By Roger Limb

When our family moved to Bletchley in 1948, I found myself ‘the new boy’ in a class of 30 children in Bletchley Road School. A newcomer in the class is always a bit of a curiosity and I was a bit shy so I took a few days to settle in. It must have gone smoothly enough because can’t remember any lasting traumas. In fact everybody seemed friendly although I was in awe of some of the older, bigger boys in the school. Our teacher was Miss Hope; friendly, informal, I remember her enthusiasm for art and her louder than average voice. The following year our teacher was Miss Capel; tall, elegant, grey haired. Lessons became a bit more formal with more emphasis on neatness. I remember a national handwriting competition during this year. One girl in the class got a prize.

Most of the buildings I remember are still there, although a rather primitive toilet block that stood in the playground has now disappeared. I also remember a couple of ‘prefab’ classrooms, in one of them we spent a year with Mr Harding as our class teacher. In the other prefab were 2 rooms where Mr Eastgate and Mr Kerslake had their classes. With Mr Eastgate’s encouragement I became interested in local archaeology and went exploring the Roman site at Fenny Stratford. Mr Harding, who had several daughters in the school, was a popular teacher and later became head of Holne Chase Junior School.

Were there 2 classes per year? I’m not sure but there were other teachers on the staff that I recall; Mr Burns, Miss Fowler and the inspirational music teacher Mr Halsey.

Miss Wing was our teacher in our final year. Looking back I can see what a good teacher she was, though at the time I was a bit of a tearaway and felt the sting of her ruler on the palm of my hand more than once. Years later I was in Bletchley in RAF uniform; I saw her and spoke to her and she remembered who I was. “Oh yes.” she said, ”Your mother was a teacher in Newton Longville wasn’t she?”

The big event of the last year in Primary school was the 11+ exam. At the time we called it ‘The Scholarship’. It certainly was a big hurdle and those that passed and those that didn’t tended to go their separate ways afterwards. I remember the excitement bordering on hysteria when Mr Crisp, the headmaster, came into the classroom on results day with the list in his hand. Some were astonished that they’d got through, others who had not passed were in tears wondering how to tell their family. If you were one of the 10 or so that had passed, you would choose between Wolverton Grammar School or The Cedars in Leighton Buzzard. Of course there was no Grammar School in Bletchley at that time and this was long before Comprehensives.

But for those who didn’t pass there was still a certain amount of flexibility. If you were young enough you could stay on and try again the following year. Or, if you went on to the next door Secondary Modern (or ‘The Seniors’ as we called it), after a couple of years you could try for Technical College or in some rare cases eventually make your way into Grammar School.

At the other end of The Seniors was a school clinic where we would go for medicals etc. I remember one day having some fillings from the school dentist there. I shall never forget his parting words “You’ve a very good boy, here’s a toffee!”

The rec’ was a place where we used to spend a lot of time. The slide, the swings, the roundabout, I think we probably wore them out between us during those long lunchbreaks. I usually took my recorder with me. I forget when we started recorder classes but 54 years on I’m still playing it!