BLETCHLEY ROAD JUNIOR SCHOOL

Alan Kay's Memories

Emergency schoolrooms were set up in various buildings throughout Bletchley and Fenny Stratford at that time and my school was located in St Martin’s Hall. Early in 1940 my father rented a house in Saffron Street, Water Eaton and we became residents of Bletchley. My elder brother, younger sister and I were then transferred to the Bletchley Road Council Schools: my sister to the Infants’, my brother to the Senior School and I attended the Junior School.

Mr Crisp was the Junior School headmaster, a kindly and much-respected man. I believe my first class teacher was Miss Milsom, who was very nice but very strict.

To practice writing I remember we used wooden-framed slates and pieces of yellow chalk, which were shaped like a thick lolly-stick with a squared end. We had to make sure that we drew the down-strokes with the broad edge and the up-strokes with the thin edge.

Another teacher I remember was Miss Wing who was liked by everyone. Miss Wing also taught music. However, I was always disappointed at having to play the triangle and not the drum! Other teachers I remember include Miss Capel, Miss Clark, Miss Fowler and Miss Hope. There was a shortage of male teachers as most young men had to join the armed forces.

In the early part of the War, when the air-raid warning sounded, we had to get our gas-masks and line up in the corridor where we stayed until we heard the ‘all clear’ siren go. We sat with our backs to the brick walls away from the windows, which was the safest place to be if a bomb fell on the school! Because a ‘raid’ might last from a few minutes up to an hour, we were at first allowed to take comics to read and ‘swap’, but after a few months of wiling our time away comics were banned and lessons were continued in the corridors!

Games were one of my favourite lessons. We had team races in the playground for which each team wore a different coloured ribbon around their shoulders: Red, Green, Blue and Yellow. We also played football in the Recreation Ground.

I still have friends that I made at Bletchley Road Junior School. Some of them passed the Eleven-Plus and went on grammar schools at Leighton Buzzard and Wolverton and others have moved away from Bletchley. As I did not pass the examination, when I was eleven I ‘went up’ to the Senior School, which I then left at fourteen to start an apprenticeship ‘in the Print’.

DOES ANYONE HAVE A COPY OF THE 1945 LITTLE KIMBLE CAMP MAGAZINE?

Can anyone at Bletchley Road Senior School from 1943 to ’46 help?

I have lost my copy of the Camp Magazine, which was published after we returned to school . . . and my memories are fading!

Some things that I do remember include the journey there by steam train which required two or three changes. First, Buckingham, or was it Verney Junction? Then Aylesbury, after crossing the town from one station to the other carrying our baggage. And finally Little Kimble which even then was not our final destination. That, I believe, was Bledlow Ridge; which was another hike of about two miles!

But we had a wonderful reception when we did arrive; then after some refreshment and being allotted our accommodation (army bell tents), we settled in and were soon ready for a game of rounders/cricket. We were all issued with a straw-filled palliasse to sleep on which a few of the more macho of the boys looked upon with disdain and chose to sleep on the ground; until the last night when our curiosity got the better of us and some of us tried them out to find to our amazement that they were very comfortable and we enjoyed our best night’s sleep of the week!

Sleep was never the top priority and we experienced the customary Midnight Feast on one occasion; and on another when we heard the girls scream out that there was a tramp on the campsite, which of course galvanised we ‘knights in shining armour’ to scour the darkened fields around to flush him out! Of course, I’ve forgotten what the outcome was now! There was probably a lot more to-ing and fro-ing going on also, but again, I don’t remember!

Another hazy memory was a long walk to Coombe Hill and back. We certainly had energy in those days and looked forward to meals in the long marquee.

The Camp magazine contained excerpts from various pupils and staff. Poems, anecdotes, pictures etc., all produced on an old machine which had a wax sheet onto which the text and pictures were engraved somehow and the ink was then applied and a handle turned and if you were lucky, you got a reasonable copy from it!

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