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I certainly remember my first day at Homelands in September 1938. I felt I was lucky to be one of the first at the new school as I was only 9 years old — ten at the end of October — and the deadline for entry in that year was two days after my birthday. Being the youngest in the school meant I had to present a bouquet at the first Speech Day, I believe to the Mayoress.
I remember the barrage balloons and air crew in the front garden and the fact that we had to attend school part of the time while the air raid shelters were being completed.
I went to farming camp at Shottle and picked potatoes, but mostly I remember ‘stooking’ wheat, which was always wet and nasty and often the stooks collapsed and had to be re-assembled. One year there was so much rain that the tents leaked and we all had to sleep in the cow byres at the farm, on our lumpy straw filled palliases, with the bull pacing below all through the night.
Whilst we were there, my mother and Rosemary Harrison’s mother came out by bus to see us and took us to the guest house at Idridgehay where we had boiled eggs (from their own hens) and brown bread and butter — a rare treat in the days of rationing. I look at the farm machinery in use today and think back to those back-breaking days at Shottle, but I think we all enjoyed them.
I remember all the teachers, I suppose most particularly Miss Moore, who was my form teacher when I started. A few years later she came to lodge next door to me in Grange Avenue (and opposite to Rosemary and Moyra Harrison). Unfortunately, she used the front room downstairs as a lounge and kept a close eye on what we did in the evenings, mentioning on more than one occasion to my mother that I really ought to be doing some more revision instead of being out on my bicycle.
I seem to recall that we had to learn all the national anthems of the Allies to sing at Speech Day during the war.

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