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Memories

Barbara Tomlinson (née Pick)

When I started at Dunkirk Primary School in 1945 the headmistress was Miss Jenkinson but she retired and Miss Stonehouse took over. She was a lovely lady and was very good for the school. She always used to stand at the front in assemblies conducting us when we sang; something we hadn't experienced before with Miss Jenkinson. Miss Stonehouse took great interest in us coming to school with clean shoes. She would inspect us during the assembly to make sure that we were clean and tidy. Woe betides us if our shoes were not up to the idea of cleanliness.

I think my first teacher at Dunkirk School was called Miss Rowe. She was kind and motherly and if anyone was upset or crying she would sit them on her knee and comfort them. Next we had a Miss Grundy who came from a place called 'Plum Tree' as she told my mother on one occasion when I was at home ill and my mother had to go into school to get my milk. What a treat - being at home drinking school milk through a straw! Then there was a Miss Swabey with a habit of stamping her foot and shouting 'Class 2 what a din!' when she came into the classroom to find us all chattering. Nevertheless she was just as kind as my two previous teachers. After Miss Swabey we had a new teacher, Mr Jackson. I remember him as a young man who would cycle to school everyday. He wore quit heavy glasses and had a habit of blinking his eyes, making his glasses 'twitch' up and down. He was great fun and we all enjoyed having a man teacher. We called him 'Sir' and when we went home it was always 'Sir says this' and 'Sir says that.' He had an old plimsoll shoe that he called 'Tommy Tickletoes' which was used to whack anyone who was naughty. Needless to say this didn't happen very often. It was more of a threat than anything. My last year at the school was not so happy. The teacher then was Miss Kerr who I didn't like. She seemed to have a few 'favourites' but I wasn't one of them. I missed the last couple of months of my primary school education, as I was involved in a road accident, being knocked down by a car on Beeston Road one Sunday afternoon. Those missing months were spent in the Nottingham's Children's Hospital. By then I had already sat my Eleven Plus and having passed I subsequently went to St Catherine's Girls convent Grammar School which was located on College Street in the city centre.

Karen Standage - once a Claude Street resident

I attended Dunkirk Primary School between 1972 and 1979. The site of the nursery used to be the school field where we held sports days. Later we would have to trundle under the subway and up the steps to the fenced-in field on the other side of Clifton Boulevard. In the days before we were kicked off it to make way for the nursery, I remember sitting on the grass making daisy chains in the summer and in the infants we had once had our class photo taken outside on the field. I also recall skipping across the grass with tambourines in our hands under the direction of Mrs Foxley. Apart from Mrs Foxley, who was lovely, also teaching in the infant department were Mrs Howitt (old) and Mrs McCourtney (strict) - although we actually kept the same teacher throughout our time in the infants. During the annual Nativity play Mrs Foxley used to play her autoharp while Mary sang: "Joseph, dearest, Joseph, mine". The angel costumes would be decorated with the remainders of the tin foil from cut-out milk bottle tops, with the gold top remainders always reserved for Gabriel. Assemblies would have Mrs Grant in her tweed skirt, twin set and Dr Scholls playing the piano, while our red-faced headmaster, Mr Evans, would lead the hymns, with us all craning up to the corner above the dining room door to read the words from the GIGANTIC hymn sheets which he would lower and raise by a rope. One year in assembly Ian Shelton was dressed up as a rabbit while we all sang: "Mr Rabbit, Mr Rabbit, your ears are mighty long".

After the field was commandeered for the nursery we were relegated to the 'concrete jungle' and I can also recall being trapped on it in a hula-hoop by Mr Parr and then dragged across the playground while he shouted "He bah, he bah, hondelay!" The boys would link arms in a line and call "Anybody for Ar-my?". It's strange what sticks in the memory!

