My Mum and Family
A brief look into One hour and 56 Minutes of Terror, in anyone's language!
The weather conditions were poor, the wind was strong from the south-east and there was a heavy sea, conditions which precluded the use of the lower 6 inch gun casemates on the sides of H.M.S.'GOODHOPE' in any action.
At 18:04 the British Fleet turned four points towards the enemy, only to be thwarted by von Spee conforming: he realised the danger of a fight when his gunlayers were blinked by the glare of the setting sun. At 18:18 Cradock radioed the H.M.S.Canopus 'I am now going to attack the enemy', to which the battle ship replied with her position. At this time the distance between the two forces was still two miles outside of the range of their heavy guns. The Germans waited until 19:00 before making a move as the British ships which were now silhouetted against the afterglow of the setting sun, the position of the German vessels made them appear as smudged shapes in the gathering darkness.
At 12,300 yards the enemy opened fire, the British found themselves in range of 12 of the enemies 8.2 inch guns, to which only two 9.2 inch guns aboard H.M.S.'GOODHOPE' could reply.During the ensuing engagements the forward 9.2 inch gun aboard H.M.S.'GOODHOPE' was rendered inoperable by the Scharnhorst. With the range now down to 5,500 yards H.M.S.'GOODHOPE' received serious hits in the fore part of the ship, on the upper bridge, and on the foretop. She was also repeatedly hit amidships, most of these causing fires, the flames could be seen through the portholes. The aft battery was hit several times. Two shells hit the after turret.
by 19:45 it was quite dark, H.M.S.'GOODHOPE' was obviously in distress, H.M.S.'GOODHOPE' was firing only a few of her guns, with fires onboard increasing their brilliance. At 19:50 there was a terrible explosion between her mainmast and her after funnel, the flames reaching a height of over 200 feet, after which she lay between the lines, a black hull lighted only by a dull glow.
Due to Darkness, Poor Weather and Heavy Sea's, No one saw H.M.S.'GOODHOPE' go down with all hands at around 20:00
Links
Full List of available Readings from the Tower of London, during the installation.
Written by Susan Takle
Audrey and Susannah’s mum MARGARET EVA sadly passed away when her daughters were still very young children and the girls were raised by their maternal Grandfather RICHARD THOMAS OLIVER.
Their Grandfather looked after Audrey and Susannah until he was taken ill and was left with no other choice than to place his beloved Grandaughters into a childrens home.
Audrey’s memories of MEDOMSLEY EDGE COTTAGE HOMES where she and Susannah lived for a number of years were never sad ones. Audrey always said they (the children) were treated firmly but fairly. When Audrey reached 14 years of age she had to leave the childrens home and was placed into ‘service.’ Audrey’s first place of service was with a family in Bishop Aukland, Durham. Audrey wasn’t happy being in service but she stuck with it because she said she had to wait for ‘my Sister Sue.’ Audrey went on to join the ATS in 1946 where she met her future husband JACK BRISTOW. Audrey loved to tell the story of how she modelled clothes during her time in the ATS', sadly I can not confirm whether her recollection is accurate or not. Audrey and Jack married in Bristol in April 1947 and lived in Shirehampton until they got their own home, a brand new house in Lawrence Weston. Audrey and Jack had 5 children, SUSAN, ROBERT, MALCOLM, CHRISTOPHER and PAMELA. Christopher was Malcolm’s twin but he tragically passed away when he was just a few weeks old. Audrey was a stay at home wife as most ladies of her generation were. But on one occasion she did have a part time job working the evening shift with other ladies at the Peek Frean biscuit factory in Avonmouth where on occasions and if possible she would sneak out the odd Bourbon biscuit as a treat for one or other of her children. Audrey was very house proud and would spend many hours keeping her home spotlessly clean. She also used to knit and sew and made the majority of the clothes for Jack and their children. Audrey and Jack divorced in 1967 and Audrey went on to have one more child GEOFFREY with her new partner RON. Audrey, Ron and Geoff lived in Bushey, Hertfordshire for a number of years before eventually relocating to Bristol. After Ron passed away Audrey got itchy feet and decided it was time to start seeing a bit of the world. She didn’t want to fly so she went on foreign holidays by coach thoroughly enjoying herself visiting many places in Europe and on these holidays making a number of new friends. Audrey always tried to learn a few words in the language of whatever country she was