Reed’s Church of England Charity School in Bellingham
School days memories
by Clive Dalton
I hated school which I started in 1939 at the start of the WWII. My memories of the infants class with Mrs. Mary Forster were comparatively happy, moving from using a marker on a slate, then chalk on a horrible little black board, then to a pencil on paper and finally allowed to use a pen with a nib dipped in ink.
We had regular gas mask practices when we would take them out of the cardboard box we carried them in, put them on and breathed in and see if we could hold a sheet of paper on the filter. It was such a pleasure to get them off again. We would not have survived 3 minutes in a real gas attack.
It was never good moving into the juniors on the opposite side of a red curtain drawn across the one room each day with teacher Jean Milburn. She was a spinster with strict standards, and motivation to learn was a wooden ruler across your knuckles or her hand across your backside after being dragged from your desk out in front of the class if she wanted to make a point to the rest of the class. If the offence was serious enough, you were sent through the glass door into the seniors’ room for the head master Joe Lumley to deal with the issue, which meant his leather strap with tails cut in it for maximum effect.
I remember getting a strap on both outstretched hands when in Jean’s class for turning around and hitting a girl (Dorothy Brown), who was doing needlework with the other girls when we boys were doing something else. Dorothy thought it would be fun to reach through and stick her needle in my backside to which I responded with a smack on her ear. Neither Jean nor Joe would hear my part of the case.
I sent Jean my best wishes on her 90th birthday and said it still annoyed me about a correction she did in a ‘composition’ I did. It was her favourite subject – ‘What did you do at the weekend?’ I chose to write about going to the mart, and stressed how deep ‘the clarts’ were. She corrected it to ‘mud’ which annoyed me greatly as there’s a lot of difference between clarts and mud. She wrote a lovely letter in reply which I wish I had kept and reminded me that my mother talked to her about me not learning enough.
The Nettie Flush
My old school mate John McPhail reminded me of the other option to escape Joe Lumley’s class for a while which was to be sent to flush out the toilets. We can’t remember how anyone qualified for the task, whether it was based on behaviour or just a Joe’s random pick!
It was an interesting chore, as first you had to remove the boards that covered a tank about a metre square down the side of the school that had a plug in the bottom with a long handle so you could pull it out from the top. The tap was turned on and you sat there waiting for it to slowly fill. Then the great moment arrived when you pulled the plug to see the torrent of water disappear – first to flush the boys three toilets, then the girls, before it raced down the hill with its load into the pristine river Tyne. When the job was done, you returned to your seat to find out what you had missed – which was never very much.
The boy’s urinal was never flushed so had a permanent stink. This was not helped by the urine that dried on the wall used in the competitions to see who could pee the highest.
The other popular reason for Joe not to teach us anything was ‘sports’! We had an official sports field which belonged to Jackie Potts of the Fox and Hounds which he grazed. It was a classic ridge and furrow field, made that way by generations of horse ploughing, so there was no way you could play anything there as the ridges were so high and the furrows so deep. You could manage a bit of cricket with the wicket on top of a ridge but football and rugby (we had a rugby ball) was out of the question. Rounders was the only game possible and the field even made that almost impossible.
Joe never left the class to come with any of us, so he gave the responsibility to the older lads to keep us occupied. So the outcome was that we learned nothing in class, and we learned nothing in the sports field which seemed to suit Joe’s approach to our education. Reading the class a story was his most popular lesson.
The 11+ exam
We were in the lower standard of Joe Lumley’s senior class (all in the same big room) for a year before we sat the 11+ exam which was taken by all school pupils in UK at age 11. If they passed they went on to the local Grammar School, in our case Queen Elizabeth’s grammar school at Hexham with no fees to pay, and only the uniform to buy. If they failed, they continued at their local school till they left at age 14, or as times moved on, (e.g. in the case of Bellingham), they would go to the newly built Comprehensive School till they left at the increased age of 15.
I remember brother Geoff’s sole attempt to coach me for when it was my time to sit the 11+, but it was a disaster ending in fights and he gave up on me. Our personalities clashed – (to say the least), and he decided early on that I was a lost cause. His advice later on about careers confirmed this. He went into the Barclay’s Bank in Hexham, which confirmed his superior intellect to the family, and all I wanted to do was to spend time on a farm.
So like all the others at the ‘Reeds School’, we failed the 11+ exam. Only one pupil (Gilbert Nichol) passed, but he was a studious lad with parents (his Dad Noah) managed the Northern Farmers in the village, and who would know about exam preparation. He was the only one I can ever remember passing the exam from the Reeds School other than Joan Forster from Hesleyside farm. There were far better results from the other Council school in the village.
