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. |
|
