Memories of the new South End Infants School

For my second year at infant school, I went to the new school building in Wymington Road, next to the junior school, in September 1973. It had just been built and was completely different to the old school building. First it still smelt new, of paint, plaster, and new carpet. There were a few things that I noticed when I started, most importantly - inside toilets, with no rats to bite bums! There was also more room in the classrooms and carpets too, with a little area tucked away from the rest of the class for story time and reading. Also, there were two playground areas, one area for the first years and one area for the second years. We shared some of the field with the junior school sometimes.

In the second year of the infants school my teacher was Mrs Reynolds and she was a lot different to Miss Bowler. Mrs Reynolds was a lot older, and more stern. She wouldn't let the girls draw houses because she said we were too old to draw things like that now. Sometimes when the weather was nice she would take us onto the huge playing field to collect dandelions so that she could take them home to make dandelion wine. She promised to let us try the wine one day, but never did!

When we went to the main part of the field that was used for sports days and the like we had to walk past the outdoor swimming pool that the junior school used for swimming lessons. We would sometimes hear the juniors at their swimming lessons. We never had to wear a school uniform in those days, or at the junior school. I still walked to and from school, sometimes with my mum, sometimes with friends, though it was more hard work because we had to walk up what seemed to be a very steep hill. I still walked home at dinner time for my mid day meal. I used to walk past what seemed to be very large, posh houses to get to the school, and there was another lollipop lady outside this school, as well as the original lollipop lady who used to be outside the old school building.

We had the usual lessons at this school and also sometimes nature lessons too, when we went onto the field to look at the trees, birds, and to collect things for the nature table. This was probably one of my favourite lessons because I preferred to be outside rather than in the classroom.

Sometimes after school mum would meet me and we would go through Hall Park before going home. There used to be horses in a little field by the side of the park and I always liked to see them. Mum wasn't very keen on horses.

Other teachers at the school at the time were Mrs Jenkins and Mrs Cave.  Miss Bowler continued to teach the younger children. I spent one year at this school before going to the junior school in September 1974.