The Reunion
This old school was opened in 1909 but is now being rebuilt on the same site and land of the old Working Men's Club next door (2006/2007). To mark this historical event, a grand reunion of Spring Vale alumni from before 1980 was held at the school on Sat. 22nd October 2005.
This event was a great success with good attendance. Old school pals met after many years and the hall was buzzing with conversation and laughter. A buffet with wine and hot drinks helped it along nicely and there was a good raffle organised by Gladys, the ex-lollipop lady. All visitors wore name tags and, as usual, more people knew me than I knew them. The visitor's book made interesting reading. Names and addresses of the visitors were taken so that some future event might be planned after the new school has become established. It was good to put names to some well-known faces.
I discovered that up to about 1959, pupils spent their entire schooldays at the school. After that, it became a primary school only. My brother-in-law Alan Beever was one of the last batch to do this.
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Reminiscing
My memory of the hall was that it was huge but at the reunion I noticed that it was not so big. The chairs were small too. I don't know what happened to the old wooden clock in the hall but it was an important feature in the old days. I saw that the hall's parquet floor was the same as ever. In the side room, we were sipping wine at the old tables that I remembered. They make an octagon when two are placed together.
Modernity has come to Mr. Andrews' old classroom above, with its long tables and data projector. In my final year, a desk and chair was a single piece of furniture with a lifting lid and inkwell. We used fountain pens in our last year and an ink monitor would fill the inkwells. We also used jotter pads of poor paper which tore easily using the pencils provided. The colour scheme was much darker in the old days. The old tulip-shaped lamps are now fluorescent lights but the windows are the same as ever, with long wooden pole and S-shaped hook to open the top panes.
Teachers that I recall were Miss Hague, Miss MacKenzie, Miss King, Miss Howe and headmaster 'Archie' Andrews, who had only a tenuous grip on his false teeth. The headmaster's study was always too hot in both senses. Mr Andrews' favourite punishment was the slipper for the worst offences and he would keep you waiting to build up tension and anxiety. Miss Howe was fairly strict but we all loved Miss 'Molly' MacKenzie, who was very pleasant and could knock a reasonable tune out of the piano. She went to local cricket matches and lived at Viewlands. Mrs. Bullivant watched over us in the playground and I wonder if she was also the dinner lady who made me eat my meat. It was always full of gristle and hard to cut. This might have been my original inspiration for vegetarianism, as I'm sure that I did not get it from Adolf Hitler.
As an infant, we did 'music and movement' classes, exercising to music on the radio. 'Become a tree', for example. A pretty girl called Susan showed me how to tie the shoelaces of my 'pumps'. We always had a morning assembly with a prayer and a hymn or two and we did not have strange or alien religions in those days but were told to 'Do as you would be done by'. On one special occasion, a string trio played some classical music for the assembly although I don't think that we appreciated it.
Delightfully old Miss Hague (Nurse Haigh) had grey hair in a tight bob. She looked after the youngest kids and it was a special thing to be trusted with her walking sticks, parked behind water pipes. We had a small collection of books to get us used to the idea of a library. My first book was 'The Vegetable Donkey', which I borrowed twice. We had aprons for art sessions and mine had a smoker's pipe embroidered in to identify it. There was a poster of a wooded hillside scene with a steam train puffing across that I loved looking at and I wonder if any of my old classmates remember it. I wore my favourite braces in those days, to hold up my short trousers.
I always liked harvest festivals. We sang 'We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land....' and would bring fruit or a tin of food from home. A great pile of the contributions would accrue. Christmas was a time of great excitement and anticipation, especially for the younger ones. We were told that Father Christmas was coming and some kids 'saw' him arrive. I never did. It was a huge thrill but I don't remember if I received any presents. Our Christmas puddings always had sixpences baked in, with dire warnings not to choke on them.
We had proper winters then, with deep snow and icy conditions and nearly every kid walked it to school. A few kids came on the tracky bus and at times the snow was too deep for the bus to get through. I liked to be a milk monitor, with the third-of-a-pint milk bottles stacked up in crates by the door to the infants' playground. In winter, the milk would freeze and grow out of the bottles, pushing up the foil lid. We would try to break icy puddles with our scuffed shoes but we did not really feel the cold, even with short trousers.
I recall a very hot summer when the playground tarmac became sticky and I think there are still two lines in it to this day that were put there by a classmate on a rocking toy of some sort. The wall at the bottom of the playground was often a train and it was a great occasion to be the driver. On windy days, a line of us would open out our coats, join hands and let the wind take us running down the playground. I forgot to check if the playground perimeter wall had the same footholds for climbing up that I remember.
Games of leapfrog, football, tag, marbles or British Bulldog would be usual. I recall that British Bulldog had something to do with taking turns to break through a line of kids. The fastest runners were the most successful as they had more momentum. Nobody wanted to be the goalie at football, as it was the same wall as the boys' urinal and some of them had good pressure. The girls would play jacks, hopscotch or various rhyming chants whilst skipping.
Please also see this tour page.
