taking along some sandwiches and squash for our picnic lunch. I knew all those cliffs like the back of my hand. There were lots of adders up there on the heath land.

On one occasion, the two of us followed one of our older brothers and a cousin out along the heath to the top of Golden Cap. We kept ourselves well hidden so they didn’t know that we were following them. I was about 14 years old and my kid brother was 12. We watched them go over the top and climb down the face of the Golden Cap and decided to follow! I had no fear at all! The cliff was not so crumbly in those days. We climbed down without any problem! I don’t know of any other girl who has done that! My mother found out eventually and was furious and I was under strict orders not to try that again!

My kid brother had a great love of animals and used to half live on the local farm, helping out. He used to saddle up the horse and get it all ready for the farmer to take the milk churn on the trap down to Chideock where it would be picked up.

I used to take my son, Bill out on cycle rides, over from Bridport to Chideock. We would get quite competitive going up the hill on the way back, seeing which of us could stay on the longest before having to get off and push!

In those days, of course, the roads were quiet and it was lovely to cycle around the countryside. Really nice memories!

Written by Dorothy.

Lots of sports but lessons too

I was an only child born in Winterborne Stickland in 1935. When I was 4 we moved to Martinstown to be near my father’s family. I went to Martinstown Village School for boys and girls.

The boys’ school lavatories had no plumbing, only buckets. In the War years, the girls left the village school at 15 but I left at 11 to go to the Grammar School in Dorchester, and stayed until I was 16.

There were a lot of sports which I enjoyed, especially football, cricket, athletics and cross country running. We had a first class gym with ropes, bars, horses.

At school we did English, Maths, Geography, History, Religious Studies, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. We went to school a half day on Saturday and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we had a half day in the classroom, the rest of the day was sports. We had Assembly every day. We mostly joined the Army Cadets.

During the War, our family was friendly with a American soldier, Miles Gonzales who sometimes came to my house. I used to write to him. Then I got a letter from his mother saying that he survived the war but had become a mental wreck.

Written by Brian Matthews.

Pushing the bus to school

There were about 90 to 100 children in the school at Symondsbury.

Some came from Broadoak and Eype, they had to walk there and back from as young as five years old.

In winter they left for school in the morning in the dark. Then they upgraded it and Greens had a bus, but it broke down so often the kids spent more time pushing it than riding in it.

Written by a Dorset Resident

From appendicitis to domestic science

I was a very cherished baby because I was the only one. I was very posh in a posh pram and all the rest of it and eventually I did get to school. Poole Grammar School was a very good school in those days.

Afterwards it was changed and the Parkstone School became Parkstone Girls and Poole became Poole Boys. But of course I was sports mad, I was hockey mad, I was the Captain and played tennis althought I wasn’t so keen on the tennis.

In the picture to the right, that's me in the front row, second from the right, with my hockey team.

Luckily (which sounds rather peculiar) I had appendicitis when I was just 17 due to take my exams and so instead of being out on the tennis court I was taking my exams and able to do a lot of revision instead of sadly not playing tennis.

Well, that did get me through into college and I went to Bath Domestic Science College. I don’t know if you know Bath, it was a very lovely city.

We did a year, we did Science and some cookery and then we went home in July for a month only to be told by letter to say that the college was closed. Well now, I had to look for a job.

Having done a year I managed to get a job in a little school near Wareham. Now this was because the threat of war was so imminent and children had been evacuated into the schools around us and there were extra teachers needed. I was there for about a month or 6 weeks and then we had a notification that the college had reopened and so back I went to college. Things were changed.

The Admiralty didn’t think they were safe any longer in London and they had descended on Bath which they thought was a safe city and taken over everything. They had taken our college, all our lodgings and we were a bit stuck.

We weren’t returned because the Ministry of Food had had a lot of carrots and stuff sunk out in the ocean and they realised that we were going to depend more on our own produced food, so we were reinstated in order to do an experiment with food to introduce means of extending the rations which were quite tight.

In actual fact rations were quite a healthy thing, a lot of people benefited by having to adapt to rations. Well we went on for a year there in college.

Meantime they started to bomb Bath. We were re-housed on the side of a hill so although we were many tiers in the building the bottom was to be the air raid shelter. Actually it had a window at the bottom, so we still had a window looking out.

