I went to the Richmond Central School in Gainsborough Road, Richmond, nearly in Kew.  There was a funny situation, it was an extremely good school and looking back on it now, a very good school, compared to what is going on now.  When we were ten we sat the scholarship exam and about that time Mr Hedges left and Mr Gomm came along and he was extremely excited because he […]

Grey Court was the Secondary Modern and obviously it was ideally placed.  In my opinion it is, it has the best situation of all schools anywhere around including the Grammar Schools, especially including them in Kingston and so on.  It is beautiful and should have been an outstanding school which it is now but it should have been but very sadly it wasn’t, it was considered absolutely hopeless.  I spoke […]

After getting up at that hour in the morning and doing the paper round in all weathers so it was really lovely when Grey Court opened because you could more or less fall out of bed into school and we were only used to old Victorian schools and when that opened it was a revelation to us, it was all lovely and new and modern and I had happiest schooldays […]

My mother’s mother died the year I went to Grey Court, my grandfather died the year I left Grey Court and I think that encompassed most of the things I learnt at Grey Court which wasn’t a lot. So who was the head teacher at that time?  Gosh, I can’t remember, little fat man who aggravated my father no end

When I started at the local school when I was 5 which is I believe now the Catholic church and yes, I went to the local school for about 18 months and my mother had a disagreement with one of the teachers and the head master and being a catholic and that was a C of E School, my brother and I had to go into Richmond to St Elizabeth’s […]

No, because we were Catholics we only went to one school and it was this one in Richmond, St Elizabeth’s and it was run by the Church then, they ran all that it was nothing like they get now so really though we get a bit limited on the education side of it, you know because we were all raring to learn a bit more and then of course it […]

The school, you see, didn’t exist while I was here, it was still Douglas House, a private house. When did the German School take it over? I don’t know. It was sold to them in the early ’70s I think. What was the name of the people who were living there when we first came? Was it Colonel and Mrs….? I can’t remember what their name was. It was then […]

The impact of that on the local schools must have been very considerable because Ham Infants School had been opened by Surrey County Council in the mid-sixties not long before they ceased to be the education authority here in 1965 and handed over to Richmond and one of the interesting things about how Ham has changed is exemplified by the Wates Estate.

And I stayed there until Ham Infant School was built in about 1972 that would be I think when all the infant departments from St Richards transferred lock, stock and barrel to the new building and we remained there until we closed down in about 1982 ish.  And we moved back into St Richards school site because there were fewer children and they had room and the infant school became […]

In the grounds of the Petersham Russell, but the Petersham Russell wasn’t there then because it had been bombed out of Richmond Park and it took a couple of years to build because bricks weren’t readily available and I went there as did quite a few other children, I’m not sure where all the other children were housed before the Orchard was inaugurated but it was a lovely school and […]