Heber primary school memories

[GSJ57]

My Dad went to Heber in the 1930's and I was there in the 60's. You brought back a lot of memories Wardy! We also lived in Rodwell Road - apparently up the 'posh' end.... who knew! My great grandparents and grandparents also lived in Rodwell, near the corner at Cyrena.

One correction tho' - the headmasters name was Mr. Heester, but yes we also called him Easter Egg!

[Wardy]

GSJ57; Thanks for that, all these years and I had his name Wrong. If you and your perents lived there at that time I probably know you. If I remember correctly Cyrena Road was on a hill and there was a corner shop at what we called "down the Hill. I think there was also a small wall that entered Redwell Road and Cyrena that us kids would sit on.

[diwhy]

The corner wall in Cyrena/Rodwell was also a great place to hide went tormenting (knock down ginger - where the hell did that name come from) the people who lived upstairs to Hilda Perkins corner shop after she died.

The corner shop down the hill was run by the Robsons I think.

[Wardy]

diwhy; you are correct. The shop was run by hilder and Doll. They looked after me when my mum went to work. I have asked on the Rodwell Road thred if your name is Mickey Staines? Im on my way home from Liverpool at the moment, maybe I will find out later tonight when I get ack home.

[diwhy]

wardy - I forgot dolly, was it mother and daughter ?

Great place to get 1 "shrimp" for a farthing - Aah the good old days ;-)

Suname - Welham

[Wardy]

Mick see Rodwell Road thread. No Dolly and Hilder were not mother and daughter, I think they were related in some way, dont know what way. Had some great fun there playing on the top floor of the house.

[Wardy]

Judging by the Rodwell Road thread it seems I wasn?t the only one who enjoyed the School fire back in the fifties. Wardy.

[MargaretSandy]

Hi Wardy,

Hope this isn't too personnel for first time communications, I attend Heber Road school from Sept 1951 and just like you I had it from day one, I mean hour one, my name was Margaret Sanderson, I was 5yrs old, I had 3 older brother Norman, Roger, and Michael (mike), so I'd heard all about this Heber road school, we lived in Jennings Road no 30, so we only had to go down the road, I can remember my Mum and Dad takening me screaming down the road, like they were taking me into some institution or something worse. After my Mum and Dad had handed me over to the teacher, whose name alludes me at the moment, but he was a gaint of a man, big thick set bloke, and I was terrified, so at playtime I ran home nd told my parents, Thats it I'm not going back there again. Off we went again, same thing happened at lunchtime, off I went back home with the pretext this time that they didn't have any rulers. Back they took me. Afternoon playtime off again this time saying they had no rubbers. Well had home time I tolf them, Ok I've been there today but thats it NO More. I'll not keep on tonight as it's getting late but it was really great to read your chapter, brought back lots of memories, and like you when the school caught fire, weall sat on the wall opposite the school and was shouting to the firemen to just let it burn, but of course they didn't. I'll hopefully catch up with you again.

[Wardy]

MargaretSandy: Im off to wales for a couple of days I wil catch up with you when I get home. Wardy

[hackette]

My daughter just started at Heber in January - we had heard good things about the school from people who had gone there from her nursery and, I have to say, they've been borne out over the past couple of months. She has a great reception class teacher and seems to spend most of her time playing outside! It's very interesting to hear posters' memories of the school - thanks a lot. It's amazing how schools can change so dramatically, depending (usually) on the head teacher - I went to a great school in East Yorkshire (left 20 years ago *sigh*) and was absolutely amazed to hear that it had gone into special measures a couple of years ago.

[Wardy]

hackette: Yes things have changed, I can remember at the age of six having a slipper whacked across my backside for talking in class. However, I preferred that to the ruler across the back of the knuckles; O the good old days

[diwhy]

Mr. Ibotson had two slippers - a childs size for minor offences and an adult size for the serious offences.

When your 8 years old, that big slipper looked like it belonged to a clown - I really "tried" to behave :'(

[Farnham]

Hi Wardy, I started at Heber Road School in 1938 with my brother Les on the same day, he was 5 and I was 3. He was crying so the head mistress said I could stay with him to stop him from crying. I remember having a bottle of milk given to us and we were made to have a sleep in the afternoons on little camp beds. One day I wet my bed (remember I was only 3) and told the teacher I had spilt my milk. The only teachers name I can remember is Mrs Thomas who tried to teach us needlework and I hated it. Imagine years later I became a dressmaker and made Bridal wear. When the war started we lost a lot of learning as we were unable to go to school every day. One day after leaving school we were fired on by a german plane who flew very low down Cyrena Road, and my nan took about 20 children indoors in Rodwell and refused to let them go until their mothers arrived. More soon Joyce

[hackette]