We were allowed to put on our dressing gowns and carry a pillow to sit on. We did have some nuns who were learning to teach their children and they had to stop to dress.

Written by Peggy Wyatt.

Coal fires at Long Bredy School

I went to Long Bredy School. The school had two classrooms and the children were split into two age groups.

We had coal fires and the teachers were all nice and friendly. We started school at 9 am and finished at 3.30pm.

When I was 11, I went by bus to Dorchester Modern School. I started school at 9am and finished at 4pm. I remember having to change classes for every lesson.

Written by June Page.

Exams and tear gas

In 1941 I had to go to the Grammar School in Dorchester to take the 11plus exam. Four of us from Puddletown School passed. While we were taking the exam there was an air raid and an army exercise going on.

Troops were charging down South Street and everywhere else, throwing tear gas. So we had to take the exam amidst all the noise, with streaming eyes from the tear gas.

Two teachers, Mr Whittaker and Mr Cole, ex army, supervised the exam and bawled and shouted at us to keep quiet. We had never experienced this before.

There was a lot of maths questions and an English test, but it was mainly an intelligence test. All the Prep Schools (fee paying pupils) took the 11 plus. All the first year boys and half of the second year, which we joined, were fee paying. Us working class scholarship boys were in the minority.

One teacher referred to the first year fee paying boys as the crème de la crème. At school I always felt inferior.

Two out of three of the boys in the whole school were fee paying, and one out of three scholarship. I had a scholar’s bus ticket, for six days travel.

The school buses were very old and could only just get up Yellowham Hill. On Saturday mornings we had lessons which were compulsory.

On Saturday afternoons we had Association Football and cross country runs. The Hardye’s school bus took me to Puddletown where I picked up my bike from my grandmother’s house to ride home to Athelhampton.

Written by John Antell.

Remembering Lyme Regis Grammar School

I went to Lyme Regis Grammar School which was established by Alban Woodroffe in about 1924. My brother was one of the first students there and I went in 1930.

It was where the Woodmead Carpark is now. There were about thirty students in a class but only thirty girls in the whole school. There were about four girls in our class, none in the sixth form.

There were only two women teachers. I was a mathematician and so I was Mr. Thomas’s favourite – he taught maths.

Miss Carson taught English and Latin and Miss Slaney taught history and geography, which weren’t my subjects.

In Miss Carson’s class I had a seat at the back in the corner and I was knitting a jumper under the desk. She caught me and made me unravel all the work I had done.

The headmaster was Mr. Watton, I think he and one of his sons died during the war.

Did you know that Lyme Regis was the first town in Dorset to get electricity in 1909 thanks to Alban Woodroffe?

Written by Jo Musk.

Dorchester Modern School Dance

I attended the Catholic School first then transferred to Maud Road School. When I was eleven I went to Dorchester Modern School.

We wore a grey and maroon uniform.

Once a year, just before the summer holidays, the school took the year 4 children dancing at Bovington. Lots of schools in the area took part. But the year I was supposed to go it rained and so the event was cancelled.

Written by Heather Mitcham.

Tea and currant buns

Every year in July the Dorset Police had a Sports Day which was always held on a Wednesday at the Recreation Ground in Weymouth Avenue.

All the schools took part in this and at the end of the day we were all given a special tea.

We were given fancy cakes to eat which was a real luxury as ½ d currant buns were our usual fare. The tea was provided by the Pope's Charity Fund.

To qualify to take part in the Sports Day the schools ran heats and by a process of elimination children were selected to compete, as not every child could take part - there would have been far too many of them.

Events included running, jumping, sack races and the egg and spoon race. I was in the egg and spoon race.

The other highlight of the summer was the Sunday School Treat run by each church and chapel. This was usually a trip to Weymouth it being the cheapest and shortest journey option and was always held on a Thursday. It took place sometime between the end of June and the end of July, the County Council having ruled that schools would be closed for the day.

I went to St George's Sunday School. We assembled at the church at 8am and were taken down to Weymouth beach. At midday I had to meet my mother 'down by the donkeys' when she would arrive with sandwiches and currant buns.

She bought the currant buns from a baker's shop called Merrikins. We played on the beach until about 3pm when we went into town for a tea provided and paid for by the church. Our tea was at the Clinton restaurant which is now Mothercare. We used to have a wonderful tea there.

