Memories from Kevin Rushe
Kevin attended St Joseph’s from 1948 to 1956.
He remembers the following teachers : Miss Grundy. Miss. Martin. Miss. Scally. Mrs. Bonham. Mr. Cassell. Miss Sidebottom. Miss. Etsford. Miss. Howard. Mr. Morgan. Mrs. Harding.
Parish Father Slade.
Priest. Assistant Father Motherway (a young priest recently arrived from Ireland).
The following is how Kevin remembers St Joseph’s.
Boys.
Dominic Hughes Laurence Carroll Christopher Mortimer John Priestly David Coyle
Kevin McCusker Tommy Hall Geoffrey Lynne Patrick Saunders Michael Morris David McHugh
Joseph Anderson John Sartori John Nugent Bernard Bamford Tony Carter Derek Thome Tony Barton Michael Street Brendan Rice Leo Hardy Graham Bowater Michael Lovett
Girls.
Jean McGrath Janet Kimberley Theresa Bridger Jaqueline Slade Ann Campbell
Christine French Barbara Trueman Elizabeth Dawson Linda Brueton Valerie Ling
Helen Bilston Ann Hollis Pat Brown. Another girl I remember was Elizabeth Rooney. She was killed in a car accident shortly after leaving school.
There were probably as many girls as boys. I cannot remember everyone, however the number that I remember must have meant a class size of at least 50.
Discipline at the school was very high and punishment very severe. Six of the best really hurt; you would have the marks on your hands for a week. Very few pupils were caned more than once.
Mr Cassell (who I believe has passed away) was very much a disciplinarian. I remember him as a very smart slim middle-aged man with iron-grey hair, a ruddy complexion and steel rimmed glasses. You never talked back to Mr Cassell.
Mist Sidebottom was again very strict. You made sure you paid attention in Mrs Sidebottom's class.
Miss Scally who taught in the junior school was a short middle-aged Irish woman. She was an excellent teacher very religious, very respected and again very much a disciplinarian. (I believe Miss Scally has also passed away).
Miss Etsford (who was soon to be married) and Miss Howard were both very young teachers who joined the school not long before I left in 1956.
Miss Grundy was the reception class teacher in the infant school. Her name seemed to suit her she was elderly, thin. She wore glasses and wore her grey hair in a bun. I remember Miss Grundy as a kindly person. My first day at school (aged four or five) was spent playing with very bright pull along toys. I thought it was magic, although some of the other pupils were crying for their mothers.
Miss Martin was the 2nd year teacher in the infant school. I have very good memories of Miss Martin. All the children liked her immensely and were eager to gain her approval. She was a gifted storyteller and would hold the class spellbound with her stories. In those days no one had television and not everyone had a radio, (we did not). It seemed that Miss Martin could open a magic box of stories and adventures of a world we had never heard before.
Sister Alfreda was the head of the infant school. She was quite elderly and sat at her desk looking at us over the top of her glasses.
By the time we left infant school we were all familiar with basic maths and writing (printing). The infant school was situated below the senior school with the entrance (down a narrow set of steps) in Long Acre. The infant school had its own playground and its own outside toilets.
The junior school entrance was in Thimble Mill Lane. It was a completely separate building of two or three classes and also had its own playground and outside toilets.
While at junior school I can remember going on a trip to Dudley Zoo. It was the first time any of us had seen any kind of exotic animal. I can still remember seeing (and smelling) an elephant. I had no idea how big an elephant was, it was an enormous shock. I can also recall looking into a pit and seeing a tiger for the first time and feeling very nervous in case it might somehow leap out and devour me.
In 1952 we had a school trip to the cinema. This was my first ever visit to a cinema. I can remember it as clearly as yesterday. It was a religious film (naturally) called, "Never Take No For An Answer." It told the story of a small boy trying to take a donkey to see the Pope. It was the most magical moment of my life I have never forgotten it. After that we had many trips to the cinema always to see religious or biblical films. Quo Vadis, St Francis of Assisi etc.
