Schooldays past

On Saturday, we were pleased that so many joined us on our new year gettogether and coffee morning in Pembroke Town Hall. Reminiscing about schooldays past over coffee certainly proved popular and it was an opportunity too to attract photographs and artefacts to add to a new display in Pembroke Museum. An exhibition of school photographs had been assembled in the hall, plus artefacts from the museum, including the old school bell from East End School which had been rescued long ago by George Lewis and which he has now donated to the museum.

Those present contributed their memories and it was certainly an enjoyable morning. Many photographs were added to the archive and it is hoped that more will be forthcoming now that we have started the ball rolling. However, we still need more from the East End School - Monkton has been far more forthcoming! Thank you to Peter Thomas for supplying the photos of the East End School trips.

However, this page this week is devoted to the old East End School and Mel Phillips has written this memoir of her young schooldays there.

East End School in the '50s

East End was my school and I am very proud to have attended it. I was only four-and-a-half-years-old when I started. I remember my mam took me into the school on the first day, but from then on I walked from the prefabs in Orange Gardens with a friend of the same age. Imagine doing that today!

Before we arrived at the school gates, all of us kids used to pay our daily visit to Mrs. Joanie Jones's sweet shop. There we would either buy liquorice bootlaces or an Uncle Dick's lolly. If you were particularly flush, you would also purchase a paper bag of rainbow sherbet and a sweet cigarette. You dipped your forefinger in the sherbet until your finger was orange and then you pretended to be a smoker using the sweet fag as a prop. We were set for the day.

Those posh kids who had bikes were allowed by the kindly Mrs. Hay who lived at the top of the Gooses Lane to park their bikes in her back yard.

Miss Grace Lloyd

Miss Lloyd was our first infant teacher. She taught the reception class and what a reception she gave you on your first day at school! She was a small white haired woman with beady eyes and buckteeth. She turned out to be a vicious old bird that would cane you if you looked at her the wrong way.

"Hands up who wants milk"

We all put our hands up except one little boy who said, "I wants red pop."

She scrutinised him with her beady little eyes and snapped back

"What do you think this is boy, a café?"

The old school was cold in winter. The classroom had a roaring open fire, but the teachers stood in front of it and warmed their backsides so no heat came your way. We had gas lighting. The teacher would light them in the morning using a long lighted taper.

The infants had slates and chalk to write with and if you were lucky, you were made slate monitor for the day. The slate monitor's job was to give a slate and a piece of chalk to everyone. If you disliked a kid, you would deliberately give them a shiny slate so that they would have to wet the chalk every time they wrote a word! Your parents supplied you with a chalk rag that you kept up your sleeve. When you had finished your work and the teacher had marked it, you simply rubbed it out and started again. Teachers didn't keep records in those days. The only document that was kept religiously was the register because it was classed as a legal document.

Monitors

Other monitors included the milk monitors. Two children were chosen for this task. First of all you were required to arrange all the thirds of a pint of milk around the open fire to warm. Bacteria hadn't been invented! This done, one of you, armed with a lethal pair of scissors stabbed the silver paper milk tops to make holes in them. The second monitor came behind and inserted a straw into the apertures.

When you reached the junior level in school, the most coveted job was ink monitor. This job required two people. The ink came in powder form and needed to be mixed in a metal jug using just the right amount of water. Too much and it became too runny and too little and the mixture became lumpy then using the jug you very carefully filled the inkwell that was on each desk. You used a dip pen to write with. Whilst one child sorted out the ink, the other came behind with the same lethal scissors and cut up pink blotting paper into small squares. Each child was given a piece. On occasions, Miss would ask you to fill her inkwell that was situated on her big desk with red ink! This was indeed the greatest privilege of all!

Mrs. Lewis's Class

After a year in Miss Lloyd's class, you were taught by the lovely, gentle, and sweet natured, Mrs. Lewis. We never found out what her Christian name was. She was always called Mrs. Bert Lewis and her husband was deputy headmaster at Monkton School. In those days, professional women and business men's wives didn't seem to have an identity of their own, so you got Mrs. Bert Lewis, Mrs. J. L Jones and my favourite of all, Mrs. Harry Davies, the Quay! However, I digress.

Mrs. Lewis and the popular Miss Annie Bevan, who told great stories, used to walk along The Commons to school and all the kids who walked too used to offer to carry their bags. Not so the same treatment for Miss Lloyd and Miss James who walked by unmolested. Nobody wanted to carry their stuff!

Top Infants

When you left kindly Mrs. Lewis's class, you became a top infant and entered the terrifying world of Miss James! She was a stout, brusque woman who only seemed to possess two dresses. There was a two-tier system in her class, those who were good scholars and those who weren't. She had no time for the slow learners and they were literally left to their own devices. All her attention was directed at the 'better pupils.' We even had two different types of furniture. The top set had lovely shiny new tables and the poorer set had desks that were falling to pieces

She used strange words like galoshes instead of wellies. One day, I turned up late for her lesson. It had been raining and I was carrying a little pink umbrella. I was also wearing wellies.

"Hurry up girl. You're late. She bellowed. Put all that paraphernalia in the corner."

I went home that might and asked my mam what's paraphernalia?

"Why do you want to know that for?" she said

"Miss James told me to put my paraphernalia in the corner."

"Paraphernalia is more than one article," snapped my mum. "I don't hink a small umbrella qualifies as that."

The Games we played

At playtimes, we played very rough games and there never seemed to be a teacher on duty to supervise us. We played unhygienic ones too, such as the urinal game. This entailed performing all manner of acrobatics and gymnastics using the boys' urinal cubicles as parallel bars. We stood on our heads on a concrete playground, played marbles and the boys played a lethal and highly dangerous game called splits involving a large penknife. We hula hooped (I can still do it!) and used a huge rope to skip with. We were fit and extremely healthy in spite the dreaded school dinners of Spam, lumpy spuds and diced beetroot.

Happy days!

"Monkton bulldogs sat upon a wall, East End water rats came and ate them all!" (Why water rats? Answer. Millpond) Reverse it if you went to Monkton Mixed!

Thanks Mel. The exhibition of photographs will remain on show in Pembroke Town Hall throughout January, but the museum will be closed whilst we reorganise the exhibits, opening again next month. But please, if you have any contributions, please bring them in.

Contact

If you have any stories, photographs or feedback for this column, please contact me, Linda Asman, on 01646 622428, email [email protected]">[email protected] and visit our website http://www.pembrokeandmonkonhistory.org.uk">www.pembrokeandmonkonhistory.org.uk

January events

Friday, January 23, 7.30 pm, at Monkton Priory Church Hall we have a quiz night and social - £4 includes buffet. Bring your own bottle if you wish.

Monday, January 19, Pembroke Civic Trust. Talk by John Davies, 'Story of a Bomber: 1941 Bomber Crash in France,' 7.30 pm, at the Power Club, Main Street.