Post by Les on Oct 4, 2017 8:41:48 GMT
My name is Janice and I remember arriving in Maidstone with my family when I was 7 (in 1955) and being put into Northborough School. I remember the long desks and sitting next to a little girl with a long plats in her hair called Helen who became a lifelong friend. We were then sent to Vinters Secondary School. I remember the long walk to Mote Park playing fields for games, and then the showers where you could not hide your modesty as we had to take them very quickly before the teacher swung back your cubicle curtain and told you to come out, finished or not! I remember enjoying the cookery lessons, especially making pastry on a long pine table and having to scrub it hard afterwards with a scubbing brush and soap to get all the flour and left over pastry out of the cracks. Also the science teacher who used to listen to the cricket score whilst waiting for us to change the flame in our bunsen burners to blue.She was a friend of the P.E teacher, who used to wear the pleated knee length skirts that were fashionable then. I remember they used to have long conversations in the staff room and Miss Brett the PE teacher used to sit with her feet up on the desk and those entering the room were treated to the sight of her knee length pink bulbous, elasticated at the knee, drawers in full view! I shall never forget the needlework class where the last year I was there we were able to make ourselves a skirt. We all stood in a line to be measured for them by the teacher who as she measured me exclaimed in a loud voice to the whole class "good heavens this child has a 42" hip".The other teacher in the room did a sharp surprised intake of breath, my face readened and there started my lifelong agonies about my weight!