Memories
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Elspeth Griffin (James,1938-1951)
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Reading Susan Kerr’s (Everitt) memories of her ‘A’ level biology lessons in the Autumn Newsletter brought back memories. I entered the sixth form in 1954, and in that year the sixth form nearly doubled in size. There were two lower sixth forms for the first time. Several girls only completed one year, but in year two nearly 40 of us shared the same front class room at North Hill as had been used previously for 20 girls or less. I think there was only one cupboard for storage so most of us had to keep our books at home and bring them in daily as required.
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Lab space was very limited and only those needing to take Physics and Chemistry for their careers were able to take them, and classes were held in the very small lab at the back of a class size lab at Grey Friars. Numbers for Biology were also limited to 7 or 8. Miss Roper had managed to acquire the use of two small rooms with the linking door removed, previously used for storage, and the end section of a greenhouse at the Park Road Education Offices. The rooms had bare concrete floors and were cold in summer and very cold in winter. In better weather we were in the greenhouse, which on a sunny day was much too hot. As the site was so far from North Hill we had to have two complete mornings and one afternoon there. If the weather was nice our break times would be spent in the garden, part of which was taken for the new (present) school the year after we left. One of the other girls was Judith Bayley, sister to Anne who was in Susan Kerr’s year.
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February on my calendar this year has a picture of Hilly Fields in the snow. This, too, brought back memories as when it was snowy and we were not able to play hockey we went on a cross country run instead. We started form the school and went up North Hill, turned right at the top and went through to Balkerne Hill and through to the top of Hilly Fields, down on to Sheepen Road, along to the right and finished coming up North Hill. We were nearly all dressed in our short hockey skirts and I always envied the first team goal keeper who was able to wear her track suit!
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