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T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o 8 0 geography) were the very primitive facilities for boys and girls (separately, of course) and the air-raid shelters, more of which later. Juniors went out of their door and round the back to get to the playground, a tarmacked slightly sloping area bounded on two sides by the road. The slope, inevitable in Muswell Hill, had been reduced a bit by excavation so that by the fence and by the wall of the adjoining house was a short steep bank. At the other, lower end a stout wooden fence stretched across the playground, leaving a narrow strip of ground which was intermittently and unenthusiastically used to show that seeds put into the soil would sometimes germinate and produce a flower or vegetable. To the top right of the playground there was a small square extension which was meant to be reserved for the infants. In the garden backing on to this were kept a few chickens; these fascinated us town kids. Astoria, Finsbury Park c.1949 we didn't sound too bad. We all got more and more excited and also more and more nervous. As the date got nearer and nearer to go to the Astoria, we found ourselves coming up with reasons not to go. The thought of going up on stage was suddenly very daunting, and would our bowels be able to stand it, but most important of all, if were honest with ourselves, we weren't as good as we thought we were anyway! Almost at the last minute, with a mixture of disappointment and relief, we decided not to go. So, the start of an amazing musical career fizzled out before it even started. But I still wonder, after all these years, if Bob can play more than 5 chords now. Mike Hiron 1954-1959 TIN POT MEMORIES Muswell hill primary school The building was originally intended to be temporary so it was relatively inexpensively built in wood and corrugated iron. It was rectangular in plan and orientated roughly NW-SE. This meant that the five classrooms on the SW side of the central corridor were generally sunny (when there was sun). They each had tall sash windows, most of which could be opened and closed with the aid of ropes. They were fairly high up so that we couldn't see anything of interest outside to interrupt our education...... There were floor to ceiling sliding/folding partitions between at least some of the rooms, but this useful facility was rarely if ever used. The rooms were equipped with standard double iron framed desks with hinged seats and work surfaces and a pen rack and ink holder at the top. Teachers' desks were raised on small plinths. The walls would be plastered with teaching aids and occasionally pupils' work. Doors at each end of the central corridor let pupils in and out of the school, infants at the NW and juniors at the SE. On the other side of the corridor, working along from the junior end, there was a cloakroom, a store room, caretaker's den, a room for the head mistress, then the Hall. This had a platform at the upper end and many seldom used glazed doors leading to the outside. Beyond the hall, another tiny room served as a very cramped staff room, another store and the infants' cloakroom - all very tidily designed. Outside at the back (Le. NE, for anyone still following the Summer PE lessons often took place on the playground. Races were run up and down; as the fence at the bottom and the house wall at the top were not parallel, it meant that you had an advantage being on the side nearer the school - you had a slightly shorter run. I still remember the look on the face of the most athletic boy in the class, Eric Eveleigh, when I beat him in a race, having worked out the advantage. You collided more or less violently with the wall at the end of the race - it would not be allowed today by the H & S people. Half way up the playground on the right one could clamber through a couple of bushes and scramble onto the shady roof of the adjacent air raid shelter. This I would sometimes do on a summer day after returning to school from lunch at home. I would lie there in the sun with eyes closed and listen to conversations around me. I was most gratified one such day to hear a small voice ask, 'Is he dead?' I remember little of my first day in school, other than being put next to Barry Griffiths. Barry wore glasses, one lens blanked out. Not having met with this phenomenon before, I must have stared. In my class from the earliest days was Roger Heard; he and I became good friends, though we drifted apart after we went to Stationers', as we were in different classes from then on. I have recently made a small effort to trace him, and one or two other classmates of those days, but with almost no success. Talking about whom I sat next to, I remember being most upset once being made to sit next to Stinker Myers. Poor girl, I am sure she didn't deserve this nickname. At the other end of the spectrum, there was a sweet girl with a head of fair curly hair, whose name I forget at the moment, but may well remember before I finish this; she had a moderate stutter and although I didn't fall in love with her at the time, I remember her with affection. I did find myself attracted to Rosemary Dickens; she never showed any sign of recognising my affliction and at that time I was puzzled about my feelings. Whilst on this tack I will recall a school party when I was in the upper part of the school - no idea about the circumstances - at which we played various games which involved running about. I swung round one of the Hodge twin sisters and quite innocently and accidentally clutched her right breast (which must have been in its very infancy); I recall clearly the electric shock which passed through me and the subsequent wonder about what it meant. Today's young people would surely readily understand ... The Sankey twins, Ted 'n' Harry, joined the school not long before we went to secondary schools. They were good friends - and I really fell for their sister, Pat. I took her to the opera at Sadlers Wells a couple of times - so perhaps it is no wonder I made no progress with her! The only one of my contemporaries 28