LOL Wardy, they were great weren't they! I spent most of my childhood in New Zealand, where, back in the Seventies, the teaching style was much less formal than it was over here (eg we didn't wear a uniform or call the teachers Miss or Sir). When we returned to the UK in 1979, I found it very hard to adapt to the very formal primary school that I went to (we had assembly every day, had to change into plimsolls inside etc etc etc). My teacher was an old dragon who took an instant dislike to me; I remember one morning, when I was still quite new, she pushed me into the classroom door because I didn't want to lead the class into assembly so I hung back to let some other pupils past first. Oddly, she's the only teacher I can remember from that school :o)

BUt what's to be done on the discipline front? Whenever the subject of school discipline comes up these days, there are always people ranting on about reintroducing corporal punishment ("It never did me any harm" blah blah blah). Yet you only have to read the memories of people such as yourself to see that, actually, it DOESN'T work in any way. It's a dilemma, because maintaining discipline in a more constructive way would probably require more work by teachers than they have time for.

[Wardy]

I probably know you, but I can?t remember. I know a few people in Jennings Rd but I will need to think. I?m glad in a strange way that I wasn?t the only one to have terrible experiences at Heber Road School; I thought for many years it was just me, but thankfully I was wrong. I seem to remember a boy called Willy Brown that lived in Jennings Rd or was it the road above? Did you as a teenager sit around the corner shop, I think it was called Blakemore?s or something like that; I was one of the hooligans on scooters. The one thing about Heber School that remains in my mind is not the horrible teachers but the snobbery. If you were one of the kids from a posh family you were in with a chance of getting a good education. If on the other hand you were from a working class family you had no chance and they made sure you knew it. I suppose it shaped many of our lives for years to come. Looking at it positively, if I hadn?t of had that experience I may have not pushed my own kids to see them go to university and succeed in education. Personally I got a Master?s Degree at the age of 51, so I never gave up and I never let them beat me. However, I will always remember receiving my degree; I looked at all the people in the audience and thought ?there?s nothing hard about being clever, I just wasn?t given the chance? I could have done this years ago. Wardy

[Wardy]

Farnham: Great story about the German plan, I haven?t heard that one. To date I don?t know of any kid who went to Heber not crying. I can remember wetting myself because I was too frightened to ask to go to the toilet; I was so ashamed even though I was only 5 years old. Haven?t done that again since, but I feel I?m fast approaching the age were I might and sometimes I nearly do reading some of the stories on this and the Rodwell Rd thread. I?m glad kids today don?t go through those experiences like we did; going to school then was like going to prison and compared to prisons today it was probably worse. Keep the stories coming Wardy.

[Wardy]

dywhy: Forgot about that. I think, correction, I know, I felt both of them on many occasions; wonderful days. For the benefit of younger people reading this thread a slipper was a Plimsoll a bit like a trainer and it was whacked across you backside up to six times, depending on the offence i.e. 1 for talking, 3 for talking back and 6 for having an opinion. Wardy

[pamelamcnamara]

Hey, I was at this school from 1956 to 1962. I remember Miss Hussy! I would love to know if anyone remembers a Peter Morris, Paul England and Christine Nicholson? My favourite teacher was Miss Bromley. She was nice to me.

Pam

[PMSE15]

I went to Heber from 1986-1992 Wow! Such memories! Mr Dacey was the head back then. Some name i remember from back then.....Mrs Batty, Mrs Mukaji, another teacher who had terrible teeth and a horrible temper! Mr Roy, wow, its all coming back now! The dinner ladies! Such lovely ladies!

The shed in the playground, the caretakers house, with his huge dogs! Haha! How was that allowed?! The pub next door where my dad would often be found! LOL.

Good old days!

[uncleglen]

Does anyone remember Ernie Miles or any of the Miles family who lived in Crystal Palace Road and went to Heber in the 1940s?

[SueJ]

I went to Goodrich in the early 70's then to Daryl Road for a year then Heber for three years. It's just the way it was back then.

After Heber I went to Waverly,

I will check with my parents the specific years I was at the schools and get back on here.

Anyway, loved Goodrich, liked Daryl Road and quite liked Heber too. I remember there were lots and lots and lots of stairs and school lunch was at the church at the top of Goodrich / Lordship Lane.

[returnofthenative]

I do not know the Miles family, but am a Heberite in more ways than one. I went to the school from between 1964 to 1970. During that time the school had its own infants, with a separate Head to the junior. Mrs Dawson was the lovely head of infants, and I was in the class of Miss Winnie Wakinshaw. She came from Sunderland originally. She was in her fifties when she taught me to read and write. Around 1968, when I had since moved on to the junior school, she married a gentleman named Ron Alcorn. During the 1970s she had left Heber and had become a Head herself at Keyworth school in Kennington. Moving up to the junior school in 1966, my class teacher was the wonderful Miss Evelyn Mabel Bromley, from Woodwarde Road. Yes Wardy, she had lived with her mother who had died in her nineties, so would have been a contemporary of Churchill. Anyway, Miss Bromley would tell us tales of her brother who lived on the coast at Eastbourne. She was a lovely lady, and I can picture her now with her hair tied in a bun and her hands covered in chalk. She always called any silly behaving children 'duffers'. Now, I believe that my class may have been her last one; she retired around the late 1960s, I think. I do know that unfortunately she succumbed to cancer in 1974 and sadly did not emulate the great age to which her mother had lived.

