I have very few memories of my time in class at Simms Cross. Apart from Miss Jones the names of teachers that come to mind are Miss Oliver, Miss Howard, Mrs McElroy, Mrs Hodgetts, Miss Green (later Mrs Lott) and the Headmistress, Miss Coates.
We were all terrified of Miss Coates and one day I was sent for to go to her room. I waited outside, knees knocking, wondering what I had done and awaiting my terrible punishment. What a shock I got when she ushered me into her inner sanctum and proceeded to find me a suitable outfit in a box of costumes as I was to be Mary in the Nativity play. Relief was the order of the day. I don’t remember having any words to say as Mary, in the play. All I had to do was to sit still and look after Baby Jesus. Easy peasy!
I gather my brother was also summoned to the Headmaster’s study on his first day at Simms Cross and he got the cane for fighting, much to our parents’ embarrassment. However it stood him in good stead as he never got bullied again. I got beaten about the head with a cardigan on my first day but I must have coped as it never happened to me again, either. Looking back our school days there did us good as it certainly toughened us up for life in the future.
Games lessons were fun, with all sorts of team games, involving balls, bean bags, hoops, skipping ropes and so on. The four school houses were called Mersey, Weaver, Dee and possibly Ribble. For Sports Days we walked, in a long crocodile, along the road to Stewards’ Lane and the the area by Dundalk Road. Practices for Sports Day were held on the wasteland by the school playground which was later built on. The Swimming pool and the new Police Station were eventually constructed there. It was more like a bombsite when I was at the school.
In Standard Four (the Top Class as we called it) I was made a Prefect. I wore a dark grey gymslip, a white long sleeved blouse, a red tie and a rather splendid red cap with a superb peak. I felt I was the cat’s whiskers!
The teaching at Simms Cross was good as most of my class passed the Eleven plus exam. We were all given a special pencil and had to go to Fairfield Secondary School to do the exam. We had done so many practice papers that my wrist gave out the day before and I was sent home without my special pencil as school didn’t think I was going to be able to take the exam as I couldn’t write . My Mother marched me straight back to school and demanded the special pencil and I went to Fairfield Secondary School the next day to take the exam. It must indeed have been a magic one as my wrist was fine and I passed the exam with no problem. I think that may be the time when my Mother’s hair began to turn grey, though!
There were two shops across the road from school, both selling sweets. One was a normal sweet shop selling sherbert dips, licorice, bubble gum, black jacks, flying saucers and aniseed balls. The other was called The Toffee Shop and was run by a lady who made all her wares. She would break up the toffee with a little metal hammer and you got it in a poke. I fear my teeth never recovered from buying her amazing productions. I can smell her treacle toffee now. Fabulous.
HUNTINGFORD MATTERS 