Patrick Hogan
Whittington Schooldays 1939 - 1942

Early school in Whittington   (1939 - 1940)

Arriving in the village in 1939, I was fortunate in being just seven years old so slotted fairly easily into the youngest class of the school at Whittington. I was to stay there for a couple of years.  Not realising that my southern accent marked me clearly as a “softie” and potential future victim for some of the tougher farm boys, I adapted to the routines of Whittington Council School as it was known.  The youngest children were taught in the rather handsome building which faced on to Main Street and we had our own entrance. The room was large and kept warm in the winter. Our days were pleasant for our teacher was the saintly “Miss Swain” - really Mrs Swain, but women teachers were addressed by the courtesy title ‘Miss’, unless known personally.
The children loved Miss Swain dearly, for her kindness, gentle manner and obvious love for all in her class made going to school a pleasure for us all. Under her benevolent tutelage we learned to read, to write, the beginnings of arithmetic, practised drawing and were told about England, Staffordshire and Lichfield.

Unfortunately for us, Miss Swain was nearing retirement age and all too soon the sad announcement came that she would not be coming back after the holiday. The news was unsettling, but being so young we did not really wonder who would replace her in the Spring of 1940 for there were dramatic and more important things happening – like the War.  We were therefore quite unprepared for the cataclysm approaching.

On the morning of the first day of the new term, we little children were milling about on the pavement, by the gates and in the playground, playing, talking and jostling around. Soon we would be called into the building and our pleasant school learning routine would begin again. The day was fine and we were happy to be back at school again.

Slowly, down Barracks Lane, rolled a little black car, which was unusual as most cars were laid up. It drew up outside the school.  After some delay the passenger door opened and an enormous woman in her early thirties, clad in hairy tweed suiting, knee length woolly stockings, thick brown shoes and a shapeless hat, struggled and squeezed herself free of the car and stood looming over us.  A voice like a cannon bellowed “Out of my way children” and scattering us left and right, the apparition marched into the school and out of view.  The Redoubtable Miss Spink had arrived.

Some of our children came from pretty tough homes but I do not think anything could have prepared us for the arrival of Miss Spink. She was straight out of Dickens via Desperate Dan of the Beano and she frightened the wits out of us. A large and bulky woman with an uncertain temper, she was not the sort of person to argue with.  All us children must have thought “Oh, Miss Swain, where are you?”

And so, with Miss Spink’s ominous, brooding presence, our schooling changed abruptly from sublime pleasure to something like Dotheboys Hall.  Miss Spink took discipline seriously.  Starting immediately, even slight lateness was punished, talking to others was forbidden and speaking to her without express permission was also not allowed.   “Listen and remember” were her watchwords.  Of course, being children, we adapted ourselves to the new regime but the zest for learning was less and school was endured rather than enjoyed.

Miss Spink had a fatal weakness. She was free with her hands and used her ruler often to rap the knuckles of inattentive children. This oppressive authority continued for some time until one day she overstepped the mark. One of the young boys from the Hurst, goaded beyond measure by her constant hectoring, rebelled and answered her back.  Incensed, Miss Spink cuffed him so roundly round the ears that she made the little boy cry bitterly.  We went home sensing that the matter was not over.

The next morning when we sat down, the boy was not there, a fact that Miss Spink recorded in her class register with a snort.  Suddenly the door flew open and an equally enormous farm woman leading the boy in question by the hand, strode purposefully into the room.  “You hit my boy yesterday”; the mother said it accusingly, as a statement of fact, looking straight into the eyes of Miss Spink.  The teacher, whose face had become red at this invasion of her territory and authority, spoke equally sharply back. “Yes, I did, he answered me back” she snapped.  The mother said no more, but with an arm as broad and strong as a ham bone she slammed her fist to the jaw of the furious teacher and knocked her senseless to the floor.  Looking down contemptuously at the prostrate form below, the mother said  “But I bet you think twice next time”.   And sending her boy to his seat, she strode triumphantly from the room.  That was the last time the bullying Miss Spink laid a finger on us.  A farming mother from Whittington had tamed her in about ten seconds.

