Peter Jackson

I went to school at St Barnabas Church until mid 1949,prior to that was at Belle Isle Junior School.The junior school only had 6 classes as the build was stopped at the outbreak of war,as a consequence the rest looked like a ruin to us children, but it was a fantastic ,scarey dangerous place to play in and was known locally as "the bogey ole " ( we dropped the Hs in the forties )My teacher was Miss Taylor,Mr Atkinson the caretaker and Mr Tate the boiler man who always seemed to be chasing the children away. At St Barnabas we had 3 classrooms all in the crypt,ours doubled as a library in the evening and on a monday as the babies welcome, each Monday we were moved to another part of the crypt for lessons the room had no windows and the only light from a very dull orange bulb it was an awful place. To find a solution they tried for 1 week only to give us the Monday off and we went to school on Saturday instead, it only happened once ( I wonder does anyone remember ) My teacher was really nice although I can't remember her name , I do recall she had a small indentation the result of an injury on her ankle ( the things that stick in your mind as children )Her boyfriend on Fridays used to read the class a story while waiting to take her home. The other teachers were Miss Owl & Miss Bollan.I remember well Kathleen Steele & Beryl Huntington, also F Hickinson,K Dufton,W Wright,L Fields,D Pratt, D Hirst,J Tallant,Beryl Johnson.Happy Days yet in 1949 we moved schools all the above went to Hunslet Carr I went to St Josephs being a Catholic I was desparate to go with them but it was'nt to be.

petermj67@hotmail.co.uk