Religious instruction was very important at St Josephs once a week we had to attend mass, this was usually on a Monday. At least once a week Father Slade would take the class for religious instruction. He would also regularly visit the parents and children in their homes. (Especially if they had not attended mass on Sunday.) Some part of every school day was devoted to religious instruction sometimes either by the class teacher, Father Slade or Sister Marguerite.
The vast majority of the children lived within walking distance of the school, coming mainly from the Aston and Nechells area. Most came from poor working class families. Some of the boys never wore socks and lots of the boys with socks had large holes in them. It was quite a common sight to see boys with the back of their trousers tom with gaping holes. There always seemed to be some sort of epidemic doing the rounds, ringworm and impetigo seemed quite common with a number of pupils having purple medication on their faces. Boys were forbidden to wear long trousers until the second or third year of senior school. The explanation for this was that torn trousers cost money and cut knees did not!
Physical training or P.T. consisted of once a week swimming and football. We usually went swimming at Nechells Baths in Nechells Park Road. I remember the water always seemed freezing cold and everyone’s lips turning blue. When it was time to play football, one of the teachers would fetch out a very large box full of very old stiff football boots all shapes and sizes mixed together. You were allowed about 30 seconds to select a pair of boots. We were then bussed to Aston Park where we quickly got our boots on. It was very rare to have two boots of the same size, usually one boot would be to large so your toes slammed into the hardened toecap. While the other boot would be to small giving you blisters on the top of your toes within minutes.
By todays standards the facilities at the school were almost none existent. There was no school hall, woodwork room, metalwork room, gymnasium, and science labs, inside toilets or dining facilities.
A lot of the children had free dinners, because the school had no dining facilities at 12.00pm we all trooped to another school. I cannot remember the name of the school we went to for our dinners, but it was situated in the vicinity of the new St Joseph's School. (Charles Arthur St. Ed.) Mrs Harding escorted the column of children every day to this school for our dinners. Mrs Harding was a heavily built quite elderly lady with bad legs. It was obviously very painful for her to make the journey every day but I never heard her complain.
At the other school we ate our dinners at very long tables and sat on long benches. Children were not allowed to leave any food on their plates unless they had been given permission from Mrs Harding. I can clearly remember one occasion in particular when we had fish for dinner (it must have been a Friday). The boy sitting next to me, John Nugent said, he did not like the dinner and that he was going to ask if he could leave it. Mrs Harding refused his request and told him to eat it because "of all the starving children in the world", (we could never understand how by eating our own dinners we were helping). John sat down and toyed with his dinner he ate a few mouthfuls, remarking that it was making him sick. He repeated his request to Mrs Harding and once again she told him to stop being silly and to eat his dinner. He was almost in tears as he sat back down. He stared at his dinner for a few minutes then reached for the bottle of salad cream, he poured at least a quarter of the bottle over his dinner. He then mashed it into a gooey paste. By this time all the children sitting near him were being put off their own dinners. He the proceeded to shovel huge amounts of the paste, into his mouth as fast as he could, just to get it over with.
We all watched with fascination, after about four or five mouthfuls he began to wretch. He put his fork down, leaned over to me and was promptly sick all over my dinner. I looked at the smelly mess on my plate with horror.
Mrs Harding saw what had happened, she went over to John, put her hand on his shoulder and told him he could leave the rest. She looked at the mess on my plate and said I could leave mine if liked! As a result of this incident, I have never been able to eat salad cream since.
Our school building was very antiquated. In the winter months, unless you were sitting next to a radiator or one of the massive hot water pipes feeding the radiators, you froze.
You
frequently had to go through one classroom to reach another
Considering the shortcomings of the school facilities, the staff performed miracles. They did their best to ensure that every child had a good education, with special attention given to reading, spelling, maths, history and geography.
All the children liked and were fiercely proud of their school
Although I left St Josephs in 1956 to go to a brand new modem school, which had every facility. I never felt the same affection. I never experienced the many fond memories that I did at St Josephs.
Kevin Rushe