Written by Freda Wade.

90 pupils in one class!

My mother told me that when she went to school at Radipole there were 90 pupils in one class.

This was because it was the only school to take in all the children from the Parish which extended all the way up to Lodmoor Hill.

I also went to the same school (which is now St Ann’s Church Hall). I clearly remember that once a year the whole school would go up to Corfe Hill House and have a picnic on the lawn and then later the children would go inside and sit on the staircase and watch a magic lantern show.

At Christmas all the villagers would be given a joint of meat by the Squire.

Written by Louise Symonds.

Frozen milk and other school pleasures!

After the war I went Maud Road Infants School and then to Colliton Street Boys School in Dorchester.

The outside lavatories used to freeze up during winter. We had 'tortoise heaters' in the classrooms and the frozen bottles of milk used to be put on top of the heaters to thaw. The milk smelt foul but we drank it. The cane was used frequently.

The teachers I remember were Miss Downing and Miss Minterne who used to give us pieces of fudge if we worked well.

Written by Adrian Downton.

School lunch in the 1960s

Because the classroom where the children used to have lunch had been demolished, we had to march them down a village lane and across a busy main road to the village hall where lunch was served.

We had to do this in all weathers and then march them back again after lunch. This meant that on some days the children had hardly any playtime, nor did the teachers get a break.

All five teachers, with the exception of the headmaster, were involved in shepherding the children back and forth. There were about one hundred and fifty children.

Written by Sonia Hewitt.

Schools long gone

I was born in 1928 and began my schooldays at the St George's Infant School on Fordington Hill. This building has now been turned into flats.

I attended this school until I was 7 years old when all the girls, on reaching this age, were sent on to Icen Way School where they remained until reaching 11 years of age.

The Icen Way school building was built in 1910 and, when I was there in 1935, it had been condemned.

However, the Grammar School took it over for a few years and since then it has had many uses and is still standing to this day!

Written by Peggy Voss.

A village school in the 1960s

I worked as a part-time teacher of 7 – 8 year old boys and girls. I shared a class of forty children with the headmaster.

The subjects we taught were the three R’s – reading, writing and arithmetic – as well as history, geography, religious instruction, games, and art and craft.

Later, a full time teacher was appointed and I became the teacher of remedial reading. I had a desk in a corridor and the children were sent to me one at a time. I used the Beacon readers.

I had to stop teaching five minutes before the end of each lesson period so that the children could walk along the corridor where I taught.

Written by Sonia Hewitt.

Handkerchiefs show – noses blow

I went to Fordington Infants School. The Head Mistress was Miss Parsons and the teacher was Miss Kimber.

Each morning we assembled in the playground, handkerchiefs pinned on our clothes with a large safety pin

– Handkerchiefs show, Noses blow was the routine – Then hands inspection.

If hands and nails were clean, we were later given a Clean Hands Badge. There was a row of houses on walking towards the Moule Institute, where we all, boys and girls learned to dance.

Everybody from the Fordington area had really nice times playing table tennis and concerts with a little band called the Novelty Aces, whose members were all local boys.

Much later, there were shows from the band and the Club at the Corn Exchange. Miss Amy White played the piano for all the concerts, she was a brilliant pianist and lived at number 80 Fordington Hill.

We played Whip and Tops and trundling our hoops in the street - no traffic to stop us, we went to play nearly all day in the summer on Mount Pleasant. It is now houses. Later we moved to 3 Harveys Terrace, later to be renamed, the part we lived in was 21 High Street.

In 1931, I attended Icen Way School. It was next to the gas works and if the gas was too strong, we were sent to Salisbury Fields, or, if it was raining, we were sent home. We were always in the same classroom and I left school when I was 14.

Written by Joyce Ray.

Those were the days

Every summer, in about June, pupils from all the Dorset schools went to Bovington Camp to enjoy an afternoon of country dancing held outside.

I was at the Maud Road School by then. We all had to have special dresses that were made up out of a blue and white cotton print material.

I was in the first year at Maud Road and was given a dress to wear which had been worn by a girl in the last year.

Because this girl's dresses fitted me her mother gave me a whole lot of summer dresses, I inherited four or five of them which kept me going through my school days.

