大象传媒

In 1940, as a six year old, I attended Bisbrooke C. of E Junior and Infants School situated just inside the park gates of Bisbrooke Hall. We walked the 2 miles from and to the village of Bisbrooke four times a day in all weathers, carrying a gasmask in a cardboard box and wearing an identity disc. If the air raid siren sounded we had to lie down in the nearest ditch beside the road until the all clear was sounded.

The Hall grounds at that time were used by the Red Beret Paratroopers. We watched them build one of the Bailey Bridges used at Arnhem from our classroom window.

The Camden Girl's High School was evacuated to Glaston and one of their teachers came to take our small school for singing. Several evacuee children came to our school. We had hymns and prayers in the morning, then dealing with "Rover see Kitty" at Infant level leading to group reading for Juniors, with maths from the Nesbit text books. We did long division and multiplication, mental arithmetic and tables. I well remember miles, furlongs and chains; hours mintues and seconds. In the afternoons we had drawing, painting, raffia work, knitting, and embroidery. The top group girls all knitted for the war effort - seaboot socks, balaclava helmets and mittens. At breaktime Mrs Gray heated milk on top of the coke fired heating stove and made Horlicks. The toilets across the yard were not for the faint hearted, spiders lurked in the darkness of the earth closets.

We collected rose hips for rose hip syrup, and has competitions to see who could collect the most white butterflies to save the cabbage crops. On Friday afternoons Mrs Gray did National Savings and a top class child walked to the village shop for saving stamps.

When we finished our years at Primary level most of the children transferred to Uppingham Central School. A select few who passed the 11+ exams went to local grammar schools.

'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sara-Jane Higginbottom of the CSV Action Desk Leicester on behalf of Mary and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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