T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o 8 0 Muswell Hill Railway Station the site on which the primary school was built. I can find on 'Friends Reunited' is Beryl Noyce. If anyone reading this has contact or information concerning anyone else in my year, I would be pleased to hear. I remember various teachers; Miss/Mrs Manchip/Mantrip or some such. Poor lady had a limp and no idea about how to teach children. On the other hand there was Mrs Shaw whom we all adored. Her husband had a hand in the education of some of us, too. Somehow or other I went with a party of children to a summer holiday camp somewhere in, I think, Sussex. Peter Lack would remember. Mr Shaw accompanied us; he took us on walks, including to a stream running through the village. We watched as a fish scuttled away from our gaze among the water weeds; almost immediately, another startled us by following exactly the same route. The head mistress in my time was Miss Barker. I had no particular feelings toward her, or contact, until one day I was summoned before her and threatened with the cane unless my reading improved. I was so scared that I wet myself all over her floor (short trousers in those days) and had to dash round the back. I had no prior knowledge that my reading was substandard. I don't think it made much difference in the long run, but in retrospect I realise that others were concerned. My brother showed me a passage in one of Dad's railway books about a runaway train, which did interest me, but it was not until I was introduced to Biggles and a book called 'Flying for Ethiopia' that I started to read of my own accord. I still read rather slowly, but always have at least one book on the go. Another vignette of memory - I was at school in rather unusual wartime circumstances, not the whole school, but in an admix of classes, possibly during the holidays; why, I know not. The airraid siren started and the teacher in charge began to hurry us out to the shelter in a panicky kind of way. It was some time before we blase children could get her to listen - to the all-clear! In my first paragraph I said that I had spent almost all my time at the Tin Pot School. The qualification is due to the fact that after a bomb (a V1 doodlebug I think) landed on the railway just above the school and damaged the roof, we had to meet in a temporary room at Crouch End School, some mile away. This was not a happy time for me - I hated school dinners; previously I had always gone home at lunchtime. Some time later we returned to the Tin Pot and noted the repairs to the roof of the hall. Twice in my life I have suffered the shock of finding a school building missing from its site. At some point the Tin Pot was pulled down and a replacement built on the site of Muswell Hill Station - closing of the Ally-Pally line was a crime. I didn't know about this until I visited some years later. The second even greater shock came when I went down memory lane expecting to see Stationers' Company's School, but that had gone too - a political crime - and another story. Tony Bathurst PS: Her name was Marion Blanchard - I remembered! First world war memories audjohn@hotmail.com 5th January 2015 Dear Geraint, A Happy New Year to you! Hope you are well and fit to travel. I enclose the following which you requested. Please amend/omit as you see fit. First World War stories abound and will continue to do so as we are reminded of the centenary of the start of the war. My father, Walter Young saw action in France from April, 1915 until the war ended when he was released as a prisoner of war at the end of 1918. On returning home he started writing his memoirs, a unique story of amazing survival against all the odds. His writings only came to light after he died in 1957, when my brother eventually sold the house and found three large manuscript books at the back of a cupboard. None of us knew about these as my father, in common with many servicemen, never talked about his experiences. Walter Young was born in 1898 at 323 St. John's Street, just below the Angel, Islington., the fourth of eight children. He was employed by the Post Office in 1908 and worked at King Edward Building, Holborn as a sorter until he retired in 1949. This large Post Office was not that far from Fleet Street and the site of the first Stationer's Company's School. When he married in 1922 he settled in the home in which I was born and lived until I married in 1956. This was in Cressida Road, near to Hornsey Lane - a stone's throw from the site of our school in Mayfield Road. (These are rather dubious and indirect connections which linked us with Stationers' for I never went there as a pupil, but joined Highbury County Grammar School in 1941. Being in a different Borough we never engaged as rivals in sport). My father had joined the Territorials in 1913 and trained at various places in the South of England including Abbots Langley, near to my present home at Wigginton. He served with the 47th Division of the Post Office Rifles together with many of his colleagues from King Edward Building. Before enlisting he was presented with a New Testament (which I still have) from his church - Woodbridge Baptist Chapel in Clerkenwell Square. He became a committed Christian whilst attending that Church as a young man. Although I am sure he never presumed that God would protect him whatever happened, but his trust in God must have been a great comfort to him in all the trials and dangers he went through. He knew he could have died a thousand times, but, of course, he did survive or I would not be writing this. He had no heart for war as he writes on the first page of his memoirs, "It is not in the spirit of Christianity," but he regarded what he did as serving his King and country and his family. 29
Page 1 and 2: No 80 /February 2015 The Old Statio
Page 3 and 4: T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o
Page 17 and 18: 70th Anniversary of Operation Marke
Page 27: T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o
Page 35 and 36: WHY WE SPEND NEARLY HALF THE YEAR I
Page 39 and 40: My first excursion to Norway was pr
Page 45 and 46: PETER BULLEN 1927-2014 A Service of

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