In 1968, John James Heester retired. We were at the special assembly for this, and the press came and took a photo for the South London Observer (not the SLP!). My elder brother and I were a part of the group sitting in front of the outgoing head for the press shot, along with a small number of others. Mr Heester's successor was William Stevens. He had the idea of knocking down walls between the classrooms and created some very large learning areas. My year was unaffected by the changes, as I passed from the classroom of Miss Bromley into that of Mrs Olga Baker. However, my younger sister was caught up in this trendy sixties learning revolution. The formal teaching of kids became a team-teach exercise, which had debatable outcomes. Subsequently, some secondary schools were complaining that their new intake from Heber required remedial work in basic Maths & English.

The schools at that time had classes of 40 children. Heber was no different. I became a teacher myself much later in life and baulked at the idea of teaching any classes larger than 30 students. I really admire the dedication of teachers dealing with classes of such sizes. I suppose baby boomers had meant that class sizes were so large. At Heber, the Science block was still in existence in those days. For the information of the younger inhabitants of this area, it stood at the Crystal Palace Road end of the school. It had three stories, although the ground floor was a vaulted area away from the playground where we could escape the rain at play & lunchtimes. The first floor was the pottery area, including the kiln, and the top floor was where Mr Simon Wood taught Science. He also covered some of the craft work. I still own a pair of cuff-links I made and which was my introduction to enameling. I can remember cutting the copper, cleaning it up, adding the powder and then holding the article with a pair of tongues in a Bunsen burner. Health & Safety today would never allow anything so risky! Mr Wood was a great character. He not only taught science but at one year's Christmas party did a whole conjuring act; he was a member of the Magic Circle. Great entertainment for us kids. Later, he became head of the Heber overflow school, the annexe in Darrell Road.

I can also remember some of the less-liked aspects of being at Heber. I am the opposite to Wardy, and was never the sporty type. There was a South African teacher called Regan who only ever liked kids who were great at footie or cricket. Neither my brother nor I remember him being that favourable to us, and our cousin was actually in Regan's class, so had him as his class teacher. Therefore, we all knew that Regan was having an affair with one of the teachers. My cousin's group was told to keep looking to the front of the class, and not to turn around. Crafty old Regan was snogging this teacher at the back; my cousin took a quick look, being unable to resist. Many years later, we learned that Regan had died from a heart attack, but never did secure the divorce he desperately wanted so that he could be with his colleague lover.

Another unpleasant teacher was Mrs Dawson, not the same one who had been head of the infants. I recall her being on playground duty one playtime, and I happened to be near her. She was in the corner of the Crystal Palace Road end yard, and right by the entrance to the alley. The alley was the frontage of the school building behind the railings on Heber Road itself. In those days, there was no gate there. The wooden ones standing there today are quite a recent addition, as are the bicycle racks. The alley was out of bounds, but the boys would nevertheless venture down to play marbles against the building wall. She sent me down to get the boys to come back into the playground. As each one did so, she whacked each one on the back of the head as they passed through the arch. I was last through, having done what I was told to do, and received a whack as well for my efforts. Talk about injustice!

I never knew about the fire at the school until I read Wardy's account. I do remember Miss Bromley telling us that the classrooms upstairs were only half tongue and grooved; the rear of the room was made up of sheets of 8 x 4 boards. This was because in the early days of the school the rear portion had tiers, with the desks rising high to the back wall of the rooms. Similarly, they each had their own fireplace which necessitated coal being shovelled on them during lessons. By my time, the school was heated by a wet central heating system and Mr Smith the caretaker had taken a small group of us on a special visit to the boiler room. He lived in the caretaker's building within the precinct of the school, near the now-demolished bike shed.

I have done some extensive research into my family tree. I knew that my grandmother had attended Heber as a little girl - she was born in 1903, and would run up Cyrena Road with her younger sister as the school bell in the bell tower was being rung. So grandma was an early pupil, but further research revealed that her aunts and uncles had also attended the school, just after it opened in 1882.

I could go on, but now finding myself living right opposite my alma mater means that I never escape the memories.

Just a short after thought: in the year 2001, I met up with many former members of Miss Bromley/Mrs Baker's class of the late 1960s. That was wonderful!

[computedshorty]

Heber Road School has been our family local school, seven of us children attended from 1926 to 1951.