Another item of clothing which I particularly remember was the Wellington boot. Everyone wore them in the winter and some children wore them cut down in the summer too. These children were from very poor families.

However the teachers decided it was not right for children to sit all day in Wellington boots and so some children did their lessons with just socks on their feet. The rest of us wore plimsolls in the summer.

Then there was the nit nurse who would appear periodically all through my school days. She wore a white coat and a navy blue felt hat with a badge on the front and she had a north country accent. She would take over the Headmistress' room and we had to line up and go in one at a time for her to examine us. We were then sent back to our classroom.

At the end of the morning notes would be given to all those who had nits to take home to their parents asking them to wash our hair. It was a terrible disgrace to be sent home with a note.

When I was at Infant School I was sitting next to a dirty girl who had nits. At the time I had long curly hair. I had nits and went home with a note. My mother washed my hair in paraffin and this took the skin off the back of my neck. She raised merry hell at the school and got me moved to another place in the classroom.

School hours in those days were, for the Infant School and Primary School 9am to 12 noon and 2-4pm, and for the Senior School 9am to 12 noon and 2-4.30pm. Going to the senior school meant I had a long walk from near St George's Church to Maud Road. I used to aim to be in South Walks when the brewery hooter sounded at 1.30pm otherwise I knew I was going to be late.

The other time signal people used, we didn't have watches in those days, was the foundry bell and that used to ring at 7am, 12 noon, 1pm and 5pm. The brewery hooter also sounded at 8am,12.30pm and 5pm.

We had cookery lessons on Mondays and for this we had to wear a white apron and a large man's handkerchief on our heads. The cookery teacher used to inspect our hands and then give a demonstration of what we were going to make that day. The lessons were a combination of housewifery and cookery.

We were taught to black lead a stove, how to clean brass and windows, how to shop for cleaning materials, and how to store soap. Soap, in those days, came in big bars like a brick which had to be cut into pieces.

There were two kinds of salt – cooking and table salt. The cooking salt was bought in brown paper packets and sold in 'brick' form.

Written by Freda Wade.

Playground games

I was born in Bournemouth and attended a mixed infant school in Boscombe.

The Headmaster was Mr Watton and one of the teachers was Mr Hewines, who, if the children were noisy while he was out of the room, would come back in and point to the child making the noise and say 'Go to the front, boy'.

The children played rough games in the school playground. One game involved a child standing against a wall with several others bending over and making a line in front of him.

The other team would try, in turn, to walk on the backs of those children, who would make efforts to dislodge them.

Another game was Chariots, where 2 children would link hands and run around the playground, knocking over other 'Chariots'.

I mostly had my lunches from home, but for a short period had school dinners.

Living so close to the sea, I remember playing on the beach at weekends and in holiday times. I belonged to the Boys Brigade in Boscombe.

After leaving the infant school, I attended Bournemouth Grammar School for Boys. The uniform was a chocolate brown jacket and a cap.

The boys played football and cricket at the school, I was asked to play cricket for Christchurch, after playing against them in the school team.

My first job was with Bradley, Slater and Radcliffe who were accountants, with branches in Boscombe and Christchurch. I was called up and joined the RAF in Christchurch.

Written by Barry Weadon.

From schoolgirl to florist

School dinners were rationed but very good.

I remember the School Nurse, I loved Art, days out at Poole Park and the Zoo, and Bristol Salvation Army Bands.

I was brought up by my grandmother in the Salvation Army. I was married at 18 and lived at Arlington in Branscombe and worked up at the school and as a florist all my working life.

Written by Ruby Brown.

Blandford Girls’ school in 1951

Blandford school took girls from the ages of 7 to 11.

Blandford operated a 3-tier school system. Children started at Blandford Infants School from 5 to 7, and after leaving the Blandford Girls School they went on to Blandford Grammar School from 11 to 16.

I remember that the grammar school had outside toilets, which were there until the school became a comprehensive school.

I also have fond memories of playing ball and singing games in the playground at the grammar school.

Written by Pam Boundy.

Dorchester Convent

I was the music teacher in the Roman Catholic Convent Day School, St Marys, during the war. It was run by 8 nuns who came from France.

They taught boys up until the age of 9, and girls to 16 years of age. The Church belonging to the Convent is now the Tutankhamen Museum.

