Meadlands memories from the ’60s – by KM

Meadlands School physically was a smaller place then but while I was there they did extend it and it has been extended still. In terms of the number of classrooms it was smaller. I think I went there for 3 years; a couple of years prior to that I was in the Oakfield Nursery School. I was there up until 1965 at Meadlands – physically a smaller place. It did need new classrooms. They built them just onto the edge of the playground and the edge of the field. They built two temporary wooden classrooms – supposedly temporary – but they were there many, many years later. Probably they lasted another 30 or so or more years – these so-called temporary wooden classrooms. They did extend it. The other thing they also did with Meadlands was that – the field was a lot bigger then – in the northeast side of the field that extended a lot further so an area which went right over by where there is a water pumping station now –  not twice as big, probably about a third of it was taken for more social housing in 1987 when there used to be two cul-de-sac roads called Mowbray Road and Sheridan Road. What Richmond Council did, they knocked down four houses of Sheridan Road which were at the end of the cul-de-sac and they extended Sheridan Road onto an area of Meadlands School field and they probably built another forty or so houses between 1987 and early 1992/93. There must be another forty houses that were built on basically part of Meadlands field. So the school field was a lot larger then.

The headmaster was Mr Willoughby; I seem to remember he had what you would expect from a headmaster – a nice man, smart. He seemed to be a big man when I was a little kid but whether he was or not I don’t know. The teacher I did like was a lady called Miss Moore. The teachers were always given nicknames. She was called Moorhen. I really liked Miss Moore – a very lovely lady. Supposedly the other kids used to tell me I was her teacher’s pet