Year 6 pupils interview with Stella Barnes (nee Brindle)
who attended Spring Hill from 1954 to 1958.

The classrooms in those days were set out in rows. Not as they are now with little groups. We were all separated. There were only desks blackboard, duster and chalks. They are called chalkboards now. We had our sums book and our writing book and we would have library books which we would read.

When we first came we would have to read to the teacher but as we got older we would read to ourselves.

Our sums book was in little squares. We wrote with pencils in the first year. Then we used pens and ink. We dipped our pens into inkwells. We used to have to fill the inkwells. We had an ink monitor to fill the inkwells up.

I’m not so old! Yes we had desks and chairs.

Yes as far as I can remember. We didn’t use candles or anything!

No , and we didn’t have calculators. We had to do it all in our heads. We had to learn our times tables and work it out that way. We hadn’t the technology in those days.

Yes but they were really big things. Very few people at home had central heating in those days. In school there were great big thick pipes and heavy radiators.

No we didn’t. We just wore our ordinary clothes. When we went to the senior school at 11 then we had a uniform. There were very few junior schools in those days that had a school uniform.

Oh, that’s a terrible subject for me. I hated my school dinners – I don’t know whether you do or not, but they were horrible in those days. There was no choice at all. They were made in a central kitchen, which I think was at the back of St James’ school in Accrington. They used to bring them out to the schools in big tins. It was put on your plate and you had to eat it. You weren’t allowed to throw it away. If you hadn’t eaten it you had to sit there all through dinnertime until you ate it. I used to hate fruit in a pudding –things like spotted dick. They used to sit me there right through dinnertime till I ate it.

I can’t remember having dictionaries. We had to learn spellings every week and that was a thing I was terrible at. I was always near the bottom of the class.

How were you punished if you were naughty?

In those days you used to get a clip at the back of the ear, or your legs or arms smacked. There was the cane as well for anybody who was really really naughty. They didn’t use it a lot in the junior school but they certainly did when I went to the big school – Woodnook School.

We had the same lessons but they had a different name. Boys and girls were segregated a lot more than now. It’s not unusual now for boys to do cookery or needlework. In my day boys never did cookery or needlework. Girls would do needlework and the boys would do things like technical drawing or woodwork. Girls never did woodwork.

No there wasn’t. The Asian population started to come in in the 50s but there were very few and no coloured children in Spring Hill School that I can remember at all. When I went to the senior school then there were one or two children of mixed race – but very few.

Yes a great deal. When I came from Hannah St it was a very good school and I was lucky to get in. It was a bulge year just after the war.

We were streamed. As we came into this school you were streamed into either the A stream or the B Stream. That meant that even at the age of 7 you were put on the scrap heap or you were in the elite and you got pushed and helped on your way.

When you got to 11 you took your 11 plus. If you passed, and you had a pretty good chance if you were in the A stream, -not much of a chance if you were in the B stream – then you went on to the Grammar school or the High School. if you failed you went to the secondary modern school. There were no exams at 15 – you left and you went into work.

So more or less your education had finished then. That I think has changed for the better.

Boys and Girls were separated at play times which I understand is not done now. The boys’ playground was the top yard. At the very top there used to be gardens and shrubs growing. You were not allowed on there at all. If you went on there you were in trouble. The gates made sure the boys did not mix with the boys at all. Girls were in the lower part. The infants were separated totally from the juniors. There were outside toilets. There were washbasins inside for boys and girls at opposite sides of the school.

There was no reception area for visitors in those days.

No – I don’t think there were.