After the summer holidays we moved up to the middle school in the other building, coming under the care of Miss (Grace) Burgess, who was of the village. In those same holidays, Miss Spink had moved to another school.
We never saw her again.

Middle School in Whittington – (1941 – 42)

Moving from the Elementary School to the Middle School was a big step and involved more than a change of building, important though that was.  The Middle and Senior classes were housed in that part of the school on Church Street adjoining the cross road and housed the two classrooms and the Headmaster’s Office.   At the exact corner of the crossroads stood the War Memorial where the village assembled each year on the 11th of November for the Armistice Day service.

Our entrance was through the gates from the pavement in Church Street.  Next to the gate was a large round yellow and black enamel sign imploring us “Children, Safety First please !”, presumably to remind pupils of the danger to life from the one or two motor vehicles left in the village, Major “Dickie” Dyott and his horse and Sgt Woodward’s bicycle.  There were two classrooms in the building, one for the Middle School taken by Miss Burgess (who lived a little way up Darnford Lane on the left) and the other for the senior pupils looked after by Mr Hughes, the Headmaster, who lived further up Church Street on the right, next to my friend Pat Withers.  Schooling in the village finished at the age of fourteen when pupils were released to look for jobs on local farms or further away in factories, shops and other businesses.

Learning in the middle school class opened up a new world to us.  Miss (Grace) Burgess was in her prime at about 50 years of age and intent on equipping her charges as well as possible for their future life.  From this class were selected those pupils judged to have some sort of chance of passing the annual “Scholarship Examination” which could take them on to free higher education in Lichfield.  Not all the children wished to go in for this exam of course, so it usually came down to about four or five pupils per year who for one reason or another were unable to escape selection.  For these unfortunates, cramming began in the summer holidays and continued inside and outside of school hours until the exam was finally taken the following late Spring.

On reaching the Middle School, certain things became apparent.  Vestiges of an ancient suspicion of “foreigners” still existed in Whittington in the early nineteen-forty’s and this led to some of the older boys emphasizing that they were genuine villagers and others had better know their place.  The credentials of boys moving up to the Middle School were checked over carefully by these older boys to make sure they were not outsiders.  If they were, they were leaned upon until they paid sufficient respect to their betters.  It wasn’t really bullying but rather a time-honoured method of establishing the correct pecking order and finding out how much backbone a boy possessed.

Although at 8 years old, I was a fairly well built young lad, I had defects.  Firstly, I had not been born in Whittington and so was not “of the village”, but much, much worse – I had a south of England accent.  Like a white hen put into a flock of black ones, my non-Midland way of talking was a invitation to some boys to mock, challenge and chasten me - to encourage me to speak proper English.
Secondly, I was not naturally aggressive, which was confirmation for some that I must be a softy and fair game – he who doesn’t fight must be tested by others!
My crowning defect though, was that I was not stupid.  Had I been, I think all would have been well, for stupidity was accepted easily by young lads who measured worth principally by muscle.  However, as I happily entered the Middle School, I was unaware of all my deficiencies so the events which followed came as something of a surprise.

It was to my advantage that the few boys who had a go at me didn’t know me very well and themselves lived in the outlying areas.  Because of this, in some ways they were less part of the village than I was.  By 1942 I had lived in Church Street for getting on for three years and knew my way around in the darkness of the wartime blackout almost as well as in the light.   In our part of the village, “Dicky, Dicky, Shine your light” would be invented and we knew every corner, wall, garden, field and tree by night as well as by day.  This gave me a slight edge if I was cornered on winter afternoons when it was getting dark.  A heavy footed pursuer sometimes found that I had somehow disappeared just when he was sure he had me. This saved me on occasion, but of course, only delayed the day of reckoning. 

Little delays gave me time to plan however, and choose my own ground for encounters with the enemy.  The Croft was my favoured “safe ground” as it backed on to our garden and I knew every tussock and hole. On occasion I was able to wrong foot an attacking boy who was tripped by a hole or clump of thick grass which I had evaded with ease, knowing it well.  All these little details added up till eventually I was slowly being grudgingly accepted as one who could hold his own, even if not being yet quite a villager.

