Old Battersea 2

 

Here it is, my first school. Back in the 1940s it was known as Surrey Lane School, an Infants’ section on the ground floor and a Secondary part on the upper floors. It was situated at the other end of Bridge Lane from our house, fifty yards distant after crossing a side street, Shuttleworth Road, and away from the bombed Congregational Church that stood opposite where we lived.

I have some memories of those early school days and of having mixed emotions on my first day there. Although the teacher, Mrs King, was kind and the classroom had lots of toys and books, I still didn’t like being away from my mother. Naturally, the next thing I remember is running home from school at breaktime, in tears. I don’t remember what those tears were about, but do have an image of my teacher coming to the house and of she and my ma coaxing me back to school. I probably settled in after that as the next event that comes to mind is the school’s Christmas party, for which we were all allowed to dress up. My mother had made me a Christmas Fairy dress, decorated with our tree baubles. I loved it, but my mother made me wear my new brown lace-ups, rather than buying the soft leather slippers I fancied should go with it. More tears - and a very subdued fairy plonked in her socks at one of the party tables.

It was, I think, a good school. Though I could read a bit before starting school, as soon as I did, my mother took me to join the nearest branch of the public library and we made a weekly trip there to change books. My brothers were also enrolled as soon as they turned five. I can remember reading the Alison Uttley and Beatrix Potter books, though I’m not sure how old I was – certainly before transferring to junior school.

There were plenty of celebrations and school outings - May Day, Empire Day, Harvest Festival and its beautiful displays (sent off at the end of the day to Battersea General Hospital and a local children’s home), trips to London Zoo, boat trips on the Thames, among them. But always tears. At London Zoo, Guy the Gorilla spat at me after being teased by some of my schoolmates and it landed on the velvet collar of my new coat – tears. On May Day I was a last-minute stand-in for the maypole dance. Of course, I didn’t know the steps, tangled the ribbons and was sent back in disgrace to sit with my mother – yes, more crying. And yet I know I loved the school, so it looks like I only remember the bad bits.

At the other end of the Lane, our house was odd and huge. A mid-Victorian detached house, it stood at an angle to the road and had one of its bedrooms built over an arch at the side, under which ran a cobbled way down to a working repairs garage way past our house. There were attics that we used as playrooms and that led out onto a flat roof, but we were forbidden to play there, though once or twice we sneaked out. Our garden was small and oddly shaped, though big enough for a patch of lawn, a couple of flower beds, a stone cold-larder with an icebox at the bottom and my father’s pigeon loft. My mother’s pride was that she had two kitchens; a back kitchen, more of a scullery, used for washing up and washing, and a front kitchen where she cooked and which was big enough for us all to eat in. My father bred fantails and tumblers; the racing pigeons were kept in my Granpa Cook’s lofts in Latchmere Grove.

The house is long gone; compulsorily purchased by Battersea Council and pulled down in the 70s to make way for a GP Practice. The school was later named William Blake School when it became a Secondary School for boys. Later still, it was converted into very expensive flats in the 90s – all part of Battersea’s gentrification, while the indigenous population was siphoned off into high-rise flats.