School Photograph

School Milk

These bottles were one third of a pint and delivered to the school each day in crates. These crates were seldom stored in optimum conditions meaning when the milk was ready to be consumed at morning break it was disgustingly warm !

Each class had milk monitors whose job it was to distribute the bottles among classmates. There was a round metal disk with a spike protruding, ever school had several of these, which was used to puncture holes in the foil caps on the bottles. A waxed paper straw was then inserted and the milk ready to be consumed.

At my junior school drinking the milk was compulsory, disgustingly warm though it was. When I got to my secondary school it was a voluntary occupation which few indulged in.  What happened to all the wasted milk ? I bet the staff room never had to buy milk for the teachers coffee nor I expect did any teacher's home ever have to buy any as no doubt two or three bottles would have found their way at the end of each day into the teachers brief cases.

When Margaret Thatcher became Secretary of State for Education she stopped free school milk, much to the delight of the children who had to drink it.

The Bell & Howell Projector

A rattling old contraption which showed educational films produced by many of the larger business corporations such as Shell, BP, Kraft Foods etc........ Films designed to provide educational content while, at the same time, promoting the company concerned.

These films were available on free loan to schools and provided a treat to the pupils while offering a welcome break from work for the teachers.

A rare treat unless you happened to share my particular Geography teacher, one of the world's most accomplished skivers !  His nickname was "Pappy". Pappy would invariably use at least one of his lessons every week to show the class a film, single handed he must have kept many a film production unit in work. 

The problem was pappy's eyesight was poor, he would focus the picture from the projector so he could see it meaning it was generally blurred to the class watching. But we never complained, it was better than working.

Pendelbury

It was actually an amazingly comprehensive textbook with comprehensions, précis (Something I never could master) sentence an analysis, every aspect of grammar one could think of - all structured in a step by step five year course.

Pendelbury must have made a fortune from the number of copies sold.

Did you have one ?

THE SCHOOL BUS

School buses were provided by The Midland Red Omnibus Company. The top picture shows our usual mode of transport - the D9 Double Decker. Below the more modern D11 which instead of an open doorway at the rear of the vehicle had electrically operated doors at the front. Travel on a D1 was rare as the company was reluctant to let it's prize vehicles lose on a school rabble.

Ours was an all boys school but there was a girls school next door, we shared transport. But at the bus stops the boys had to wait in one area while the girls stood apart in a different location, mixing of the sexes was prohibited. Once on the bus the boys sat upstairs while the girls were kept downstairs. Never the twain shall meet.

On the D9 the driver was safe and secure in his own cab, the D11 put him inside as are drivers in modern buses. The conductor was the one with the unenviable task of managing we boys who became experts at playing them up and engineering practical jokes at their expense.  Some would report trouble to the school which automatically meant the offending boys would be caned but most we too good sports to do that.

So did you go to school on a bus like this ?

What are your memories ?