visiting but one particular time her new language skills very funnily let her down. She was in a restaurant in an Eastern European city and asked for what she believed was a cheese sandwich. She said the waiter gave her some very strange looks but none the less took her order and went off to place it for her. When her cheese sandwich arrived it wasn’t what you would exactly call a cheese sandwich. Audrey had ordered a whole loaf of bread and a large block of cheese !!! Audrey loved classical music and went to see many of the great opera singers including of course Luciano Pavarotti. Audrey led a very busy life and worked until she was nearly 80 years of age. She used to clean for who in her words she called ‘my poor old ladies.’ Those ladies were in fact all younger than Audrey. Any spare time Audrey had once her house was spick and span would be used decorating or gardening. She also enjoyed doing crosswords and flicking through the TV channels and quite often would end up watching something that was in a foreign language even though she had no idea of what was being said. Geoff moved back home to live with his mum and his son BEN also lived with them. Audrey adored Ben and helped Geoff to raise him. She also of course loved all her other Grandchildren, HELEN, CHRISTOPHER, DARREN, LUCIE, SERENA, ANDREW and DAVID. There are a number of Great Grandchildren and also some Great, Great Grandchildren. Audrey would quite often talk about her childhood and would mention the names of cousins that she could remember from her childhood so when her Daughter Sue got her first computer and went online she started to search ‘up North’ as Audrey would say for her Mum’s family. As luck would have it Sue found those cousins and in 2001 Sue and her partner TREVOR took Audrey up to Durham on the pretence of Audrey showing them around where she grew up. 2 days later Audrey received a big surprise as she met cousins BILLY, SHEILA and JUNE and had tea with them. Sue had also contacted the Sunderland Echo newspaper and they sent a reporter and photographer to the meeting so that Audrey could tell them her story and have it published in the hope that more family would be found. Sadly no other family in Durham came forward. As time went on a half sister JILL who lives in Essex with her husband DEREK and son ROBERT were also found. Audrey met Jill, Derek and Robert on numerous occasions as she did with her cousins in Durham. Then surprisingly, another cousin MARION who lives in Australia was found. When MARION and her husband RON came to the UK on holiday in 2010 Audrey was taken to meet Marion and Ron. They all spent a really lovely day together. Audrey was so happy that she had finally found ‘family.’ It was no longer in her words ‘just me and my Sister.’ Around 9 years ago Audrey was very sadly diagnosed with Vascular Dementia and 7 years ago she went to live at DEERHURST CARE HOME in SOUNDWELL. Because of the wonderful care compassion and love Audrey received from everyone employed at Deerhurst including GRACE, MILA, NONG, DEAN and of course the Manager, LESLEY she became one of Deerhurst’s longest surviving residents. AUDREY SPENCER
Written by Ronald Keith Burchell
Mabel Annie King born 1888 Weymouth, married William Thomas Hayes Burchell in 4th Q of 1907. Mabel Annie King and William Thomas Hayes Burchell had two boys, William George Burchell and Harold Burchell.
On the 1st November 1914 William Thomas Hayes Burchell (my grandfather) was killed in the Battle of Coronel.(See H.M.S. GOODHOPE more.. on the Home Page
Some time earlier Sidney James Attwood (Sid), an English Man, immigrated from England to Australia. When WWI came along Sid joined the AIF and headed to Gallipoli, Sid survived Gallipoli somehow, his records show him as a Driver. He did also attend other Theatres of War. Sid ended up injured in Hospital in England.
Mabel Annie King and Sidney James Attwood married in England, after which Sid returned to Australia, bringing Mabel, William, Harold and their Daughter Audrey who was born in 1917.
On their return to Australia the Australian Government were giving parcels of Rural Land to Soldiers to make a home for themselves, Sid and Mabel went to Tooraweenah New South Wales Australia.
The remote Rural life did not work out for them and they moved to Willoughby Sydney New South Wales Australia. Which is where they remained until their Death.
William George Burchell and Harold E Burchell lived in nearby suburbs.
Sid and Mabel added another member to the family by having a daughter Audrey Attwood Audrey Attwood, Audrey Attwood married Ron Doyle and they lived at St Leonards in Sydney Australia until their deaths.
Ron Doyle and Audrey Attwood had two children John (now deceased) and Beverly who is alive.