We were aware of the exam, but there was never any preparation for it, as the whole class included pupils from 10 to 14 years old, in different standards all in the one class. Our sole teacher and headmaster Joe Lumley clearly didn’t care about anyone’s future, as I suppose he saw most of his pupils end up on farms spreading muck, down local coal pits howkin coal and planting trees on the forestry. We were all good gardeners though, as the school had an allotment where we were sent regularly under the care of the older lads in the class (age 13-14). Tom Forster told me once that he took on Joe and told him ‘he wasn’t gannin any more to the allotment’ as he was sick of it. But singing and religious instruction were high on our list of skills, and Joe read a lot of stories to us.
You would have thought that getting his pupils to pass the exam would have been a feather in his cap. One student David Armstrong had been sent to the allotment, (which was one of Joe’s popular forms of discipline), and he never sent anyone to tell David to come back to sit the exam.
So I knew the 10 commandments off by heart from the little Bible we all had in our lidded desk, and could sing ‘Nymphs and shepherds come away’, ‘Jerusalem’ and, ‘There was an old cooper who lived in Fyfe’! But I realised that it had to be suffered as I was constantly reminded by relatives when at secondary school (especially the family matriarch Auntie Mary) that ‘you’ll have to do as well as your brother Geoffrey has done’.
My older brother Geoff attended the private Tynedale High School in Hexham, as he didn’t pass the 11+ exam either. I hated it all, but warmed to the idea of going to Hexham if I had to, as I’d get home every night and travel on the train. And I knew they played sport as a minor attraction. Dad paid Geoff’s fees, giving him the notes at the start of each term from his cloth Lloyds Bank bag which contained money he had made from selling garden produce and plants which he had grown for other gardeners in the village. Nobody ever dare look in that bag which he kept hidden away and he never had a bank account.
Dad didn’t pay my fees, so mother went out to work helping to clean houses like Tommy the tailor’s, Mrs. Reid’s and bake and serve at the local guest house (the Temperance Hotel) in Bellingham for Gerty Elliott. Gerty also did the catering for the stock sales (marts). Mother had been head housemaid at the Chesters in Humshaugh so had all the skills needed for this line of work. This was my major motivation to suffer my days at Skerry’s college.
Skerry’s college
The one thing that was never in doubt in my parents’ minds was the importance of an education. This was in a way surprising as it was something they never had, both leaving school at 14 and Dad going to work on the farms on the Chester’s Estate, and mother joined the house’s domestic service. So brother Geoff and I were fortunate that our parents were prepared to sacrifice other things no doubt to help us along. They could so easily not have bothered and I certainly worried a lot about this.
By my time of failure at the Reeds School in Bellingham, the Tynedale High School had closed so there were only schools further away at Newcastle or Haydon Bridge to consider, and Aunt Maggie (and I presume Uncle Stan) at Wylam said I could stay there during the week and travel by train each day to a school.
Two schools in Newcastle, the Royal Grammar School and Dame Allen’s (Catholic) school were somewhat elite and hence expensive, and I would never have passed the entrance exams anyway. The family, (mainly Auntie Mary again) thought Skerry’s College was a good option and I remember cousin Peggy taking me there for an entrance exam where she sat beside me at a long horrible worn desk, mauled by student’s carved names, and on which she laddered her precious nylon stockings, as this was 1947 not long after the war.
The school was just a large four story house on the corner of Ellison Place where you went straight in off the pavement. Extra class rooms were used in outside houses and one term we were in a dark basement of a terraced house, but at least it had a fire.
The exam result confirmed the serious state of my academic ability and I was accepted, but only on the basis that I enter a class for dummies called ‘General B’ to gain enough ability to enter the secondary school stream proper in Form 1. So I left Reeds School with no comment from Joe Lumley, who looking back cost my mother a small fortune and years of hard physical work. Nobody else from my age group in the class left to go to a secondary school except David Armstrong from Hareshaw, and stayed on to leave at age 15 at the newly opened secondary modern school in Bellingham.
Clothes
The family decided that I had to ‘look decent’ to attend Skerry’s College although uniforms were not compulsory like the other Newcastle posh schools. The only stipulation was a cap, which had to carry the SC shield on a cloth badge to be sewn on. Caps were a disaster, as their main function seemed to be for other kids (mainly girls) to pinch off your head and threaten to throw them out of the train window or hide.
So mother and I visited Auntie Martha in Winlaton where cousin Mary worked in the local clothing shop – the Co-op store. I came away with my first long trousers, a tweed jacket and my first ever pair of underpants – which I wasn’t too keen on, as to me they were like girls’ knickers! I’d never worn such things before.
Watch
It was decided that I needed a wristwatch for school, which I had never needed before. The only watch I ever had was one of Dad’s old pocket watches of doubtful mechanism and with a glass that kept coming out and wouldn’t stay in with glue.
