I'm indebted to those strict teachers

What memories they are, too - charged with vivid recollections of what it was like to be a schoolboy in those far-away days of the 1920's.

But .... my memory reaches beyond Wolfenden Street days to 1919 and I920, when as a mere fledgling I attended St Pauls Halliwell (Bottom School). I can still recall Ball Frames, Slates and Slate Pencils, Books with Rag Pages, and learning to count with miniature "Conch" Shells.

I still remember the first school song taught when I was three:-

"Tea cakes, tea cakes

Come and have your tea

Come and have your tea at half-past three".

The school is still there, stern-stone Victorian walls mellowing with age, and keeping company the church a few yards away, and I often pass it with a smile.

I recall what was perhaps at the time, a little upheaval in my childhood life, when St. Paul's, Halliwell, had to 'close down' as a day school, and I seem to remember the word "condemned" being passed around. My mother held my hand, as I was taken to the "top school", to a large assembly of mothers and their sons and daughters.

There was an "education official" in charge, and according to our addresses, the pupils of St. Paul's would be absorbed into other schools. Some went to Church Road, others to St. Thomas's etc.; along with several others I would be sent to Wolfenden Street. There I would stay until I reached the age of 14 - Easter, 1930, when I would "leave".

Those days of the '20's were hard ones. Everyone seemed poor, and every boy was 'equal' to others. Ninety per cent of us wore clogs, and short trousers (mostly "cut-me-downs" from elder brothers trousers). Most trousers bore patches as evidence of the hard treatment they had to bear, and jerseys were the favourite "top dress".

We had to walk to school, hail, rain or snow, for money was so tight and the halfpenny tram fare could often not be afforded. Breakfast was eaten in candlelight to save the gas, and then Halliwell Road would echo to the clatter of clogs, as we ran to school.

If you met a teacher in the street, you had to touch your cap as a mark of respect.

At playtime, we would indulge in the usual boys games, spiced with fighting, shouting and generally letting off steam. There would be "marps" (marbles) and playing with "tab-cards" (cigarette cards). Cigarette card games would be "skimmy on" "knocky down" and "touchy."

One day I shall always remember at "playtime" was an extremely cold and frosty morning as we shivered over "inspection". The headmaster then was Mr. Cheetham, who now I realise never lost his "boyhood". Noting the cold morning, he commanded the caretaker (Mr. Horridge) to throw several buckets of water down the school yard. When playtime came, the yard was a sheet of ice. How we loved the long "slurrs" (slides) our iron clad clogs skimming over the surface, our young faces and cheeks glowing with all the fun. Mr Cheetham was held in high esteem and when he retired, we all assembled in the hall for a "presentation." He was a keen wireless fanatic, and the presentation was a huge horn shaped "loud speaker".

Wireless was still in its infancy, and "wireless sets" bristled with huge wire coils and valves that poked out of the front. There were more "crystal sets" with probing "cats whiskers" to seek out the sensitive spots on the crystal ... the result to be heard on earphones.

Mr Reginald Lawson followed Mr. Cheetham, and he was the headmaster until I left school. We sat two to a desk, with our books etc., underneath the desk. The small pot ink wells were covered by a sliding brass plate.

We used pens with steel nibs . . . and a broken nib fixed to paper "flights" made an excellent dart, to be thrown over the classroom.

We always seemed in high spirits, and I am sure, looking back, the teachers had their hands full. Rather than a "guilty" boy own up, I have seen a full class caned, and we did not mind one bit.

Sometimes when the teacher would leave the class, one of us would run to his desk to hide the cane.

We would sit 'poker- faced' as angrily he would demand to know where it was. It aIways seemed, however, he had a spare locked away in his desk. In one of the classrooms, there is a hole between the floorboards and the tiles. We hid a cane down there . . . who knows, perhaps it is still there after all these years.

On reaching the upper classes (standards six and seven) more exciting boyhood pursuits came into the picture. There was swimming once a week, when we would be marched to Moss Street Baths.

With many others I quickly mastered the art of swimming, and became proficient. On these weekly visits, it was a good moment when anyone was asked did they want to try "their first length." This meant swimming the length of the bath (25 yards) for the first time. There would be cheers as the boy progressed, and a lovely sense of achievement, for a Certificate was presented to everyone who after tuition swam their 'first length'.

Girls and boys were segregated at school and very rarely saw each other. We regarded girls as something to be tormented ... to have their hair plaits pulled mercilessly, to have their ribbon bows in their hair undone or to have unsavoury things (like 'itchy berries' i.e. hawthorn berries) pushed down their necks. I seem to remember, however, they could give a good account in a fight, with liberal use of their clogs! As the age of 14 came nearer, we longed for the day we would leave school, and to take our place in the world outside. When leaving day was approaching, there was a call to the Headmaster's study. The door was closed, and we were given a fatherly talk about "the facts of life" and the care we should take as adulthood would approach.

On returning to the playground, we would be surrounded by boys wanting to know about the talk, accompanied by "Cor"...or "Blimey".

I have mentioned the poor times in which we lived ... yet we were happy, making our own pleasures and indulging in our simple games. We made kites from newspapers, played "Piggy", "Ride-a-kench," Tip-can", Marbles ("Marps") and "Top and Whip", and we also trundled hopps of iron along, hitting them furiously with sticks. Sometimes the hoops broke and we would take them to the Smithy, and the blacksmith would repair them. In those days, horses and carts outnumbered motor cars.