Written by Margaret Jackson
Written by Derek and Margaret Jackson
When we started to explore our ancestors about 6 years ago., one of the first ancestors we decided to find more about was Dereks Grandmother, Mary Alice Rutter , we knew very little of her, as she had died at a young age in the 1920s.
So what did we know. Dereks Father Joseph Rutter Jackson, said she was known as Alice, and from the ages of Josephs siblings we knew she must have married Thomas Jackson in the late 1890s
Derek also had vague ideas that after Mary Alice, and probably Thomas had died, an elderly lady thought to be her spinster sister went to live with Margaret Ellen, who was known as Maggie and was Mary Alices eldest daughter.. This lady was known only as Auntie. Derek had seen her a couple of times in the late 1930s. , but as he was young nothing else was known.
We searched for the birth Cert for Mary Alice ., but despite much searching and some wrong certificates and the GRO carrying out a search we drew a blank.
We turned to her marriage and found she had married Thomas Jackson in 1895, her father was named as Thomas Rutter , a blacksmith,. . we found Mary Alice with Thomas Jackson, and the first two of her children in the 1901, and later the family in the 1911 census, when it was released. Mary Alice was stated as being born in Felling Durham and we deduced she would have been born about 1875. We also found her death, in 1920. at the early age of 45 years. , but we knew nothing of her parents or family before her marriage.
We spent hours searching all of the Thomas Rutters who were Blacksmiths but after many brick walls we were no further forward. We then checked through pages of Felling entries on the 1881 and 1891 census. and found nothing relevant. We eventually found an Alice Rutter. who was born in Felling and about the correct age, in the 1891 census., as a visitor, with a young couple named Robertson. We checked these, but got no leads.
We then checked a lot of Mary Alices with different surnames and eventually found a Smith family in the 1881 census with a Mary Alice Smith aged 8. Born in Felling. Father was Thomas Smith and Mother Ellen, There were other children, the oldest being Christopher Rutter, surname Smith, aged 17. Born Whitemare Pool Durham. And the others born Tyne Dock. The Father Thomas was born in 1842, in Stamfordham Northumberland We then found a Christopher Rutter born Whitemare pool in the 1871 census with a Rutter family. The Father named as Joseph Rutter and Mother Ellen, with children Margaret born about 1867, John Thomas born 1869 and Robert born 1870. These children were of the same christian names as the Smith children in the 1881 census but obviously who were 10 years older ,and plus Mary Alice aged 8 and George aged 4 both born in Felling . We tried to find the marriage of Joseph Rutter to an Ellen but drew a blank.
It seemed unlikely that Joseph Rutter. born 1842 in Stannington Northumberland a Blacksmith should be the same man as the Thomas Smith , also born 1842 a blacksmith born Stamfordham. On the birth cert for the Mary Alice Smith, it showed father as Thomas Smith, a smith by trade Mother Ellen Farrage. We then obtained the marriage cert for them, and this confirmed the names but no fathers name was given for THOMAS SMITH. and after getting the birth cert for Christopher Rutter(christian names), we realised the marriage had taken place in church in Newcastle just 4 days before Christopher was born
As we could not find a marriage for Joseph Rutter we obtained the birth cert for Robert born 1870, and his Father was shown as JOSEPH RUTTER, but HIS Mother was also Ellen Farrage. , and when we received the birth cert for Margaret born 1866, Her Father was THOMAS RUTTER and Mother Ellen Farrage. We now had two identical families. the Rutters in 1871. and the Smiths in 1881. . . except Mary Alice,and George were with the Smiths. As on the marriage cert Thomas Smith and Ellen Farrage. who were also named as the parents of Christopher, and Mary Alice. but the parents of Margaret were named as Thomas Rutter and Ellen Farrage, and the parents of Robert were Joseph Rutter and Ellen Farrage , the father of John Thomas was also as Joseph Rutter. Three differently name fathers..one Mother.