One classic encounter finally did the trick. One particular farm boy, Stan Rogers, who lived in a cottage at Huddlesford, a mile northwest of the village, decided that he would settle my hash once and for all. He was a year and a half older and a head taller than me and strong with it, so he could see no great difficulty in the undertaking.  He started baiting me when we left school in the afternoons, on my way up Church Street to home. Having had no success with words previous days, he decided to stick with me all the way up Church Street one afternoon, punching me on my left shoulder and daring me to fight.  I stood it as far as the gate into the Croft where he normally left me to go to the Crossroads and then suddenly, with certainly the hardest punch I had ever thrown, I floored him in the street. Surprised and bleeding from his face, perhaps even shocked that the worm had finally turned, he was not done and we had to finish the matter in the Croft itself, egged on by enthusiastic non-combatants.

Of course I lost that fight to the bigger boy, but I managed to hurt him enough in the process that he lost his appetite for a return match and never bothered me again - nor did anyone else.  I too lost some blood, and my nose received a slight permanent twist to the right, but that was a small price to pay for acceptance by the village. They had seen that I would stand up for myself and that was important to them.  In the village saying of the time - I had “fought my own battle” - and with honour satisfied all round, Patrick Hogan was now  “of Whittington” and proud of it.

 Patrick Hogan   12 June 2009

Final year at Whittington Council School  (1942–43)

It was Summer 1942 and Miss (Grace) Burgess had selected the 5 children she would coach for the Scholarship Examination of the following Spring.  Much work had to be done so that we did not let down the good name of Whittington Council School. For the two secondary schools in Lichfield, about 30 boys and 30 girls would be selected from up to 1000 candidates who would take the exam in the quite large catchment area surrounding the city.  Passing meant an education at Grammar School standard without fees, though books, uniforms and sports gear still had to be paid for by parents.

There were about 10 Whitttington children who had passed during the previous 5 years and Grace was naturally anxious to keep up her good record of success for the school.  So in addition to providing a good education for those who were not taking the examination, Miss Burgess provided extra tuition in her own time at no cost, to the ones who were to sit the following Spring.  Our parents bought pens, pencils, rulers, writing books and little leather satchels for us and hoped that the expense would be justified.

Two evenings per week, we walked to Miss Burgess’s little house in Darnford Lane where, after being ushered into a darkened parlour, the blackout curtains would be carefully closed and the electric light turned on so that our extra tuition could begin. For 2 hours on each of the evenings we would be coached in English, Arithmetic and General Knowledge.  Week after week this went on, with Grace Burgess cheerfully giving her time and advice to help our future.  Her normally strict school demeanour relaxed for us in those evenings as she strove to lift our abilities in each of the subjects and help us pass the coming exam.  I remember one delicious evening when Grace Burgess, looking particularly chic, informed us glowingly that we would be going home a little earlier that evening as her “boyfriend” was coming to see her. What a lovely lady.

Patiently, time and time again Grace would go over the subject matter of the exam until by January we were doing practice-exams using papers from previous years. On the following evening we would receive our marked papers back again with little notes appended saying how we could have improved our score. Grace Burgess was quite marvellous and I’m glad to say that we knew it at the time and appreciated how much she was doing for us.

In Spring 1943 the day came for us to take the Examination proper and when we had finished, the long wait for the results began.  There was no worry in our minds for we had done our best and Providence had to take care of the rest.    We got on with our lives and in wartime Whittington there was plenty to do on the farms for children on summer holiday.

In July 1943, Alma Jacobs and myself were listed as having passed the Scholarship Examination.  Alma went to the Friary School and I went to what everyone still called the Grammar School though King Edward VI had granted it permission to use his name way back in 1552  (it was founded by Bishop Smythe in 1495).

Thanks to Grace Burgess, we were on our way.  Thank you again, Grace !

  Patrick Hogan   12 June 2009