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Harold Taylor was the youngest in a family of six children and so was fondly known as 'Baby Taylor' by some. Living in Chichester during his schooldays, Harold remembers what it was like.
It must have been about 1935 when my sister, Flo, realised that I was not getting the schooling that I should. There was therefore an attempt to take me away from the school to go to another, but the school rejected this and they would not grant permission. However, my sister knew Evan T Davis, (the Director of Education for West Sussex) well and got dispensation for my parents to remove me from St. Richards.
This did not go down well with the church authorities, and the parish priest, Father Measures, preached a sermon on the subject, which my family resented. This was especially as I was not the first child to be taken away, although admittedly, the others had left at the age of 11 years when they went to the Lancastrian Senior School.
That summer I spent nearly the whole time with Flo (herself a teacher), who was giving me 'homework' to bring me up to standard. I spent hours watching cricket matches, walking on the hills carrying sum books and my exercise book to complete my homework. After the summer holiday I attended the Central School, which was just across the recreation ground from my home. I did not realise till then that Flo had finished teaching at the school that term to start at a new school in Bournemouth.
The new form master was Mr Hardy, who had a habit each morning of setting out a sum on the blackboard for the pupils to work out whilst he was calling the register. The second morning I sat and cried. The sum he had set was a long division of money and I had no idea how to set it out, let alone to work it out.
The boy I sat next to, Rollet Pick, was Canadian by birth. His father had a small shop at Stockbridge, which was a grocers and sub-post office.
The only real guide I have as to what year it was, is that it was the year King George V was so seriously ill, and the school attended a service for him at St. Pancras Church. I cannot be sure if it was that illness from which he died or one that followed on. I do remember, however, going to another service.
Also at this time there was a dirty joke about the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson. It involved the drawing of a pair of knickers during the telling of some route that the Prince took his lady friend to. I can remember seeing this chalked on the footway.
The second year I was at the Central School, I was in Mr Parsloe's class, which was the top form, having skipped Mr Alexander's. There were two classes below Mr Hardy's. My sister's replacement was a Mrs Bolster, and there was also Miss Challen.
The Headmaster was a Mr Wilkins, whose home I would occasionally visit, especially around the end of the summer. He had an elder tree in his garden and we had, for several years, collected the berries for my mother to make wine. The habit continued after my sister had left.
Flo made some arrangement with Mr Parsloe for me to have some extra education. So, together with some other boys, for one night a week I used to attend his home in Stockbridge Road. This may have been in preparation for the scholarship exam. I recall that the other boys were from so called better homes.
I entered the preliminary exam without any thought or ambition to pass. I had two brothers already at the school and seeing the amount of homework they had, this did not impress me to be in favour. As circumstances transpired, I passed and went on to the exam proper at the high school later. I failed.
Later the headmaster called me to his office with a message to pass onto Flo, to the effect that I had failed by only one and a half marks. This was because there had been so many passes that year, that the pass mark had been raised by ten, resulting in my failure. It ended up with my sister wishing to pay for me to go to the high school, but I refused and turned down the bribe of a bicycle.
At school I was not a high achiever. The system of classes went 2b, which was really for the unteachable, this was the realm of Dixie Dean. 3b was taken by the English, history and geography master, Mr Ponting, and 3a by Hughes, for maths and games.
Next was 4b, Mr Crabbe, who also taught English. When he left to become headmaster at Mundham, his place was taken by a Mr Williams, whom I had met before and did not like. He had replaced Mr Parsloe at my previous school not long before I left.
4a was the domain of Mr Norris, whom I had become acquainted with before I went to the school, as his son was at school with my elder brother. We had met when we had started going to West Wittering regularly, fishing with lay lines. Mr Norris did the same thing and we discussed tactics and fortunes together.
'Geyser' Hawkins, who also taught games and maths, taught 5a. I spent two years in his form. I was also to meet him later when he was headmaster of the senior boy's school at Horsham.
5b was taken by Mr Hugget, the science master. Don Hanson, who took music and hygiene, taught the Sixth form. There was also a wood working class by Mr Parrot and a metal working class with Mr Knight.