How do we prove if this is our Mary Alice Rutter? By various searches and deductions we associated these families to a Rutter Family in Stamfordham in the 1841 and 1851 census , namely Thomas Rutter, his wife Alice, and children Ann, Elizabeth, Mary, Thomas, Isabella, Christopher and Joseph and in 1891 we found their daughter Mary Rutter married to George Oliver, and with them a nephew George Rutter born 1878 in Felling. The most likely Father of George was Marys brother Joseph Rutter. b 1842, as the Thomas was married to a Sarah Evens and was living in Stockton with his family Christopher was also checked he married Mary Downes and later Maria Ogilvy .but no son named George with either We could find no records for Joseph In 1861,
We turned again to Auntie..could this be Margaret b 1867 sister of Mary Alice. if we could find her this would prove we were on the correct line. As with most of this research we found a possible Margaret Rutter correct age and birth place as a servant in 1891, but nothing more, another brick wall, we could find no further records for this Margaret Rutter. Perhaps she had married.
After much searching, as the GRO reference number was wrong….we found she had married a Richard Gibson in December 1891., we also found them in 1901, and 1911, they had no children. Richard died in 1920. Derek had seen Auntie with Maggie in Durham about 1939/40. Before he came to Surrey in 1945 ,But Maggie moved South to Surrey,before 1945 so we assumed Auntie had probably died in Durham before that. So what a surprise, when we found a Margaret Gibson died in Surrey South Eastern in 1943 aged 77, .so this was our Margaret (Auntie), and this was Mary Alices sister. Margaret is buried in Grave M 70 In St Marys Cemetry. Caterham. , the name of the purchaser of the grave was Maggies husband Thomas. How ironic this is where many of my family are buried. Mary Alice’s sister was just a few miles away.
As the name on Margaret Gibsons birth cert was Thomas Rutter is this why Mary Alice put her Fathers name as Thomas Rutter. on her Marriage cert, .although we are now sure it was actually Joseph Rutter. b 1942. We will now hopefully find more of Mary Alice’s Ancestors. It had taken many hours of research, but it had been worth it, as Derek now knows who his Grandmother was.
The question we are unlikely to find the answer to is why ????? did Joseph Rutter use 3 different names..???
The short time between their marriage and the birth of Christopher and the fact that Joseph/Thomas had not declared his Fathers name on the marriage cert.could suggest a Family problem.
Written by Sue Takle
Written by Sue Takle
SUSAN TAKLE nee BRISTOW growing up in Bristol, England in the 1950’s.
I was born on December 21st 1948 in Bristol, England the eldest child of Jack and Audrey Bristow.
Jack Bristow and Audrey Hinchliffe met when they were both serving in the Army and they married in Bristol in the April of 1947.
Audrey and her younger Sister Susannah were Peggy’s 1st cousins. Im sure the girls would have all known each other when they were very young children as they were all living in close proximity to each other County Durham.
The girls Fathers were ‘The Twins.’ Audrey and Susannah’s Father was John Robert Hinchliffe and Peggy’s Father was George Alfred Hinchliffe.
When Jack and Audrey first married they lived with Jack’s widowed Mother Jessie Emma Bristow in Springfield Avenue, Shirehampton, Bristol. They remained there until they managed much to Audrey’s relief to rent a house on Lower High Street in Shirehampton.
Audrey didn’t like living with her Mother in law as Jessie was very strait laced and a bit of a bully. She would repeatedly tell Audrey ‘no woman is good enough for anyone of my sons.’
During WW2 Bristol had been very heavily bombed by the Germans and many areas of the city had been destroyed. Once the war was over Bristol Council set forth to rebuild large areas of Bristol. One of the areas where a lot of house building took place was the Lawrence Weston estate.
Lawrence Weston is close to Shirehampton and Dad, Mum and I moved into a brand new house on the Lawrence Weston estate in 1949. Our house was number 98 Barrowmead Drive.
I spent the first night in my new home sleeping in my parents bedroom in a drawer from their chest of drawers.
Over the next 8 years my other siblings Robert (Bob), Malcolm (Mick),Christopher (Mick’s twin) and Pamela (Pam) came along. Tragically Christopher passed away when he was only 3 weeks of age. Christopher and Mick were identical twins and Mick has said at times that he feels as if a part of him is missing.
Life growing up with Mum was hard as she was obsessively house proud even going as far as to clean out underneath the skirting boards with a knife.
I remember at times not being allowed to sit on the sofa in the front room (lounge) as mum would say ‘you will crease the cushions.’
Many years later I ribbed Mum about that and she was mortified and said ‘shush dont tell anyone that.’ I asked her why she was so house proud and she replied saying she didn’t know but perhaps it had something to do with growing up in a Childrens home and being made to keep everything very clean and tidy.