The junior school teachers while I was there included the following teachers: Mrs Nelkin, a very strict red-headed 'gypsy' (that's how she referred to herself) who left to be replaced by Mrs Roach, who was rather a timid sort of woman. There was Mrs Grant, mentioned above, who also took us all for Scottish dancing. For one year there was a Nigerian teacher called Mrs Dunkwu who was very jolly and got very enthusiastic about the Silver Jubilee - her classroom was the tiny room next to the PE store cupboard and was very cramped. The deputy head teacher was Mr Atkinson who took over Mrs Roach's class; his big thing was to play his Swinging Safari LP during assembly - The Lion Sleeps Tonight, etc! Then there was Mr Parr, a Welshman, with his obsession with the poet W H Davies - he used to check down our tops to make sure we weren't wearing our vests under our T-shirts in PE - not something I can imagine happening nowadays! And finally the laid-back Mr Benson (who is featured on your football team photo); he had a very dry sense of humour and helped put on a sketch show one year in which Mark Ulliott and Steven Harlow (who are also in this photo) did some Two Ronnies newsflash jokes.

Some strange quirks of the school included the "treat" of being allowed to walk with a partner to the postbox on the corner of Lace Street and Beeston Road to post the letters for Mrs Ashmore. Or we might be taken out of our lessons to wash up the staff cups in the staffroom! I remember doing this with Angela Buck (who lived in the house next door to the school) and leaving washing-up liquid in the bottom of the teapot. How rebellious can you get?

Lorraine Taylor née Woodcock - now headteacher of a school in Rotorua, New Zealand

My family lived at No.22 Marlborough Street. My brother, Malcolm, who is nine years older than myself initially went to the old school but completed his Junior School years in the new building. I was born in 1967 but as Dunkirk School had yet to acquire its own nursery unit in 1971 when I was a four year old my mum used to take me to Merrivale Nursery over on Clifton Boulevard. Once I reached the age of five I could go to Dunkirk School which was somewhat closer than Merrivale being just on the other side of Marborough Street from our house. I think Dunkirk School must have acquired its own nursery unit about 1976 as I seem to recall that my younger brother was among the first to attend it. I can definitely recall picking him up from the nursery when I was about ten and walking him back across Marlborough Street to No.22.

Julia Pearl - Perth, Western Australia

The block of photos above showing the new school building under construction features pupils in the top juniors in 1967. I was in this class although I can't spot myself in any of the photographs. The shots must have been taken in the Spring/early Summer of 1967 as we would all have left for secondary school after the Summer holidays.

The plans for the site were presented to my class in the previous September by our teacher, Neil Atkins, and we all subsequently went wildflower picking on the site prior to the workmen moving in. We had to plot where the flowers had been found on the plans. There was a competition to see who could collect the most wildflowers either on the site or around the traps. I got off to a good start but Catherine Moore eventually beat my total and won a Collector's Guide to Wildflowers. I can still remember many of the flower names and bought a copy of the book for myself at a later date.

Our class never did go to the 'new school' after it opened but it all seemed very exciting that the old building would be vacated and this modern building would be the new look of Dunkirk Primary School. We all expected the old site would be cleared but the building still survives to this day housing the Dunkirk and Old Lenton Community Centre.

Elizabeth Ann Jones (née Hodges)

I attended Dunkirk School in the 1950s. I can recall the school being decorated with lots of bunting for Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1953. Each girl was given a mug and a lace hankie. The boys were also given a mug but I can't remember if they got anything else. One of the teachers at Dunkirk School was Mr Jackson. Unlike the other teachers he didn't have a cane. Instead he used a slipper which was called 'tickle toe'. Fortunately I was never on the receiving end of it.

On one occasion I got my arm jammed between the heating pipes. All sorts of greasy substances were applied to my arm in a vain effort to free me. My arm then began to swell up which only made matters worse. In the end the heating had to be switched off, the pipes drained and a fireman brought in to cut me free. The heating could not be switched back on again until the pipe had been mended. So the following day we all had to sit in class with our coats on. No doubt I wasn't very popular with my fellow pupils that particular day. Across the road from the school was Grahams shop - something of an Aladdin's cave as it sold all manner of things. I remember being sent to the shop for a glass hammer and a tin of elbow grease. Given that both requests were made on April 1st I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to the answer I received.

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