Friendly teachers at St Andrew’s – by HS

There was a Mrs Parsons.  She was very kind and sort of motherly and I enjoyed being there but when we moved, of course, to the Tudor Estate I had to change schools and that’s when I came to school in Ham which was St Andrews school in the building which is now occupied by St Thomas Aquinas Church.   Oh it was good.  They were all very friendly teachers.  A man called Hedger, Mr Hedger was the headmaster at that stage and there was Mr Page and Miss Breech.  They used to teach the girls country dancing among other things which the boys enjoyed.  We had cricket and football on the Common.   Oh he [Mr Hedger] was quite a good old-fashioned sort of teacher Particular thing I remember about him, for some reason he singled me out to go and get library books for him because there was a private library on Ham Parade.  I don’t know what that was but he would come and summon me to his office and say “nip up and take this back and get me another”.   He liked Western stories, really good westerns.  He didn’t complain about anything I brought back for him anyway so must have been doing the right thing.

Mr Page was very good, very good teacher, very helpful.  He did some of the sports, some of the cricket and football with us as well and he became headmaster after Hedger retired.  He used to live in a house just on the other side of the road from the school.  I think we might have had Miss Breech for geography otherwise it was Mr Page or Mr Hedger.