Olga remembers the long, hot summer days at Chidham
They were also days, however, when it was quite possible for the arrival of a big London school to knock your own education for six.
Olga’s schooling at Chidham School was cut short when the Wimbledon High School was evacuated to Chidham.
“The girls who were 12 and over at Chidham had to go to the village hall to prepare the vegetables for the school meals. We had Wimbledon High School, and their education could not be disrupted. I think they thought that we were the country bumpkins.
“But we didn’t resent it. We just did it. That was how it was. We just used to go back to school in the afternoons.
“In the mornings there was mathematics and English. In the afternoons was history, needlework, geography and games.
“We missed out on the important stuff, but because I was fairly bright, I had always done well in English and maths so it didn’t really matter. After I left school, I went on to secretarial college.”
When she tells them about it all, Olga admits that sometimes people these days find it difficult to believe that her education was simply shoved aside in this way.
Olga’s schooling stretched from 1932 to 1942, all at Chidham: “Those were the days when you stayed unless you took exams to come to the high school. But unfortunately the war stopped all that, and I stayed at Chidham until I was 14.”
Some of the boys left school at the age of 12 - again, something which sounds remarkable now, but Olga points out that back then these were boys who were probably much readier for the big wide world than the 12-year-olds of the year 2001.
Olga looks back on it all very fondly: “It was a very happy school.”
It seems almost a country idyll. The children, armed probably with just a sandwich from their mother, would set out on great adventures during the holidays.
They would leave early in the morning and wouldn’t be seen again until the evening, and never would they feel remotely threatened or unsafe.
It was certainly a different world - one embodied in the figure of headteacher Mr Baldwin (no relation), a man who commanded respect and maintained discipline, two things Olga now finds distinctly lacking generally these days.
For the girls he had the ruler; for the boys he had the cane: “Discipline was very important. Discipline and respect. I think people have lost a lot of that.”
By popular request, Olga is getting together a school reunion for all those pupils (evacuees included) who attended Chidham school before 1945. Three years ago, she organised a successful reunion bringing together those who had attended the school pre-war. This time, she is including those who went through the war at the school.
Olga is hoping to use the reunion as the springboard for writing a history of Chidham. She is hoping people will come along armed with memories and memorabilia.
The reunion is on Saturday June 16. Anyone interested should contact her on 01243 572129.
Some of the pupils of Chidham School in 1937. |
