School Days - by Joan Brady

Description:Joan talks about her own memories of school in the area and that of her mother, Jose.

Jose went to St Thomas’s School, between about 1921 and 1930, and she always said that her favourite teacher was called Mrs Stockley. There was a playground on the roof, where the girls used to play hopscotch etc. Senior girls had lessons in housewifery (it was pronounced with the wif part rhyming with tiff not with wife), which involved them going to the headteacher’s house to sweep and dust. It was supposed to be a school lesson to teach the girls how to be good housewives but Jose always thought it was just a form of unpaid labour. I must admit, though, that she was an excellent housekeeper, and was always cleaning and polishing around the house, so perhaps the housewifery lessons worked.


(This photograph of the playground was printed in the Evening Mail to illustrate the story that the school was to close down. In fact it took another ten years for it to finally close. Also visible is the roof with the fence alongside it - the roof of the school was home to another playground!)