Father Rae's residence later became the Dorchester Hospital, no longer there, now private residential dwellings.

Miss Meade taught piano, and Sister John the singing. An Army Sergeant from the local barracks, The Keep taught the children gym.

School sports day was held in Weymouth Avenue, joining up with other local schools.

During Air raids the children went under the Convent building and into the cellar.

Mr Durrant started the Dorchester School of Music, his wife taught elocution. He arranged concerts and took them all around the area, including Bridport and Weymouth.

Written by Rita Goodenough.

Taking it on the chin!

I went to the school in Broadmayne. We used to walk to school and it was quite a walk! We used to leave at about quarter to eight and get there for 9 o’clock.

The older ones use to take the younger ones on, the woman who used to take me still lives in Dorchester now.

I was 5 years old and she was about 8 or 10. Later on, I was the one that took Joyce, my wife, to school when she was small.

Later, she worked in the farmhouse and I worked on the farm. We were always together.

There were about 100 children at the school, some used to come from Owermoigne and some from Warmwell, but unlike us, they had a bus.

The only thing I really remember about school was when I had the cane for fighting. School Master Hawkins said next time we felt like fighting we ought to go and see him and he’d see fair play, and then take on the winner!

Then there’d only be two hits – once when he hit me and once when I hit the ground! That’s perfectly true!

Written by Peter Steele.

Boys on the top deck, girls on the lower deck

As children, we all went to the village school, run by a headmaster and his wife. I cannot remember anyone being very naughty, or answering rudely.

The Head was a tall man with a big nose and a long neck, and we were mostly terrified of him. Though that did not stop us from sniggering about his looks and habits.

There were no school buses so children from surrounding hamlets had to walk or cycle to school. On wet days pupils would arrive dripping wet and their coats were draped over the radiators to dry.

When I was eleven I was fortunate enough to pass the eleven plus examination, always referred to as 'the scholarship' and so went into Dorchester to the Dorchester County School for Girls.

The girls’ school had only been opened in 1930, and it was considered an honour to be going there. It was possible, at that time, to pay for admittance, but I knew of only one girl in the village whose parents could afford the fees.

There were eight forms. Fee paying children could go into form 1 at 9. Scholarship girls went into the second form at 10 or 11. There were six more forms, 3, 4, 5 and Lower and Upper Sixth. Prefects were known as Leaders, and wore a green badge.

There were five houses: Casterbridge, Mellstock, Mistover and Shaston. We considered the uniform to be hideous. It was a dark green colour, hence the school was always known as the Green School. It was a most unflattering colour for most teenage girls, certainly it was for me, as I was plump with a sallow skin which looked almost yellow in dark green. I hate dark green to this day!

The winter uniform was a green skirt with either a green jumper with a fawn strip or a blouse and cardigan. If one opted for a blouse then a school tie had to be worn. The summer uniform was a green dress with a dropped waist, with a cream collar and belt.

Summer headwear was a cream panama hat with a green band and the school badge sewn to the front. The badge carried the school motto – alteriora petamus – aim for the highest.

In winter we wore a green beret with a badge on the front. Fortunately for us the coming of the war and clothes rationing meant that the rules had to be relaxed somewhat. Best of all we were able to be rid of the straw panama hat, which was replaced by a type of green beret. This we were able to wear flat on the back of the head, pinned on by a hairpin, so that it hardly showed.

Uniform was supposed to be bought from Goulds, there was no cheap alternative.

Once we were accepted by the school we were able to apply to the Council for a season ticket to travel on the Wilts and Dorset Bus into Dorchester. These were double-decker buses and the boys travelled on the top deck, the girls on the lower. And never the twain shall meet.

The girls always had a senior girl as prefect in charge. No-one was allowed out of their seats and there was seldom any noise among the girls. We were not allowed to get off the bus in the town, but had to continue to Queen’s Avenue from where we walked to the school.

In the evening we had to go back to the same place to catch the bus home. We were not permitted to go into the town, nor, heaven forbid, fraternise with the boys.

It was not until I was in the sixth form that I dared to break the rules and go into town to catch the bus at the County Museum. If a girl was reported for speaking to one of the boys she was hauled before the Headmistress to be reprimanded.

Written by a Puddletown lady.