I believe that she was the teacher who specialised in music and, now that I’m remembering a bit more about her, I think that she had darker, longer hair than I’ve shown. “You like this one don’t you?!” she chuckled as she held it up. She’d made several of these flash cards, on sheets of sugar paper, each with a photograph from a magazine stuck at the top to give us a clue what the first word was as she held them up for the whole class to read. This was my penultimate class at Clifton. Unfortunately, I can’t remember her name. The teacher holding the flash card had the classroom that faced you as you came in the main entrance.I was into history even in my second year at infants school. I remember building a model church with them and surrounding it with smaller wooden bricks to represent gravestones. In my sketch Mrs Wallis is holding a couple of the large, light greyish, wooden building bricks that we used. Mrs Wallis‘ class was nearest the school entrance, overlooking an oak tree and, beyond the school grounds, ‘The Reck’, Green Park recreation ground.Go in the main entrance and turn left and you’d find yourself in Mrs (or Miss?) Birdhouse’s class.Mr Douglas, like Mr Harker, was a keen fellwalker.Īrt, walking, storytelling and writing and illustrating booklets: St Peter’s gave me all the basics I needed for my subsequent career! Published 21 July 2020 Mr Douglas, our pipe-smoking headmaster, worked from a small office in the main school which he shared with his secretary.I was a bit over ambitious with that one! I still have my booklets on Bible stories, birds of prey and, from the last weeks of our time at junior school, a short summary of the history and myths of Ancient Rome. Mr Lindley, back at the lower corner of the main school, encouraged us with drama and making little booklets.Mr Thompson, who I’ve written about before in this blog, had his classroom in the Ebenezer Hall, a few hundred yards away from the rest of the school in Ring O’Bells Yard.Walking must be good for you, because it’s only last autumn, a few weeks before he died, that he managed the two-mile walk around Newmillerdam. Organised a class walking group, The Travel Club. Mr Harker had his classroom in the prefabricated block in the school yard.Miss Andrassy, a relative of the Andrassy family who ran a butcher’s shop on Queen Street.My form teachers at St Peter’s, Church of England controlled, Junior School, Horbury, 1958-1962. I knew her to say hello to but the little that I’ve heard about her background comes to me secondhand. I’m told that, of the two of them, she was more highly qualified. I remember that she always wore her hair coming down across one side of her face and I’m told that this was because she had been badly scarred in a laboratory accident while carrying out research during World War II. His wife taught science at Highfield School, Horbury. which then set fire to the rest of the phosphorous as he attempted to put it back in the jar. Most memorable incident: phosphorous igniting during one of his demonstrations. He had a particular fondness for the Isle of Man, where I assume he grew up. Mr Moore’s lessons at Ossett Grammar School in the 1960s were a mixture of science, musical hall jokes and outrageous opinions, hence his nickname ‘Loony’. “You’ll end up in the ‘B’ form with all the other Charlies!” Mr Moore, General Science teacher, Ossett Grammar School, c. “I put my teeth in my back pocket one day and they bit me!” “Carbon dioxide turns limewater milky, excess turns it clear again.” After explaining his late arrival he says to his friends: “And now, let us tune our instruments.”Ī great closing line. One of them, a tale of charitable deeds, ends with the hero arriving at a musical gathering, probably after giving away his cloak or his shoes. Mr Axford’s literary efforts also included a novel, A Stranger in Allanford, 1960, and a poem that was set to music by the school Madrigal Society.Īs a retirement project he wrote about Bodmin Moor for a David & Charles topographical series.Īt morning assembly Mr Axford would dip into his notebook of suitable readings. My sister Linda had a long speech, standing by the village cross, discussing the philosophical implications of holding back progress but the line that I remember was from one of the island’s disgruntled peasants, played by Clive Simms, who grumbles: “They threw my Morris Minor off the cliff!” Axford’s plays were dark dramas with a similar theme.Ī People Apart was a tale of everyday village folk who practise pagan sacrifice while in Black Bread the inhabitants of a recently discovered remote island are forced to keep to their medieval lifestyles to please visiting tourists. You wouldn’t think that The Wicker Man would make a suitable subject for a school play but our headmaster E.