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PART IV
From memories by Nora Hillman. This article was first published in the West Sussex Gazette on 20 February 1997
'Today's children would think it odd if they could see us on our way home from school: bowling hoops down the road, skipping, or bouncing balls, while the boys in season played marbles or whipped tops in the gutter.'
Yet another of the late Nora Hillman's lucid recollections of wartime schooling at Steyning, the first world war that is.
'In formal sessions in the playground as a change from drill (we had no school hall or gymnasium) we played round games such as Oats and Beans and Barley Grow, Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, Poor Sally Sits A-Weeping, etc.'
'In our playtime we played tag, which we called 'He', skipping on a long rope as All In Together or Salt, Mustard, Vinegar, Pepper, jumping over a rope held taut between two people; Hopscotch, ball bouncing or throwing a ball up against a wall and catching it again to a number of action rhymes.'
'In the lane and fields after school on summer evenings we played Hide And Seek, Off Ground Touch where you could not be caught if your feet were off the ground, Rounders, or Hot Rice, a round ball game.'
'We certainly did not eat sweets or ices on the way home as few of us had any pocket money, unless we had a windfall from a visiting relative. Many of us went to the farm to fetch milk either before school when it was at Standings or later at Round Robin; in later days we went to Pearce's in Kings Barn Lane - the first house to be built there except the old farm house. This was skimmed milk to be used for cooking, cheap at 4d a quart. New milk was delivered by the dairy.'
'As a matter of interest, in my later years at Steyning School, in the early 1920s, we had a lady from the Women's Institute come to demonstrate the spinning of wool which she had gathered from fences and hedgerows.'
'Mr Day brought his microscope to show us chalk and other things; and as a novelty someone brought a crystal set to show us - the first one that most of us had seen or heard.'
'Nearly every child went to Sunday School in those days. It was a matter of course just as much as attending day school.'
'We, as a family, went to the Methodist Sunday School at which the big attraction for us was that they had a library and we were all avid readers. No public library then.'
'We also thought our Sunday School treat vastly superior to that given to the Church of England children who went to Worthing by train, as we went to Lancing by farm wagon, and had the added interest of seeing the horses brought down for a paddle in the sea. We had an enormous tea provided and usually sang all the way home.'
In the next part read the late Nora's detailed account of what children wore in their formative years, and a tale of oxen ploughing, at a time when the local smithy was busily productive.
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