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Chapter 20  The Girls’ School (later)

Joyce Woodland went to St. John’s School.  Her father Mr. Albert George Woodland was in the Hampshire Constabulary.  He walked the Forton Road Gosport, beat from 1925 to 1938, and was the only Forton policeman.  There were only 10 policemen in the whole of Gosport then and they are all in the photograph.  Mr. Woodland retired from the constabulary in 1938.  He and his family lived in a police house in Moreland Road with a POLICE sign over the door.

Joyce Woodland’s brother was in the School Football Team in the year 1933-34.  In the photograph, are the then headmaster, Mr. Williams and the teacher-trainer of the football team, Mr. Stainer.

Dances were held at the Civil Service Club in the Crossways.  At that time Mr. Woodland did not allow his daughter to go to what they called the “Snake-pit”.

Isla was in the same class as Joyce.

In the Infants’, Miss. Williams taught the reception class.  She wore a black dress and her grey hair was coiled into a bun. Miss. McKenzie took the next class.  Then there was Miss. Bristow’s class. Miss. Sinclair and Miss. Rainford (the “Brown” Sisters) lived in Parham Road.  Miss. Sinclair was the head and she also taught a class.

In the girls’ school Miss. G. Edwards taught Standard I, Miss. Wild, Standard II, Miss. Ellen Cooper, Standard IV and Miss. E. Hayward, Standard VI, the scholarship class.

The teachers were very caring.  They took care of the children especially when it rained.  If the children had wet feet (especially those with plimsoles), they changed their shoes.  Spare slippers were kept at the school for them.

On Friday afternoons the children took little tins of polish and a piece of rag to school, to polish the desks.  Ink-wells were emptied and washed out.

The classrooms were heated by iron stoves. The playground surface was gravel, so the children often had grazed knees. Each desk seated four children.

The Vicarage garden was situated at the back of the playground.  Before May, the children practised dancing the Maypole there.  They practised a lot and at the beginning of May, they went to Church and danced the Maypole afterwards.  The girls wore white dresses, socks and shoes and the boys wore white trousers and shirts.

Once a year the School Sports were held at Gordon Park, for all the schools.  St. John’s school colours were green and yellow.

School concerts were held in the Church Hall, where there was a stage. In one concert, Isla was to have been Lucy Locket, but another girl got the part!  Isla was the “Fairy of the Scissors”.  She wore a green net dress and gauzy wings.  She had cardboard scissors covered with silver.  She had to say, “I am the Fairy of the Scissors, I cut out the pocket and snipped off the cotton”.