Auntie Mary took responsibility to procure a watch for me at Porrit’s shop in Percy Street in Newcastle, which was also a pawnshop with its three brass balls hanging outside. It was a new watch so presumably the owner would not be back to collect it! I’m not sure who paid for it but it did great service and after a long retirement, ending up all marked and scratched, I eventually took the hard step 60 years later in New Zealand and threw it in the bin.
Books
The school office always had a supply or second hand text books, and we had to buy the school’s approved exercise books, so that was more hard earned money for mother to provide at the start of term.
Money
On the first day of term, before leaving for ‘the first 7.30am train’ at Bellingham station from Riccarton in Scotland to Newcastle, mother gave me a roll of banknotes to pay my fees for the term. It was a real concern to me and seemed a small fortune to carry in my pocket – it was probably around forty pounds sterling. I kept my hand on the roll all the way till I handed it over and counted at the school office.
Then each Monday morning, mother handed me half a crown for my return ticket from Bellingham to Newcastle, where because Dad worked on the railway, family members could get at a ‘privilege’ rate.
Then she gave me two shillings for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to buy lunch. There were no classes on a Wednesday but they gave us plenty of homework to be done, so it was not a day off. After completing the homework, Wednesday was boring and I used to go for walks down by the river or walk past Tommy Graham’s farm in Wylam trying to see what was going on. Tommy was modern and had a grass dryer which I would have loved to have helped with, but the workers looked scary so I just looked over the wall.
The Hendersons had been in Wylam for a long time and Uncle Stan’s father, Jack (often called Black Jack), had been the local blacksmith. As cars arrived on the scene the smithy moved into repairing cars and selling petrol at the hand-cranked pumps. As a small child staying there I remember folk always knocking on the door after hours for petrol. Stan then developed an electrician’s business which he ran all the time I was there. Jack still did some blacksmith work and I was always interesting in his skills seen on a Wednesday.
Two shillings a day just bought a lunch at one of the ‘down market’ local cafes. The classics were what were called ‘British Restaurants’ which were in most cities and must have been set up during the war to feed workers. They were horrible, held in old buildings such as halls, clearly for working class folk – fairly clean, but awful food, greasy cutlery and plates but a cheap meal of sorts.
If I wanted to save some money to buy something such as animal books (which I remember saving up for), I used to have ‘soup and sweet’ and miss the main course – and left still hungry. In any case the allocated two shillings wouldn’t buy all three courses. Thankfully the wonderful cooking of Auntie Maggie saved my life, but an empty stomach didn’t help learning after lunch.
The other way to save money was not to initially use the trams, and then the trolley buses to get to and from the Central Station to Northumberland Street and along Ellison Place to school. The fare was a halfpenny for a school child (full fare a penny) on the tram, and then it went to a few pence on the trolley. It was always a worry going home looking at the time and deciding if it would be quicker to run than wait for the trolley. So I did a lot of running with my ex-army haversack full of school books, and developed a great knowledge of shortcuts through shops, back lanes and became an expert in dodging folk on the pavement.
Wylam
Wylam was convenient for school in Newcastle, only being a half hour train ride with plenty of options as it had two stations as the main line split just out of Newcastle at Scotswood, and joined again after Wylam heading west to Hexham. Mother gave me more money at the start of each term to buy a pass, which saved buying daily tickets. I made friends with the many commuters doing the same journey, and being interested in farming, I knew every detail of every field on the way, and their seasonal changes.
But I hated staying there as Uncle Stan was a ‘confrontational character’ (to put it mildly) so he and Auntie Maggie spent their lives fighting – and Cousin Angela suffered greatly from this. My survival technique was to bolt my tea and spend as much time as possible in my bedroom doing homework, reducing the time I had to spend in the very small kitchen with them. Mondays were misery contemplating the week ahead, but Friday mornings were bliss with the prospect of getting home and on the farm. As much of the school year was in winter (October to May) so the bedroom was freezing, but I had a paraffin heater that I used to sit over. The smell of paraffin still brings back memories.
Teachers
We were all scared of teachers, and especially the Head Master (Mr. Saggerson) who was also the Maths teacher. He was a dead shot with the board duster and bits of chalk and we heard of the occasional strapping by him but this was rare. The handing out of lines was enough punishment and the classes got plenty of those.
The ‘General B’ class was full on pressure and was a sort of last chance for anyone if they wanted to progress. So ‘fear of failure’ was my main motivation, and I was constantly worrying about this, remembering that roll of bank notes which mother scraped together from her hard work for me to be there.
So school was no pleasure in General B, but getting a good report and knowing I could survive was a relief to me anyway. I’m not sure about the family’s thoughts as they didn’t say much. Dad’s highest accolade throughout my academic career was ‘Aye, varry canny’! The problem about coming top of the class was that you had to keep it up, adding more stress and worry.
