Tag Archives: Yarmouth School

Sue Russell: School days

I went to Yarmouth Primary School which was just over the road from our house and have many happy memories of being there. We had two teachers; one Miss Ella Chambers, and Mrs Vera Barton who was also the headteacher and lived at the back of the school. The school was much smaller in those days with two classrooms, now it’s double the size.

The toilets were across the playground and had a large gap under the door. We thought they were very creepy. We also used to have milk every day which I didn’t like much.
Log re milk

I do remember that when you had been very naughty you were sent to Mrs Barton for the cane, which I didn’t have very often but Serena, or ‘Squeak’ as she was called, did! We didn’t mind as we deserved it. Squeak was my best friend and we did everything together.
Sue Russell

Rod Corbett: A short first day at school

My first day at school didn’t last very long. There was an old Nissen hut in the playground, probably left over from where the Army had had a gun on the refuse tip next door. There was a table in it, so I climbed on with another boy who was starting school with me. I gave him a shove and knocked him off, and he howled – he was always a bit of a ‘boohoo’. Anyway, I thought, ‘I’d better not stay here’, so I ran home to Gran ( my great grandmother who lived in Field Cottages).
Rod Corbett b 1943

Betty Coates Evans: Schools days

When I went to Yarmouth School we had two classrooms with coal-burning stoves, and outside toilets.

Most of the children lived locally although a few came from Thorley.

We were used to the high tides in the winter. The sea came over the wall and half the playground flooded and you couldn’t use the toilets.

The land at the back of the school, now the car park, was an open rubbish dump. There were always flies in the summer.
Betty Coates Evans nee Lock b 1938

Eileen Smith: School dentist 1920s

We always knew when the school dentist had arrived – you saw his head bobbing up and down at the windows as he walked along, because he had a wooden leg.

You had a yellow form to take home. It cost 6d for treatment, no matter what you had done. I’ll never forget Mr Cartwright pumping away on his treadle, working the drill.
Eileen Smith nee Lansdowne b 1921

Pat Burt: Starting school, and the school dentist 1930s

I started school one month after I was three – I missed my brothers and sisters so my mother took me to start school. I loved it! I remember there being 74 children on the school roll.

Friday afternoons, if you did well, as a treat you could go round to the rocking horse which was really big, like a galloper at a fair.

School dentist
That also brought back not such good memories because it was in the room the school dentist used. That was terrible ! They used to bring round bright yellow forms to fill in and as soon as I saw these forms I would start feeling afraid.

The dentist’s name was Mr Cartwright and his hand shook; it wasn’t his fault, he suffered from shellshock. To have him as a school dentist was entirely the wrong thing. He operated the drill with a wooden treadle, his foot on the treadle when he started to drill.

His nurse used to say, “Don’t be so stupid! Sit still there”.
‘Its hurting me!’
‘No it’s not.’

I used to be so scared when my turn came. Jim Jupe, when it was his turn to be sent to the dentist, he went home, but I wouldn’t have dared; I’d have been sent back.
Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929

Nick Chandler: School discipline

I remember Miss Chambers who lived down by the Mill. If you swore she used to wash your mouth with soap and water. She used to grab hold of you with a cup of soap and water, and put it in your mouth. She kept her handkerchief tucked in her knickers, the old long bloomers. She was a good old gal though. She made sure that what she taught, you knew; taught you to read.

Then there was Mrs Barton, she could be a bit severe at times. I remember once Mick and Barry got the cane, which they didn’t like. Come lunchtime, in the classroom was this fish tank that had tadpoles and stuff in it. What did they do? They both peed in it and killed all the tadpoles – we saw them do it.
Nick Chandler b 1937

Annette Haynes: School days

Miss Chambers, the infant teacher said to Tamar one day , ‘Come here!’

She didn’t come out so Miss Chambers went to get her from the back of the classroom. I always remember Tamar got out of her seat and ran and the teacher was chasing her round the classroom. I remember Tamar running round the playground, and running around the school.
Annette Haynes nee Holloway

Colin Smith: School days

I was never any good at anything at school except drawing.

Colin Smith b 1921, who in 1949, with his brother Stanley, sailed the Nova Espero, a 20 foot boat they had designed and built, across the Atlantic from Nova Scotia, in 43 days. They did this without chronometer, bunks, lifejackets….in what remains one of the smallest boats to cross the Atlantic.

The arrival of the Smith brothers in Yarmouth harbour in 1949

Boats greeting the Smith brothers in Yarmouth Harbour after their 43 day Atlantic crossing in 1949 ; photo Sue Russell