Poor as we were, we all seemed to enjoy our "Friday's Penny"; and it seemed a fortune to be spent on sweets. What wonderful selections we could buy for a penny - 20 aniseed balls, a lucky sweet potato with a charm inside, coconut chips, swaggering dicks and a favourite was ..."A pennorth of all round t'shop'. On leaving school, unemployment was rife, and jobs so difficult to obtain.

My first job was in a pawnbroker's shop. I began work at 9am and worked until 8pm weekdays and to 9pm on a Saturday. My wage was 10s. (50p.) per week, out of which my mother would give me Is. (5p) for my 'spending money'. The pawnshop was always busy . . . it was an everyday thing of life then.

Most schoolboys then had small "spare time jobs" . . . . running errands, sweeping, chopping firewood and most boys had to replace the "irons" on his clogs when they wore out.

They were the days of the silent cinema we could attend for 3d or 4d. Favourites were the Gem, the Mount, the Belle and the Empire (the Bug House). We lived in a hero worshipping world of Tom Mix, Hurricane Hutch, Rin Tin Tin, Harold Lloyd and others. Our leisure reading matter were the popular boys magazines . . . "The Wizard", "The Adventure", "Magnet", "Gem", and Boys Own Paper. We also had "Comic Cuts", "Film Fun ", and all were swopped or exchanged with each other.

We all recall with excitement the very first "Talking Film" to come to Bolton - "The Singing Fool" at the Palladium Cinema featuring Al Jolson.

I also recall the very first "traffic lights" in Bolton at the corner of Newport Street and Great Moor Street, and it was the topic of conversation at Wolfenden Street at the time. We had been told that an "automatic policeman" was there, and how disappointed we all were when the "robot" with swinging arms we had expected, turned out to be three coloured lights!

After working in the pawnshop for about six months, I became a junior clerk in a solicitor's office, and continued my education at night school, becoming skilled in shorthand, book-keeping, commerce and other subjects that were to play an important part in my maturity and future.

In support of my written application for this position, I remember calling on Mr. Lawson (still the Headmaster of Wolfenden Street) asking him to give me a "testimonial" (reference) to append the same. I think he must have spoken highly of me, for I was the chosen applicant for what was then considered to be a "high class position". I now find it so good to be able to look back on schooldays, and appreciate what they did for us. I know I shall always be indebted to Wolfenden Street School, even though we were only schooled in the basic "Three R's" as it were.

How amazing it is too, to think that some of the subjects we hated at school, become so appreciated and loved in one's maturity and veteran years.

I love to snuggle in my favourite armchair, and browse down the works of the poets .... Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson and others beauty haunted words of pens dipped in word magic that have enshrined their names as immortals of our golden treasury. I love to listen to the enraptured works of the great composers .... Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Elgar and others, and I never tire of reading the classic contributions famous English authors names have made to our heritage of literature.

I began countryside writing many years ago, and acquired considerable success in published work in magazines etc. It was such a thrill when I had my first book published .... which, happily became "sold out".

Yes, indeed I can look back on schooldays at Wolfenden Street, with a warm glow in my heart, and a deep feeling of appreciation of all they did for me.

Those teachers who ruled us with stern and strict discipline, were, unknowingly to us, moulding our future character and bringing out the talents that would prepare us for our coming adulthood and manhood, when we would take our place in the world.

I should like to think that from their now celestial classrooms they can look down on the boys of Wolfenden Street in a benign manner and that they can smile their appreciation and contentment in the knowledge .... "We did a good job".

I have been given the privilege of being able to wander around the Wolfenden Street of today . . . (now a Community Centre). I have peeped into the classrooms I knew of old, and it is as if the lingering echoes of the voices I knew of old are still retained there.

Hilaire Belloc in a poem wrote of the "Men who were boys, when I was a boy", and I wonder where they are .

Little did we know of the then coming war years, that as young men we would become far and scattered, and alas, many would never return.

I have lived memories again as I have stood in what was "Standard 7" classroom, and did I not dodge my head instinctively away at the piece of ghostly chalk, thrown by the equally ghostly hand of a teacher long departed!

But wait .... as I have been writing of these Wolfenden Street boyhood memories, there has been an old man peering over my shoulders, and he has been cradling his scythe and "hour timer". I have given him a well earned kick in the rear, and told him to be off! I am not ready yet. I ndeed, I find it so good these days to be able to "count my blessings" and give a prayer of thanks for continued good health in these my autumn years of life. What is more, I have been "carried away" writing about my schooldays at dear old Wolfenden Street School - and for a spell the years have slipped quietly from my shoulders.

As a 'finale' ...Kipling gave us his "If" poem as a quality of life .... but I have my own favourite "If" poem that sums it all up and could never be more true:-

Age is a quality of life

If you have left your dreams behind,

If hope is cold

If you no longer plan ahead,

If your ambitions all are dead

.... THEN YOU ARE OLD!

But, if of life you make the best

And you plan each day with joy and zest,

If love you hold,

Then no matter how the birthdays fly

No matter how the years roll by,

YOU ARE NOT OLD!"

Thank you... dear old Wolfenden Street Council School for all you did for me.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.