A former Gerrards Cross resident has shared her memories – the good, the bad and the ugly – of her time as a pupil at the former Gerrards Cross Primary School.
Sarah Hogg-Robinson, who now lives in High Wycombe, grew up in Gerrards Cross and attended Gerrards Cross Primary School in East Common from 1963 until the building was demolished and the pupils were relocated to a new building on Moreland Drive.
Sarah describes the old school, where she spent the first five years of her school career, as “not just a Victorian building, but a Victorian culture and way of schooling too”.
The headmaster, Mr Lewis Simpkins, was tall and thin and smoked a pipe, while his wife was short and plump and was a Brown Owl at Gerrards Cross Brownies and Guides. Mr Simpkins was called ‘Simbo’ behind his back by the children.
Life for the pupils would have been very different than it is today, as the threat of corporal punishment was ever present.
She said: “The only time you really saw Mr Simpkins was if you had been naughty. Children would be slapped over the wrist with a ruler, thwacked with an encyclopaedia or, at worst, smacked with the cane.
“I was a very sensitive child, so I lived in fear of getting punished.”
The school was housed in a beautiful Victorian building which was sadly demolished in the late 1960s. Sarah says the building was crying out for refurbishment but, as a new site had been promised, it was neglected. There was no central heating and Sarah describes the school as “absolutely freezing” in the winter. She said the lavatories were located in an outdoor building and the water in the toilets would often freeze over.
School lunches, which were free, arrived in large aluminium containers from a facility in Slough. They would always arrive stone cold and are not fondly remembered by Sarah.
She said: “I remember grey and lumpy potatoes and gristly liver. It was absolutely disgusting but we had to eat every mouthful. I remember gagging over some potatoes as a teacher sat and watched to make sure I finished it.”
The school was old-fashioned in many respects. Pupils wrote with quills, resulting in inky fingers which were washed with coal tar soap, something Sarah says she can “still smell to this day”. When they moved to the new school, the children were given biros to write with instead.
The new school still stands today, and Sarah returned a few years ago with some former classmates she had reunited with through social networking site Friends United.
Sarah, who is now 65, says there are plenty of happy memories too. She remembers affectionately the delight of being allowed to cross over the road to play on the Common during the summer months. She says it was “a real treat” to venture beyond the playground and spend balmy afternoons making daisy chains and constructing birds’ nests from grass.
Do you fancy a trip down memory lane? Email your stories to newshub@mynewsmag.co.uk
Thank you for this article. I lead Key Stage 1 and teach Year 1 at The Gerrards Cross CE School now and one of our history units is the history of our school. I would love to use this article and maybe even ask the author to come and speak to the pupils. Please could you pass on my request? Many thanks!