St. Kenelm's C.E. Primary School, Romsley
Centenary Celebrations
1915 – 2015
Memories of Mr Mervyn Needham - Pupil - 1948 onwards
I started at St. Kenelm's in 1948 and travelled by the regular bus service from The Close in Hunnington up to the school.
The headteacher was Mrs Southall (whose husband was the postmaster in Halesowen). She taught the top class. I began in the infant's class with Miss Payne, who was a very friendly, kind person. The classroom was heated by a large coke boiler situated in the corner opposite the classroom door.
We called the entrance area situated alongside the three classrooms "the corridor". It had cloakrooms (boys and girls) at each end and I remember that the stone floor was very cold. We all queued up here when the school nurse came to check us out and this must have happened regularly as she stored her equipment in cupboards along the corridor wall.
School milk was delivered to the school gate (the present pedestrian entrance) in crates. It came in third of a pint glass bottles and we drank the milk through a straw each morning break. Milk monitors from Mrs Southall's top class used to fetch the crates each morning from the gate. I can remember cutting out folded paper to create bottle mats.
The school field was quite a small area when I began but then the fence was removed to give access to the whole field. We used to go on nature walks with Miss Doone and collect things for the nature table. All the boys had a small vegetable garden which we tended in the afternoons.
The School Sports' Day was held on the cricket ground behind the "Fighting Cocks" now "The Swallow's Nest".
Our hot dinners were served in the Mission Room as there was no room for extra tables in the school. We filed down the road two by two but fortunately there was very little traffic in those days. I am not sure where the food was cooked; certainly not at the Mission Room. It was served from aluminium trays and large crockery lined containers. There would have been two or three dinner ladies serving the food and we sat at long trestle tables and long benches arranged down the length of the room.