The Farm
When we lived in Noble Street and I was at Skerry’s, our newly-married next-door neighbours were Jimmy and Helen Wood at Number 7. Jimmy was a crane driver at ‘the Steele’ gun firing range near Reedsmouth. The guns made by Vicker’s Armstrong on Tyneside and were taken to the Steele to be test fired. A crane was used to lift the heavy guns on and off the flat rail wagons.
Jimmy left the Steele and took the tenancy of the smallholding called Dove Cottage in Reedsmouth rented from Colonel Allen. So I used to spend every weekend and school holiday at Dove Cottage, and was also child minder/companion for their two sons David and Jonathan, being Jonathan’s Godfather.
So Fridays each week could not come soon enough, but Sundays were misery as I had to go to church regularly so couldn’t go to Dove Cottage unless I could use urgent haymaking as an excuse. And of course, miserable Mondays followed Sundays!
I used to travel to Reedsmouth by train – the 11am train there and 6pm train home, and later on by bike, once I had one. My eventual bike had been owned by Jimmy to get to work, and Dad bought it off him for brother Geoff, who would not hand it on to me. So Dad had to buy it from him for me and Dad always reminded us that he had bought the bike twice! It was a flash racing style bike for the time with bent handlebars – a Phillips.
School Certificate
The day eventually came when our class had to go up the University and sit the SC in the big hall at what was then Armstrong College. It was impressive and scary place with all the students from all the other local schools sitting in silence at individual desks under the eagle eyes of the invigilators. It was do or die, but at least we had had done mock exam questions before hand – which was a benefit to both students and the teachers, who also wanted to show good results.
We also had a practical test for chemistry (which I can’t remember) and one for physics, which I can, because we didn’t have a lab at school. One classroom had a bench, a sink and some taps, but that was it. Mr. Brocklebank was the science teacher I remember.
The physics test was to measure the specific gravity of something and the balance to be used was a fancy one where you pulled chains to raise weights rather than put weights from a box on to the balance tray. We had never seen one before, so I remember writing how you measure a SG in theory with some hypothetical figures, explaining that we had no physics lab. How I got a credit for the subject I will never know but there must have been some accommodating examiners.
Careers advice
Just about everyone who had done well in my class (total around 20), sat the ‘Civil Service Exam’, where as far as I could make out, they ended up in an office in a city somewhere and had to wear suits. It was considered to be a guaranteed lifetime career but what they actually did I was too scared to find out in case I was driven there.
None of the teachers at Skerry’s knew anything about agriculture as a career, so I left school just wanting to work on a farm and Jimmy Wood was keen to let me. I worked for him for a few months and then he got me a proper paid job with Robert Allen, his landlord and who he didn’t like as Robert had tried to evict Jimmy from Dove Cottage to get the land to expand his farm.
I remember Jimmy coming back from the court in Bellingham in his best wedding suit and he told me that Robert had argued the case of ‘bad farming’ as the reason for eviction. Robert lost and Jimmy stayed at Dove Cottage till getting the tenancy of The Park farm in Allendale – where I also worked for a few weeks during a university holiday. Jimmy couldn’t keep me on as he wanted me for the haymaking and it rained for so long that we never got any made.
I knew about a Forestry School where they trained young folk and I had also vaguely heard of a similar type of Farm School at Houghall in county Durham. I should really have taken a Higher School Certificate but Skerry’s didn’t do that and I wanted to get out of school and away from Newcastle and Wylam. In any case I didn’t know where I could have done that other than Hexham Grammar School and I doubt if I could have coped even if accepted.
Brother Geoff had left Barclay’s bank in Hexham to do his national service, and after demob was able to do a special one-year teacher training course for ex-servicemen in woodwork and metalwork. After this experience he suggested I should do a course to teach ‘rural studies’ to teach kids how to keep pigs and poultry and run their school gardens. It did not appeal, and the fact that he suggested it, was a major reason!
Kirkley Hall
By a bit of good fortune, the local school master (WJ Cairns) at the other school in Bellingham – the Council School, was also a Methodist lay preacher and he was a strong Labour man along with my Dad. He knew of my farming interest and suggested that I wrote to the ‘big cheese’ of Methodist preachers who was Professor Cecil Pawson at the School of Agriculture at Kings College of the University of Durham in Newcastle.
To my surprise and delight, Prof Pawson replied with a hand written letter (I wish I had kept it) saying that I should apply to the newly-opened Northumberland Farm Institute at Kirkley Hall near Ponteland, about 20 miles from Newcastle.
Cousin Mary (Peggy’s sister) drove me there in the family Jowett car for an interview and I was accepted to start in the October 1951. There was a fee for the course which again Mother paid for me, I think about £40 sterling. I was on my way!
