I hated school, HATED it initially. I don’t know why. I used to hide behind a big old chair at home and wouldn’t go to school with my mother. Eventually a girl called Daphne was persuaded to call for me, and everything was all right from then.

We learnt to write on a slate in a wooden frame with a slate pencil. There was no paper for painting – only newspaper, and that not very often. There probably wasn’t much paint either.

Reading round the class was so slow, I always used to read ahead and then be caught out when it was my turn and I had frantically to turn back and try to find where we were. Sums were really boring when you had to write 1 + 1 = 2 in each box, and repeat it across the page, before you moved on, but learning the times tables by heart worked. Anything up to 12x still brings an instant response!

Fraying, what was that for? We were given a square of fabric and had to sit and fray it as some sort of handcraft. Knitting came later.

Poor Dolly, who was a Downs Syndrome girl, was in our class with Miss Chambers. Every morning Miss Chambers used to ‘knock over’ her pin box so the pins went all over the floor. That kept Dolly occupied for the next hour or so. I used to think it so unfair that only Dolly got to pick up all the pins each day.

I don’t think Mrs Barton, the head, liked P.E. very much, which was a shame because I loved it. She’d find any excuse to abandon the lesson. We’d get out into the playground and she’d say, ‘ You’re making too much noise. That’s it. Back indoors!’

Oh the disappointment.

Winter heating was a big old black coke stove with rails around it, topped off with a brass bar.

When you finished your work you could go and warm yourself next to the stove – that was a big incentive to get your work done.
Mary Lord nee Hayles b 1936 who returned to teach at Yarmouth from 1974 to 1990