Dad was an extremely hard working man. I remember him sometimes working back to back shifts so he could earn more money when he worked at the Smelting Works in Avonmouth. He used to work 3 weekly shifts one of 6am to 2pm, another of 2pm till 10pm and then a night shift which started at 10pm and finished at 6am. His back to back shifts were carried out when he was on a 6am start.
Dad would cycle all the way home when he finished work at 10 pm and still be back in work for 6am the following morning.
When Bob and I were both little children we used to take it in turns riding on the children’s saddle that Dad had fitted onto his push bike so that we could go with him to collect his wages on a Thursday morning when he was on a 2 to 10 shift.
My Dad was very clever with his hands and could turn his hand to anything. He was always making things for the house to make Mum’s life easier and he used to make toys for all us children.
He once purchased an old Shooting Brake car that was in a very sorry state, it even had maggots crawling around in it. He set to and rebuilt the car on a patch of land known as ‘the dump’ which was opposite our house. It wasn’t a rubbish dump it was just a patch of land that for some reason had acquired the name ‘the dump.’ People would stop to admire the work that Dad was doing on the car and by the time he had finished rebuilding it the car was unrecognisable to the wreck he had first brought home.
While Dad was working on the car if we needed to travel anywhere Dad’s trusty motor bike and side car came to the rescue. Mum would ride on the back of the motor bike clinging onto Dad and we 4 children would all be crammed inside the side car. If we were going to visit Aunt Susannah who lived in Blandford, Dorset for a holiday our luggage would also be in the side car with us.
We had a large back garden which Dad split in 2. One half was for us children to play in and the other half was turned over to growing vegetables. I can still see in my minds eye dad digging up the soil and us children picking the potatoes out of the turned soil. I can also remember the huge cabbages Dad grew. I would never touch them because sometimes there would be slugs on them. Along with all the different vegetables Dad grew he also had fruit bushes, I can remember pinching Raspberries and Gooze gogs (Goosberries) when they were in season. Gooze gogs always made me shudder as they were hairy and very sour.
We had to walk down 10 steps to reach the front door of our house and Dad turned the front garden on both sides of the steps into a rockery garden. We had beautiful rocks each about the size of a football that were full of crystals in the rockery.
Dad had found all the crystalized stones in our garden soil as he worked on the garden getting it ready for planting.
All of us children had ‘best friends’ and my best friend was Margaret Warner (Maggie). Maggie lived just 2 doors down from our house.
Maggie’s dad Mr Warner (there was no calling an adult by their first name back in those days) had many well tended rose bushes in his front garden. Maggie and I used to pinch petals off the rose bushes so we could make ‘scent.’ To make scent we would put the petals in whatever container we could lay our hands on put a little bit of water in with the petals and then proceed to bash away at the petals with a stick. We would keep smelling the stinky concoction until we were pretty sure we could smell ‘scent.’ Mr Warner would always tell us off if he caught us with rose petals.
One Sunday afternoon when I was around 8 or 9 years of age and waiting for everyone at home to get ready as we were going to visit relatives I decided to wander down to Maggie’s to show off my brand new dress that mum had made me.
I loved my new dress because I could spin around in it and it flared out. I was also wearing a new cardigan that mum had made and I also had brand new shoes and socks on. I was of course dressed in my ‘Sunday best.’
Outside of Maggie’s house was a long sloping pavement that went down to Badenham Grove.
Maggie ‘double dogged dared’ me to take off my shoes and sit on her Brother’s dandy cart (plank of wood with 4 wheels attached to it and a piece of rope to steer it by) and then ride down the slope with my hands and feet in the air. As Maggie had ‘double dogged dared’ me I had to do it so off I went. By the time I was halfway down the slope I was going so fast I put my feet down to try and stop myself. My beautiful dress then became tangled in one of the back wheels and by the time I managed to stop the skirt of my dress had been torn to pieces. I also had huge holes in the heels of my socks. Boy did I get into trouble when I went home. Of course I told Mum and Dad ‘it was all Maggie’s fault’ as she had ‘double dogged dared me.’
In our road we had a rank of shops which consisted of a fish and chip shop owned by Mr and Mrs Jones. Carters the Greengrocers, then Moss the Chemist. Next door was Mr Daniels the Grocers which also had a small post office at the back of the shop. Next door was Stan Butts the Butchers and the last shop in the rank was the Tobacconists and sweet shop.
