Miss
Huckle's niece wrote in,
apparently, enquiring about her
aunt who had died in 1972.
 |
Miss
Huckle did two jobs
really: she looked after
Form I in the old Prep
Department. I remember
her at my entrance exam
to the Preparatory
Department when she
called me forward for my
"oral" and
asked me recite the
alphabet backwards: I was
8 years old at the time.
I remember her teaching
us in Form I in 1943-44.
Her other job was to sell
school caps and blazer
badges, as also the
badges for our caps. She
had a store cupboard to
Room 4. |
| With the
advent of the Education
Act of 1944, two things
happened relevant here.
One was school fees were
abolished and I remember
collecting a cheque from
the school to my Dad in
repayment of fees
previously paid. The
other was that Prep Depts
were closed down and the
11+ examination was
introduced in the Spring
of 1945: I was one of the
first set of pupils at
PGS to sit this
examination and to pass
it! |
| That
is where Miss ME
Beresford came in. Miss
Huckle had joined the
staff of the school in
the 1920's whereas Miss
Beresford came in about
1943/44. She took over
with Form IIb where Miss
Huckle finished off with
Form I. Miss Beresford
taught us in both Form
IIb (2nd year of the Prep
Dept) and in Form IIa
(3rd year of the Prep
Dept) and in IIa,
prepared us for the 11+
examination, there being
no younger boys coming
through with the demise
of the Prep dept. Miss
Huckle went back to her
original subject of
Geography which was also
that of Miss Beresford: I
was taught by both of
them as I progressed
through Forms IIIb1,
IIIa1, IVb1 and the Fifth
Form. |
 |
When I came to leave the
school in July 1953, it
was to Miss Huckle and
Miss Beresford that I
went especially to say
Good Bye. Both were great
friends and I seem to
recall that I heard
through the grapevine
that at the weekends in
the summer, they used to
play tennis at Mr Dixon's
home with other teachers
at PGS.....a world quite
separate, and rightly so,
from the school life of
the boys at the school.
A special memory: I went
to buy a school cap or
was it a blazer badge
from Miss Huckle after
4-00pm on a day in 1945.
She told me that she had
heard that the war was
over and that there would
not probably be any
school the following day.
There wasn't so that was
the day before VE
(Victory in Europe) day:
we had to wait for the
school summer holidays in
1945 for VJ day. |
|
