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Remember this picture from the Spring 2018 newsletter?
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Joan Gurney (1938-1951) has written this analysis which you will find fascinating!
When I looked at the photograph (left) on the front of last Spring’s CCHS OGA Newsletter, I immediately asked myself the questions which spring to mind when I am trying to analyse a narrative picture - what? where? who, when? how? and why? So let me begin.
The photo shows two lines of school children walking on the pavement in pairs down North Hill Colchester, on the same side of the road as St Peter’s Church. There is a slight gap between the two queues level with the main doorway into the church. There is no traffic on the road but there appear to be several adults with them, pushing their bicycles - all are on foot, progressing at walking pace. I estimate that there are about 50 plus children, all of whom are 11 or 12 years of age. So who are they?
From their uniform the girls appear to be from CCHS. Nearly all of them are in their summer uniform of a checked summer dress (red, white and blue), the skirt of which falls just below the knee. A dark coloured blazer (navy blue) is also worn. It appears,
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Memories
from their back views, that the blazers are closely buttoned so that the cloth does not show any wrinkles or creases at the rear. “Be tidy, girls,” would have been the instruction. One girl has obviously forgotten her blazer and may have been sent to the headmistress for misbehaviour! Two or three girls appear to be in their winter uniform of a navy tunic and long sleeved white blouse. The outfit of each is completed by a panama hat with a navy and red band. Somewhere on the uniform (blazer pocket or hatband) the school badge with the motto ‘Wisdom giveth Life’ would be shown. Dark shoes and white ankle socks would have been the norm, but sockless feet and sandals were probably forbidden.
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The six or seven ladies with bicycles are almost certainly teachers. They are either pushing their bicycles or are stationary, patiently waiting for the queues of girls to keep moving, and shepherding them along. The teacher at the end of the line of pupils furthest downhill appears to have stopped the queue, whilst she looks up and down the road to see if there is any traffic approaching before she accompanies the girls across.
So when was this happening and why were they there? It is a summer’s day at ten minutes past midday by the church clock. The sun is high in the sky and the shadows are short. It is probably nearing the end of the school summer term in late June, mid July. We can guess at the year from the girls’ summer uniform, the teachers’ style of dress and the model of their bicycles. The teachers’ dark coloured skirts reach to mid-calf and their arms are covered in the same sombre shade. Nothing pale coloured or summer-like and hats are on every teacher’s head! This is the 1930s when hats were an essential part of everyday ‘outings’ - as important as shoes - even on a bicycle! The bicycles are a ‘sit-up-and-beg’ type, possibly of Raleigh make, with big wheels and a skirt guard over the back wheel to prevent the lengthy skirt of the rider becoming entangled in the spokes.
The early sites of CCHS can be said to have evolved from Wellesley Road to the Corn Exchange, the Albert Hall and St Peter’s Church Hall before the school’s official founding in 1909. A new purpose-built school building was delayed and did not open until 1912, during which time pupils visited its tennis courts and playing fields at the bottom of North Hill. So travelling between sites was not uncommon in those days.
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When the new site (half-way down North Hill) opened, it had to be shared with the pupils of the Technical College. This sharing could not cope with the ever increasing numbers on roll and it gradually became unmanageable. In 1919/20 therefore, Essex County Council purchased Grey Friars to house the Junior and Preparatory parts of CCHS which, to some extent relieved the pressure on North Hill, but it was still necessary that some movement took place between the two buildings so that the whole of the developing curriculum could be covered.
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This photograph, I think, shows a large group of pupils (perhaps two classes) coming from Grey Friars to North Hill for their afternoon lessons and maybe their lunch first. The teacher at the head of the queue would escort the first group across the road and up the drive of the North Hill building (now the Sixth Form College), skirt the front entrance (which was used by the Technical College boys only) and turning to the right, would then pass the imposing facade facing downhill (top right) which they were also not allowed to enter, before continuing their walk to the back entrance (lower right). Here the teachers would leave their bicycles in the adjoining bicycle shed to be collected later for the journey home, and the whole ‘crocodile’ would gradually feed in through the open door in small groups.
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Of course, there is another interpretation for this photograph. If the clock read 2 o’clock instead of ten past twelve, and the lower queue of pupils beyond the church entrance was facing uphill instead of downhill, this would mean that both queues
facing the church doorway were waiting to go in for a final end of term Assembly for the whole school - North Hill and Grey Friars - which would be coming from two different directions. Afterwards they would leave for the long awaiting school summer holidays. Neither the Hall at Grey Friars, nor the Hall at North Hill were big enough to accommodate the whole school Senior, Junior and
Preparatory Departments.
But more of that next time!
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