Over the top of the shops were Maisonettes (2 storey flats one for each business.) Mum used to ‘do’ for Mr and Mrs Jones.
I would sometimes go with her so that I could play with her 2 small children.
When I was old enough 13 years back in those days I got a Saturday job in the Fish and Chip shop. I would start each Saturday by ‘eyeing’ the potatoes when they came out of the peeling machine. The peeled potatoes were kept in a full sized bath which was filled with cold water. Bob would sometimes help me with this job. Once that job was completed and the shop had opened I used to serve behind the wet fish counter and then once ‘frying’ commenced I worked behind the fried food counter taking the money. I was never allowed to serve the fish and chips as Mr Jones said I was ‘cack handed’ (left handed) so couldn’t fill the paper bags properly with each portion of chips.
From working in the Fish and chip shop I went onto work as a Saturday girl in the Greengrocers. One job I particularly disliked when I worked there was refilling the customers Paraffin cans from a large tank outside the back of the shop as I really disliked the smell of Paraffin.
Mr Moss the Chemist used to have wonderful displays in his 3 big shop windows.
I used to meet up with my friends ‘down by the shops’ most evenings until it was ‘in time.’
We would stand by Mr Moss’s windows and if any of the displays were touching the windows we would try to wobble the windows with our bottoms in the hope that we could knock the displays over. Poor Mr Moss who was quite an elderly man was never amused.
Mr Daniels used to sell unwrapped cakes in his Grocers shop. The cakes were delivered in big trays by Parkers Bakers.
I can still remember seeing ants running over the cream slices and custard slices during the summer months.
Stan Butt and his son who owned the Butchers shop were both lovely happy men. I used to be fascinated watching them make links of sausages Their hands moved so fast as the sausages came out of the sausage maker that I could never work out how they did it.
The Tobacconists was a shop all children loved going in to. Jars of sweets were lined up like rows of Soldiers and we could either purchase just one type of sweet or we could have a ‘mix up.’ My favourite sweets were Winter mixture, Barley twist, Pear drops, pineapple cubes and Liquorice allsorts. I would use some of my pocket money each week purchasing a few of each of my favourite sweets in a ‘quarter pound of mix up.’ A quarter pound is around 125 grams in todays measures.
The working class man back in the 1950’s never had a lot of money so luxuries like a refrigerator or a washing machine were generally only owned by the well off.
Most Mums did the families main wash on a Monday. It was totally different to how we do the washing these days. There was no putting the washing in a machine and just pressing a button. Mum had a Burco gas boiler that she filled with water and washing powder. She then connected the gas pipe to the gas inlet pipe on the wall lit the gas under the boiler and waited for the water to start to get hot. As soon as it was hot enough in went the ‘whites.’ The whites would remain in the boiler while it was brought up to the boil. Everything was then lifted out of the boiler using wooden tongs and scrubbed and rinsed in the sink. The washing was then mangled and if the weather was fine enough it was pegged out on the line to dry. By now the remaining water in the boiler had cooled down so Mum would then start on the ‘darks.’ Like most children I disliked laundry day. Our mums would be so busy we were constantly being told to ‘go out and play’ even if we didn’t want to.
Some of the Sunday joint was always kept for Mondays. Most mums would ‘knock up’ some pastry and make pasties for Mondays evening meal. We would have the pasties with home made chips. There was no such thing as frozen chips or for that fact any sort of frozen vegetable back in the 1950’s.
If mum was making a jelly she would put the dish of liquid jelly on the ground outside the back door to set. She would put a dinner plate on the top of the dish to stop any dirt getting into the jelly. The plate trick didn’t always work and we would often find ourselves picking bits of black grit out of our portion of jelly. Very few people had fresh cream back in those days so with our jelly we would sometimes have tinned cream. I always tried to avoid being given the tin of cream to ‘shake up’ as it was hard work trying to blend the ingredients together so that when you opened the tin you had a blended mixture not liquid with some lumps in it.
I first went to school in March 1954 when I was 5 years and 3 months of age. My first school was Kingsweston House infants and Juniors school. The school was an old Manor house that over looked Lawrence Weston and had originally been built in 1712. It used to take about 30 minutes to get to School as it was an uphill trek but coming home was much faster as we could run downhill most of the way.
The Manor house over the centuries was owned by many influential people. It eventually came into the ownership of Phillip Napier Miles.
