I joined the school in 1950, my family having moved across town from Manor Street to Fern Gore. I had been at Peel Park Infants. I got the idea, later perhaps, that Peel Park was Spring Hill’s main rival in the ‘scholarship stakes’.

My first memories are of coming to school from Fern Gore through the fields and Dunnyshop farmyard. Mr Nelson owned the farm. This is where Slaidburn Drive is now.

I was in Mrs Hyde’s class and remember getting praised for a composition on ‘laying the fire’ – We had to give instructions on how to lay a coal fire – all this at the age of seven or eight. I do not suppose children today would have any idea about the process of screwing up newspaper into twists, placing the chopped firewood criss-cross on these, then topping with lumps of strategically placed coal broken up in the coal shed with the coal hammer. (Remember the blower tin, or shovel and newspaper, which frequently caught fire?)

I was very small for my age and I remember being taken aback when, having been called out to the board and being unable to reach the necessary place, Mrs Hyde remarked that I could do with ‘horse-muck in my shoes’. It was not what I expected a teacher to say.

I passed through Miss Kellet’s class and then Miss Sutcliffe’s where I remember the rivalry between the boys to get our hands on the best instruments when it was time for the percussion band. I could never fathom out the ‘castanets on a stick’.

It was about this time that I recall Mr Spencer stopping us during our dinner time and announcing that the King had died. It was all a bit remote to me and I was surprised when a girl near me started crying.

Next on to Miss Hindle’s class – happy memories of the nature groups she formed. I was in the Pond Group. There were others – trees, birds, insects, I think. I was very keen. Miss Hindle got us an aquarium and I was off pond dipping in local streams and Jacob’s Lodge. I caught fish, caddis fly larvae, dragon fly larvae, pond skaters and whirligig beetles. We brought these into school and watched then develop. Miss Hindle was a bit concerned that we might drown and gave us a pep talk on safety. These days our activities would probably by banned. Not only from the Health and Safety side but also from the conservation lobby. Nevertheless this stimulated our interest in natural history and we knew far more about wildlife and the countryside than most youngsters these days.

Other memories are of the hands and shoe inspections. When it was ‘marble season’ (like conkers it seemed to come round each year) I remember us boys playing in the yard in gloves so that we kept our hands clean and we didn’t get in trouble later. (I supposed it didn’t dawn on us to actually wash them).

Odd things that stick in the memory:

The outside toilets.

The big school clock in the hall,

Miss Sutcliffe’s ‘country gardens’ as we marched back to class from assembly.

The big hymn sheet book hung on the Hall wall.

The nature table.

Music and Movement on the radio.

- and especially Mr Spencer who we were all rather afraid of, especially his Friday morning visits to Miss Hindle’s class for mental arthimetic. We certainly knew our tables! – and all the weights and measures in their old imperial form. One day, after going through the units of length, 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard, etc he said,"… and there are 63,360 inches in a mile –

I don’t expect you to remember that." Needless to say we remembered it in case he caught us out the next week!

PS. I left Spring Hill in 1954. It was not until much later that I realised how lucky I’d been to creep into the A stream from Peel Park. Things were less than rosy for those in the B stream. Thank goodness that’s all in the past!