The Schools

 
In 1933 Edith Bunston, aged 18, arrived from South Wales to become infant teacher. Celia Poulton (later Celia Clayton who lived practically all her life in the village, dying here in 1998) was in her class and they remained friends until Miss Bunston died in Lodsworth in 1997. She had married before the war and became Mrs Kingshott. Shortly before she died she sent Celia a fascinating, warm and perceptive account of her years at the school which gives an insight into what it was like in the thirties.
 
On the Monday after my stormy arrival the Rector me into the school where I was introduced to a very obese lady with penetrating blue eyes. She just icily shook hands. Then came a savage looking woman with henna coloured hair, thin lips and an angry-looking nose. The former was the teacher in charge of the middle school and the latter was the head mistress.
I saw the big room divided by a glass screen into two class rooms each with rows of high, old-fashioned desks and a little black stove in the corner. I was so pleased to find that I had a seperate room at the back. It had high windows and a huge black 'tortoise' stove, surrounded by a hideous iron guard; it dominated the three rows of desks.
The Rector introduced me to the children, and left. They were such nice little people, sitting there all expectantly. Two of them in the front row looked bright and intelligent, which they turned out to be and, funnily enough, eventually married. They showed me where everything was kept. After a while the other teacher came in, followed by the head, who said she did not want me because I was too young. Undeterred, I decided that that part of the school was mine.
 
There was little equipment and no way was I going to let them knit with rusty steel needles and ropey wool, nor let them model with round stale plasticine, so I set about creating my own materials. We did lots of 'handwork' and examples were put on display. I was told I was worrying too much and that it wasn't important how much was learnt, they were all waiting to be 14 years old so that they could go out and earn some cash. I didn't believe this and felt it was unthinkable that those mothers dressed their children so nicely and walked so far to school for no good to come out of it. To make sure they were not missing out, I did a course at training college and visited the best infant schools in Chichester. My conclusion was that Heyshott infants were not doing too badly, so I carried on.
 
One day the Rector came to my class and asked them a few questions and then wanted to send them home. I told him that, if they had not been in the class for the required time, their parents would not be there to meet them and so they couldn't go. He was a very big and autocratic looking man, he towered over me and demanded to know how a little thing like me could tell him what he could or could not do, when he had been managing the school for many years. But I kept him talking until it was time for them to go.
 
There were over 20 infants in my class, divided into three sections. One group was listened to as it read, one group was given written work and the little ones enjoyed various activities. At a set time the roles were changed, but between each change they indulged in a little song and dance around the classroom.