7. Monkton Primary School

My time at Monkton Primary School was at the end of the 1950’s until 1964. In those days, Village Primary School yearly intakes were made up of mainly children from the working-class families who lived within their Parish boundaries. This meant the average yearly intake in Monkton was five or six children. The five in my year were David Hogbin, Charles Bicker, Susan Cannel, Leslie Barlow and myself. Only three in the year above and I think, eight in the year below. 25 to 30 children in total.

There were two classes and two teachers, the Headmistress called Mrs Smith and Miss Gaunt. Mrs Smith lived in the accommodation on the left of the school, which is now the school office, Miss Gaunt lived in Minnis Bay. Getting to school was either by walking or by bus. The school never closed, no matter how bad the weather, which most people of a certain age know, was a lot colder than it is today.

My opinion on the actual schooling then was more on making sure we could all read and right properly and do our maths to a certain standard by the end of our time there. We all sat the 11 plus, but I do not think anyone was particularly bothered if we passed or failed. My youngest brother passed, but he was taught by a different generation of teacher.

No school uniform then, but most went to school in clothes that were mainly of a dark colour, the boys always wore short trousers and the girls in skirts no matter what the weather was like. All school dinners were cooked on site by Mrs Nichols and Mrs Waldren, meat and two veg with a pudding. Milk was delivered every day in quarter pint bottles, in the winter it was put next to the ‘coke’ fired heater to warm it up a bit. PE was in the Village Hall once a week.

The games we played during the break times were banned years ago. One was called ‘Kingy’ when 10 to 15 of us would get together – one person would have a tennis ball with which he or she would throw to hit one of the others, when hit two children would then try to hit a third and so on, with the winner being the last child not to get hit. Another game was to get a similar number of children and one was ‘on’ and would have to touch another, they would then join hands and try to touch another and so on, ten kids joined together and turning in a tight circle often meant the one on the outside was almost flying. Recently, when taking my grandchildren’s little brother to school when we had freezing weather at the beginning of February, on seeing the rock salt spread over the ice I made a comment to Mrs Guilder, that I remembered the cooks throwing more water over the ice so we could have a bigger area to slide on in break time - apart from the odd bruise no one was ever hurt playing these games.

Next month Summer Holidays.

Terry Marsh

Originally published in the Monkton News (March 2023).