An occasional series where people who lived in Chorlton describe the place they knew.
Jeanne Herring started at Whalley Range School in 1937.
I featured the first instalment of her story a few days ago and this part two
That first year, 1937 opened up so many subjects and interests. I really got into my studies and took a deal of effort in presenting work carefully and on time. Both mother and father were interested in what I was doing. I was quite surprised one day when mother picked up my French book and started reading aloud with a good accent, she told me that her father had paid extra for her to have private French lessons.
I came in the first few in the summer exams so when I started again in September I was placed in the X form which meant we had skipped a year and I was now in third year.
Work intensified but I enjoyed everything, especially games. I played hockey at centre half for the junior school team but later switched my allegiance to netball playing at centre defence.
For a couple of years I was the form prefect.
I remember one school report said. “Jeanne has been a good prefect but she is rather talkative and sometimes noisy in the form room.”
I think this was because my favourite teacher, Miss Garner had walked into the classroom when I was standing on her teacher’s desk leading the class in a rowdy song at the end of term!
On wet days in the lunch hour we used to gather in the hall and someone would play the piano and we would have a singsong. It seems tame by today’s standards but we thought it was a great privilege.
At the end of first year I was allowed to have free uniform as well as free books. The school gave me a pink chit to take to John Barrie’s in St. Ann’s Square and get whatever uniform I needed.
The result was a wonderful new gaberdine coat, (the right brown) and an extra blouse. I also had a blazer and a panama hat for the summer.
I hated the hat for it had a high crown so one day when mother was out I cut the crown from the brim and overlapped it on the base making it shallower and hiding the join with the blue band and badge of the school. If mother knew, and she probably did for not much missed her, she never said anything. I must say the giving out of free tickets was handled very sensitively.
You were just stopped on the corridor by a teacher or a senior prefect and told the Head wanted to see you. I was very much in awe of the Head Mistress, Doctor Arscott, as we all were.
She always wore her black gown and kept high standards of courtesy and discipline, it never even occurred to us to giggle and smirk at her surname!
Single file as we walked along the corridors, in silence, opening the doors for staff and senior prefects. The prefects were allowed to give punishment if you were noisy or too talkative. This was in the form of a book of additions and subtraction sums called cross tots and long tots.
Many are the time that I have had to do them which probably explains why I can add up columns of figures quickly!
Pictures from the collection of Jeanne O'Reilly nee Herring
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| Jeanne aged 21 |
I featured the first instalment of her story a few days ago and this part two
That first year, 1937 opened up so many subjects and interests. I really got into my studies and took a deal of effort in presenting work carefully and on time. Both mother and father were interested in what I was doing. I was quite surprised one day when mother picked up my French book and started reading aloud with a good accent, she told me that her father had paid extra for her to have private French lessons.
I came in the first few in the summer exams so when I started again in September I was placed in the X form which meant we had skipped a year and I was now in third year.
Work intensified but I enjoyed everything, especially games. I played hockey at centre half for the junior school team but later switched my allegiance to netball playing at centre defence.
For a couple of years I was the form prefect.
I remember one school report said. “Jeanne has been a good prefect but she is rather talkative and sometimes noisy in the form room.”
I think this was because my favourite teacher, Miss Garner had walked into the classroom when I was standing on her teacher’s desk leading the class in a rowdy song at the end of term!
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| Jeanne and her brother in 1936, the dress cost 3s 11d |
At the end of first year I was allowed to have free uniform as well as free books. The school gave me a pink chit to take to John Barrie’s in St. Ann’s Square and get whatever uniform I needed.
The result was a wonderful new gaberdine coat, (the right brown) and an extra blouse. I also had a blazer and a panama hat for the summer.
I hated the hat for it had a high crown so one day when mother was out I cut the crown from the brim and overlapped it on the base making it shallower and hiding the join with the blue band and badge of the school. If mother knew, and she probably did for not much missed her, she never said anything. I must say the giving out of free tickets was handled very sensitively.
You were just stopped on the corridor by a teacher or a senior prefect and told the Head wanted to see you. I was very much in awe of the Head Mistress, Doctor Arscott, as we all were.
She always wore her black gown and kept high standards of courtesy and discipline, it never even occurred to us to giggle and smirk at her surname!
Single file as we walked along the corridors, in silence, opening the doors for staff and senior prefects. The prefects were allowed to give punishment if you were noisy or too talkative. This was in the form of a book of additions and subtraction sums called cross tots and long tots.
Many are the time that I have had to do them which probably explains why I can add up columns of figures quickly!
Pictures from the collection of Jeanne O'Reilly nee Herring
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