Early School Days

 Robin Hoods Bay

My first recollection of school was around 1945 when I would be 5 years old. We lived in my grandfather’s large house in Robin Hoods Bay, a small fishing/farming community on the NE coast of Yorkshire.

Robin Hoods Bay was really divided in two, those that lived at the bottom of the bank in the old village and those that lived at the top of the bank.

Grandfather was a successful Captain, like many men in “the Bay” who bought new and expensive houses at the top of the bank. Our house, “Lincoln” had a large garden adjacent to the car park, a pantry, a “poshtub” in an outhouse where clothes were heated in a water bowl before being poshed, rinsed, and hug out to dry and a set of room indicators over the entrance hall inked to each room. The idea was that this was an indicator for servants where there was a request for service. Not sure why we had them as we had no servants!!

School was in the hamlet of Thorpe some one kilometre away up two steep hills, Donkey bank and Thorpe bank to an imposing stone building on the outskirts of Thorpe on the way up to Fylling Dales. We did this all-year-round summer, winter, sun, and rain.

The school was run by a man and wife teacher duo that lived onsite, so it paid to be on time, a demanding target most days!

There was no bus so we had to walk and often my brother and I would join up with the Lawson children as we made our way to school. That meant we often got up to some pranks on the way or on the way back.

I have absolutely no recollection of the teaching we received which might say something about my ability to learn or the content we were presented with. Remember this was late 1940’s and I was only seven or eight years old.

However, paradoxically I do remember some of the incidents that occurred on our trips to and from school.

One was the winter of 1947, one of the worst on record. It snowed for a week and left snowdrifts telegraph pole high. Snow clearing took a long time in coming.

However we must go to school so off we went on this winter adventure. After wading through knee high snow up Donkey Bank we came to a giant snowdrift outside the Vicarage on Thorpe Lane completely blocking the road.

Tunnelling through it was the only option if we where to get to school so without regards to safety we excitingly we buried down to the asphalt road and onward through the snowdrift to emerge some two metres later. What an adventure even though we were by now soaking wet.

So we arrived at school shivering and found we were the only ones to make it. Yes! Success!

However, our elation was short-lived as the teacher made us take off our clothes and hang them over the large potbellied stove in the corner of the room to dry. Once dry we dressed ourselves and were sent home as the school would be closed for two weeks until the snow melted sufficiently so that children from the outlying farms could reach school, experiencing that our snowdrift tunnel had survived so we arrived a little less wet than our outward journey.

Three years later we moved to a new house in Middlesbrough, and I was to attend Whinney Banks junior school.

The transition from village school in Robin Hoods Bay to a large junior school in a large town was a huge step for a ten-year-old boy.

Now there were classes of 20-30 pupils and a class timetable with different teachers and subjects such as PT and RI. What are they?

Physical training (PT) took place in a gymnasium with lots of apparatus that we had to use such as climbing ropes. We had to change for this class into shorts and sports shirt and plimsoles on our feet. These were black soft soled trainers.

Religious Instruction (RI) was quite different and very difficult to grasp. Here we were to focus on the Bible, both the old and new testaments and learn by heart the ten commandments. These lessons were often in a coded language relating to evils, sins, and heaven. All very difficult for a happy go lucky ten-year-old.

Then there were breaks as they were called, a sort of pause between classes when we could go out in the playground and meet up with our newfound pals and have fun. I must say fun often meant taunting other pupils, called bullying today!

It was in one of these breaks that I came across my first sighting of a boy “of colour”. I think he was either from Pakistan or India but spoke with a broad Middlesbrough accent. My first contact with multiculturalism.

We got free lunch when we could sit together in a huge canteen. The food was not very exciting consisting of stews and boiled vegetables and even worse semolina pudding that we called “frogs’ eyes” as the semolina popped in the custard.

My time at Whinney Banks was short as I was about to face my next educational hurdle, the “11 plus exam”. Success here would open opportunity to enter grammar school and eventually could lead to university. Failure meant attending secondary school and picking up a trade to follow.