St. Kenelm's C.E. Primary School, Romsley
Centenary Celebrations
1915 - 2015
Memories of Mrs Selina Tromans (nee Farmer) - Pupil - 1959 -1965
My memories of being a pupil at St Kenelm's come in the form of still black and white photographs.
- My earliest photo is set in a gloomy classroom, with a high ceiling and high windows with long dark curtains. After lunch each day us Infants would sit at our tables, with our heads resting on our arms folded on the table in front of us, whilst Miss Gray dealt with the 'naughty boys'
- Another snapshot shows crates of 'third of a pint' milk bottles, regularly with popped lids caused by the sub-zero journey from Bromsgrove, sitting all morning by the boiler to 'take the chill off'
- Having to change out of wellies that I needed to wear as my route to school took me along the footpath, which is now the gulley through the estate where the footings were being dug out.
- In the corner of the classroom there was a sort of playpen where Miss Gray's two Minitiature Pinchers lived. I'm pretty sure one was called Kelpie??
- *Then the new School...........so bright and so light with enormous windows.....and we could see over the fence to the hen pens!
- All 40 of us standing around the edge of the classroom, doing dry land swimming practice, which reaped rich rewards as St Kenelm's won the first Halesowen Schools Swimming trophy
- A rather sad photo of a sobbing ten year old who couldn't attain Miss Davis' expectation that lazy Daisy embroidery stitches should be even!
And finally two sound-bites. The first of Mrs Sole preparing us to sing a 'new' hymn for the re-dedication of the School. 'We Build our School on Thee O Lord' From the tone of her voice and the way she hammered the keys, I can only summise that we were no angelic choir and the fact that Howard and I managed to recall many of the phases 50 years later suggests that we were possibly over rehearsed!
And the second: Mrs Siddall, a petite figure, appearing about 110 at the time, usually dressed in navy blue was the usual 'supply teacher'. She had the habit of wanting us to eat in near silence. This was an unachievable dream in such an echoey hall with the noises of a busy kitchen just there.. However, in attempts to quieten us , she repeatedly rapped one of the tables in the 'dining room' with the handle of a knife. Far from achieving the silence she wanted, the resonating sound had quite the opposite effect.