For about the last two years that I was at school, Mr Trotter, the headmaster began taking maths classes. He was a bad tempered man and totally unsuited to teaching. Whenever he was taking our class, 5a, he spent most of his time in a foul mood and tearing his hair out, laying into some boy or other with whatever instrument came to hand. Oddly enough, some years after I left school I met him on a train, and he was as nice as pie, and very inquisitive as to how various people were now getting on.
I did not know till after I left school that he was heavily involved in the St. John's Ambulance Brigade, and I believe he became a district commissioner.
I stayed in 5a for two years. Don Hanson told me it was because of my handwriting, but I do not know how true this was. This meant that many of the new form were from a year younger than I, which is how I later met up with Charlie Randall in my class.
The final six months at school was a total waste of time. I tried to leave as soon as I was 14 and go into agricultural engineering. In this field I could use my familiarity with metal work and my keenness on blacksmithing. Despite having found a job, however, had an interview and been accepted, the school authority would not let me leave till the end of term. This was despite the fact that we were not getting any schooling as the evacuation had taken place.
Our schools had been taken over by London Grammar Schools. I suppose the powers that be decided that their education was more important than ours. From the start of the autumn term through to Christmas, we did not attend our school. Instead we were housed in the Regnum Club in South Street. In one out-building three classes were joined together, and our morning comprised mainly of singing or poetry. It was so cold we kept on our outer clothing.
The concrete tennis court that separated the main building from South Pallant was used as the playground, and we were given excessively long periods on it.
During the afternoon we were taken out for walks, usually by Mr Parrot and Mr Knight. These were enjoyable, and I am sure we learnt more at these times than we did in the mornings. I particularly recall visiting various sites during the building of the bypass around Chichester. We were shown the excavations, the engineering projects and construction. There was only one lane created at this time, which took two-way traffic.
I never did well at sport at school, possibly because I was a shy person and did not expose myself to the limelight. In the school sports, I only ever entered for an event one year, which we were all made to enter for. This was the 100 yards.
I played football well enough, but was never in any school team. I was invited once, but made some lame excuse and was never asked again. At cricket I did not excel well enough to play in the class team.
After Christmas of 1939, we were allowed to re-occupy some of our school. In the mornings, our class used the spare room, which was normally used for film shows and meetings, although I do not think we had any set lessons. My only memory of that period is that we used the small quadrangle at the rear of the school as our playground; an area which had in the past, been reserved for the sixth form. I also remember it for the snow, which we had a lot of.
The afternoons are rather vague, except for the second period of the afternoon, when we were crammed, three to a desk, and did 'spelling bees', mental arithmetic tests or spontaneous questions. In these I seemed to excel, being picked out on several occasions as an example.
I think that the Education Authority has a lot to answer for to my age group for their neglect at the start of the War, as this probably handicapped us for the rest of our lives. The secondary schools were sacrificed to the benefit of the London Grammar Schools.
Our school had the Wimbledon and Streatham boys, the girls' school next door taking in the girls of those schools.
Going back to school days reminds me about the River Lavant, although then it was known as the Lavant Course. It flooded every year on the St. Pancras side, although it may not have done on the Hornet side, which was largely undeveloped. The water would stretch up Alexandra Terrace to where it met the road, and up New Park Road to the Central School, although I do not remember it doing so after about 1938.
I also recall that until they dug the new deep pit in the water meadows, there was water in the Lavant through those fields all summer. It was in the early thirties that they put in new culverts to take the water under the main road at St. James Road junction.
I am sure that where the river flowed through Fordwater Meadows, the water flowed all year until after I left school. One instance which calls this to mind is that there was a mob of us playing in the field one day, where there used to be a single plank bridging a run off stream. This crossed the main footpath from Summersdale to Lavant.
One particular day we had been messing about on this plank and it had got very wet and slippery. We spotted Dixie Dean, the Lancastrian schoolmaster coming along on his customary afternoon walk. Because some of the boys went to that school, we all ran and hid by the bank of the main stream. Dixie had a nervous look at this wet and slippery plank, and with more bravery than sense, decided to gingerly cross, placing his walking stick just a few inches in front of his feet each time before he took a step.
When he reached the middle, the inevitable happened and he fell in the stream. We all dashed over and the elder ones helped him out onto the bank, and I believe some walked him home, which was at the end of Summersdale Road.
I wonder if the youth of today would be so kind in the same circumstances, I would like to think so.
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