My own started in 1936 as an infant, we did have a short sleep on the floor in the main hall spaced in rows with just a cover over us, I remember the low toilets and tiny chairs and tables, and the rows of hooks to hang up our coats.

The science block building reminds me at a later date being taken to the top floor and the teacher told us we were going to learn about gravity we all looked out of the windows to see a feather and a ball dropped down, we learned that a solid item fell quicker than a light item, he said that if one of you fall out you will be classed as a solid item.

That science block was built on brick piers that were bricked in during the war for us as to use as Air Raid Shelters.

When the wall in Heber Road had a gateway built in it for the Taxi converted into a Fire Engine to stay in the playground the Firemen were housed in the upper rooms, after a fire the wet hoses were laid out in lines to dry, there were three Emergency brick Water tanks, on Bomb sites one just at the end of Jennings Road in Crystal Palace Road, one at the end of Milo Road in Beauval Road, and one behind my home in Landcroft Road, between Crystal Palace Road and Thompson Road.

I remember the black German plane with white crosses on it shooting at us, I was in Jennings Road just outside the School Keeper Lodge, I was walking to school, I have a feeling it was after dinner.

My time at school was a pleasant time although most of it was during the War, and teachers were called up for Service, and some of the children were evacuated, but most returned within a few weeks, so the classes were condensed to take in children of a more larger age group, we played cards with the teacher to pass the time in the Shelter, it was very dim so we could not have classes, one teacher had been in the army but was wounded, so became our teacher he taught us how to compile Ciphers a kind of code, I was quite good at it, you had to find a substitute for each letter the clues were that you found the five vowels ( the most used letters and the double used letters I/E oo ee ll ss mm nn ) , I had fun doing this, although my writing has never been very good, and was a mess using those wooden pens with a steel nib point that you dipped in the ink well at the top of the desk.

There was a brick built Air Raid in Jennings Road with a concrete flat roof built on an open plot a few doors from the school, I never found out why as all the houses had Anderson Shelters or in door Morrison Shelters.

I remember the houses in Rodwell Road most of my school chums lived in the houses between Syrena and Crystal Palace Road some had steps leading up. The other end was posh. I remember Freddy Stains he would be 81 now if he is still about.

Dons Sweet shop there was a step down as you went in always full of kids who I don't think had much money to spend or there was much to buy as sweets were rationed and not many available, we bought Zubes a kind of cough drop, or Galloway's Cough.

Mixture because it was sweet, or Ice lolly on a stick for a penny coloured but no taste, I think Don made them.

Once the Water Board dug up the road and laid big Pipes about fifteen feet down, they might have been five feet inside, of course after school we ventured into the end but it was very dark and we got as far as the bend into Crystal Palace road and came back. There was the night Watchman. to dodge. He cleaned the paraffin lamps and filled them and trimmed the wick and stood them along the open trench that continued along Heber Road to Lordship Lane under the pavement out side the Dentist on the corner then crossed to Townley Road. Here on the corner was the building we got our Gas Masks I got a Mickey Mouse Type with a nose, my twin brother and sister got ones that they had to be laid inside and laced in then a pump had to be used all the time they were in there, Mum did not like to see the inside get misted up and could not see the babies. They were seven years younger than me so mum said I must put one of the babies in as she could not do two in an emergency then make sure I pumped al the time.

I remember the Park Keepers one was my mates mum Mrs Sissens lived in Landcroft Road, they called her Sis. We all walked in file in pairs to the Dulwich Park to play our favourite game of Gusto with a foot ball but you used it as a hand ball, lots of rushing about and grazes and bumps we loved it. We were dismissed after in the park to make our own way home.

I remember the Shows put on by Armature Actors in the Park on a stage built of Steel scaffolding tubes and Boards with a canopy hanging in the front and a curtain for the actors to change at the back. A small van with a Trumpet loudspeaker on its roof alongside the railings that held the audience who had pad a few pence to sit inside on a folding park seat that its legs soon sank into the grass and you fell off. There were more standing outside than those who paid to go in. Some of the singers got the Raspberry and soon got off stage, strange now to think that Anne Shelton lived a few hundred feet from the stage in Court Lane, singing for the Forces, we used to scrump her apples from her back garden backing onto the park.

Anybody recognise themselves?

Att. Picture about 1944 Class picture John Morgan Pictured of Good rich Road.

[pearl1]

Some great stories! I worked in the nursery at Heber for a couple of years and loved it (though not the headteacher at the time!) I also painted a couple of murals but don't know if they're still there.

[pamelamcnamara]

I remember Mrs Sissons, the park keeper. I was friends with her grandchildren, Penny and Colin. They lived in Friern Road at the time I knew them (mid to late 1950's). I was terrified of Mrs Sissons as she used to shout at us if we stood on the flowers in her garden!! She used to ring the bell in Dulwich Park when it was time for the park to close.