• Ref.Number: FB025
• Date: 22.3.07
• Interviewer (I): Liz Rice
• Subject: Life as a child on Calgarth
• Period: 1953-1968

I

So when you started school, did you go in at 3 – did you start at the nursery?

D

Yes I started at the nursery end yes and I think I was, I might have been not quite 3 because, well it’s to do with my birthday being May, I know I was quite young when I started there so I might have been 2½ - I do remember – whether I remember going or whether I remember being told that I went! But I remember having the nap on the little beds!

I

What was your symbol?

D

I can’t remember – I think it was a boat.

I

Right.

D

I think I was a boat for my peg! I remember the school and the layout and the hall, but I spent a lot – obviously again with my dad being caretaker at primary school, I spent a lot of time in the school out of school hours because I used to help him cleaning, when I was getting a little bit older I used to. In the school holidays all the floors used to have to be cleaned – washed and sanded and varnished – re-varnished the hall and it was a sort of wooden floor.

I

Oh right.

D

So that – and some of the stone floors as well we sealed – re-sealed.

I

So were the classroom floors like stone.

D

They were stone yes, so there was a lot of work, and then there was all the windows needed cleaning and things. I used to get onto the roof quite a bit as well – there was a lot of flat roofs and they had to be – the roofing felt sort of tar spread on them and things, and I used to go and help him do that so I got involved a lot at the school.