When Squire Miles died in 1939 leaving no heirs his Widow Sybil sold off much of the estate to Bristol City Council.
https://www.kwag.org.uk/
This is a link to Kingweston House. Please take a look as you will be able to read about the amazing building that was my school. You can also read about the estate and its history.
I have many memories of the years I spent at my Infants and Junior School here are just 3 of them.
We children were not allowed to go anywhere near the top floor of our school as we were told the floors on that level were unsafe. After lunch one day as I was making my way back into school with one of my school chums we were told by an older pupil ‘Miss Wright wants to see both of you up on the top floor.’ As we were told this by an older pupil we were not allowed to disobey her so off we went up the forbidden staircase. Miss Wright of course wasn’t there we had been tricked. As we started to creep back down the staircase Miss Wright suddenly appeared from nowhere. She demanded to know what we were up to and when we told her we had been sent up to see her she didn’t believe us. She frog marched us into her class room and in front of the entire class we were chastised and made to sit on chairs facing the class wearing the dreaded Dunce’s hats. A dunce’s hat was a white cone shaped hat with a large letter D printed on the front of it. Anyone who misbehaved or didn’t do well in class had to wear the Dunce’s hat.
Every child in my School including the boys was terrified of Miss Wright as she was ‘ancient’ and we all thought she was a Witch. When I look back I think she was probably around 60 years of age. She was very small and from what I can remember only ever wore black clothing. When we were outside at ‘playtime’ and as long as Miss Wright was nowhere in sight we would repeatedly sing ‘Miss Wright had a fright in the middle of the night.’
I also remember in the Wintertime when it was very cold the foil tops on the bottles of our school milk would rise up.This was because the cream on the top of the milk had frozen and expanded. During winter ‘break time’ we used to eat the frozen cream with great relish pretending it was an iced lolly. Along with our milk we could also purchase ‘tuck.’ Tuck consisted as far as I can remember of either Wagon wheels or Potato puffs. Wagon wheels were a chocolate covered sandwiched biscuit wheel with marshmallow in the middle and potato puffs were some sort of salted puffed potato. Each item cost 3d, that’s equivalent to one and a half pence these days. If Mum could afford to give us money to purchase some tuck we would be so excited if not we went hungry until lunchtime.
Our School was surrounded by woodland and I had a secret hidey hole in one part of the woodland. Quite often when school had finished for the day especially during Springtime I would head for my secret hiding place so that I could see the mass of pale blue Periwinkles that had as if by magic carpeted the ground.
When I left Infants and Juniors at 11 years of age I went to Lawrence Weston Secondary Modern Comprehensive School.
The first year was spent at another school in Southmead as our brand new school wasn’t quite ready to be occupied.
We were transported on a daily basis by bus to our year long temporary school. As we passed a row of very posh houses opposite the Blaise Castle Estate all us school children on the bus would suddenly sit facing forwards and would appear to be perfect little angels. We were nothing like the little horrors we had been up until then. We did this because our Head Master Mr Poster lived in one of the posh houses and if he was still at home as the buses passed he would stand looking out of his lounge window and watch to see if any children on the buses were misbehaving as they passed his house.
Mr Poster appeared to know every child in the School so look out if he spotted you not behaving in a proper manner.
The lesson I hated most at secondary school was swimming. Ive never been able to swim and I think that’s due to the terrifying swimming instructor we had. Mr Joyce was every non swimmers nightmare. He was a very large overweight elderly man who sat in a chair at the side of the pool. He had a very long pole with a push bike inner tube attached to one end of it. He would make us non swimmers get in the water and then hook our heads inside the inner tube. We were pulled backwards until we were ‘floating.’ As soon as he thought we were floating he would unhook us and push us under the water. It was traumatising and somehow I don’t think that would happen these days.
I did ‘ok’ at Secondary School but when I look back I do wish I had studied harder.
On my last day at School I went to see all my teachers to bid them farewell.
They were all friendly and kind until I knocked on the door of the Deputy Head Mistress’s office. A voice called ‘enter’ so in I went. ‘Im leaving today Miss Begun’ I said. ‘Oh are you Bristow’ came the reply. ‘Well we all know you will end up working in a supermarket’ she said.
How right she was but that is a story for another day.
Thank a teacher.... If you are reading it in English, thank a Veteran!