Web Page 2026

15^th February 2014

Top Picture:  School Register

Bottom Picture: School Milk

Before the start of the day, while we were all happily still playing in the playground the teaching staff in our schools were all busy preparing for a busy start of the day but nothing to do with teaching.

I sometimes wonder how our teachers, especially those in the Junior and Infant schools had the time to teach us when we first arrived in the classroom in the morning. After making sure all the 8 or 9year olds had hung up their coats, scarves and hats on the right peg in the cloakroom it was then time to march the pupils into the classroom.

The first thing the teacher had to do in the classroom was to call the register and mark down all those who were there and read the notes from the parents of those who were away sick. I wonder what happened to those registers that were diligently called twice a day, are they gathering dust somewhere in a huge pile in some departments archive somewhere, or have they been digitalised or have they just been dumped? That’s our history!

Then came the job of allocating the jobs of the various monitors for the day. The least popular of these classroom jobs was ink monitor. I remember carrying this long spouted type of watering can with the made up powdered ink in it around the classroom and topping up the inkwells on the desks. We all had to use nibbed pens and blotting paper in those days no biro’s or gel pens were allowed,  although we were permitted to take our own fountain pens in with us to school. It didn’t seem to matter what I wrote with it still looked like the trail of a blotchy drunken spider wandering across the page!

Being ink monitor was the least popular job BUT being milk monitor was a job to be craved after because if there was ever any milk left over after the bottles had been distributed the monitor got a chance to empty the crate and have another bottle but when you are eight or nine a third of a pint seems a great deal of milk!

Depending on the day the teacher had various other tasks to perform before the school assembly and prayers and the first teaching class of the day. Mondays was always Dinner Money Day. Those children having school dinners would line up with their respective envelopes or tins with the Dinner Money safely held  inside. So after marking the register and taking the Dinner Money it was time to walk over to the school hall for the daily assembly with prayers, hymns and notices led by the Headmaster and all this before the first class started!

One morning a week it would be National Savings morning when those who had enough spare cash bought a sixpenny savings stamp from the teacher and stuck it into a Savings Book which was eventually paid into your Post Office Savings Account, but I know I have talked about this before.

All this before a lesson could be started!!!

Life seemed to revolve around monitors of all sorts, not only to two mentioned above but there were also pencil monitors who had to make sure that all the class pencils were sharpened and that no one had pinched the erasers. Another of those jobs that the pupils had to do involved PT. Before these lessons all the equipment had to be got out of the cupboard and placed in the playground if fine or in the hall if wet and afterwards it all had to go back again. Those pieces of equipment that I can remember are bamboo hoops, bean bags, rubber balls and those black rubber mats that always smelt so strongly of rubber when you lay down on them.

What else do you remember from your Junior School days? School satchels, school caps and berets, long socks and garters and gabardine Macintoshes. Finally at Solent Road school at the end of term, on the last day, we were expected to take some wax polish and a duster into school. What was the point of this? We were expected to settle down with the tin of wax polish and polish the tops of our desks! Luckily the Bettawear door to door salesman would often give away free samples of wax polish in very small tins and so these were diligently taken into school for the desk polishing day. Slave labour I call it! 

Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

You Write:

Christine Writes: I am not surprised that Pete Sexton is still about, he always looked younger than any of us!

Geraldine writes: I got a lot of leg pulling when Terry Dene brought out the record ‘Geraldine’!  

News and Views:

On this Day 15^th  February 1960-1965

On 15/02/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was Some Like It Hot. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/02/1961 the number one single was Are you Lonesome Tonight? - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/02/1962 the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/02/1963 the number one single was Diamonds - Jet Harris & Tony Meehan and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Liz Taylor films Cleopatra.

On 15/02/1964 the number one single was Needles & Pins - Searchers and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 15/02/1965 the number one single was Tired of Waiting For You - The Kinks and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.