St Joseph's-Leigh Road
Colette, recently arranged a reunion for former classmates at Leigh Road. The following is her report on how the day went!
What can I say! It was marvellous to be able to return to our school after 40 years.
Life just doesn’t get much better than this, to be able to see all your old school pals.
It was quite daunting too as we were all 55 or 56 years old now but we didn’t let that stop us!
John Kirwan travelled from Carlow in Ireland. Patrick Crotty travelled from Scotland.
I (Colette Kirwan) travelled from Great Yarmouth for this very special day.
The rest of our pals still live in Birmingham.
Sarah Hartigan, Angela Cronin, Maureen Cuddy and Linda Morris.
Micky Byrnne, Robert Watts, Patrick Casey, Clive O’Hanlon and Michael Atkinson.
Eleven pupils turned up at St Joseph’s (Leigh Road) at 10am on Saturday 2nd October 2010.
We were greeted by the headmistress Julie and Deputy head Rehana. Thank you Ladies!
We all met in a classroom where we had tea and coffee and time to chat to each other.
All of us had a previous meeting at St Joseph’s Long Acre at 2pm on Sunday 25th July 2010. Clive O’Hanlon was also at that meeting but couldn’t come to the school in October as he had a prior engagement!
All except Micky Atkinson (Acker) he had got word from the St Joseph’s Newsletter that someone had given him
so he just decided to turn up. This was a lovely surprise for us all!
It just goes to show you, the Newsletter does get around so thanks Richard and John for the work involved in producing it.
Well! We all had a great chat together, infact, it was hard to part everyone to view the school, they all said I would have made a good teacher as I was shouting at them (only in jest) to move out of the classroom to view the rest of the school. We were all so excited at seeing each other again and it felt like a dream going around our old school again.
We all took group photos and my husband did a few videos on his camera. We remembered our classrooms and the headmasters office (Mr Cassell) and the lads remembered going there for the cane. Chilling! We also seen the
Deputy heads office (Mr Prior) he took us for English and was one of the best teachers in St Joseph’s as we learnt a lot from him. Memories flooded back and many teachers names. Mrs Boyle, Miss Larkin, Mr Gavin, Mr Peters, Miss Devlin and Miss Pontin.
It was strange walking along the corridors after all these years, the memories came rushing back and we started to tell each other what we got up to at school. You know, I think we all realised what a happy time your schooldays are. We all went down the stairs to the playground (where boys and girls were kept separated) a good thing really as the boys were quite rough at times.
St Joseph’s Leigh Road is now a primary school. The playground was full of equipment for the children to play on, sign of the good times.
All we had were skipping ropes (usually our mother’s old clothes line) Elastic round two peoples legs! (French skipping) which we thoroughly enjoyed. Marbles, well we made our own games up too.
I don’t think you could of made us happier, we all loved being there and seeing the school and our friends once again.
We all made a donation to the meeting on 25th July and to the school reunion on 2nd October and we signed a thank you card for all concerned. We hope this donation was adequate to help you in your endeavours.
Now, for our next meeting Richard Scott and John Tocker informed me that it is on Sunday 24th July 2011 at 2pm.
Please come along if you went to St Joseph’s Leigh Rd or Rocky Lane it is held at St Joseph’s Rocky Lane, Nechells Birmingham B7 5HA.
I had another friend of ours contact me by email, Kathy Beades she found us on Google. It was lovely to email her again and she is looking forward to meeting us all in July.
We would like all these other friends to join us, so come on don’t be afraid try and make this meeting!
We are not getting any younger so do come and join us please!
Pat Skeffington Frankie Nolan
Marie Murtagh Paul Cunningham
Margaret Cusack Brian Sheppard
Annette Mc Grane Richard Smith
Teresa Clynne Peter o’Neill
Siobhan Hamill
Ann Barr
Ann Stokes
Mary Fletcher
Ann Burke
Teresa Bias
Angela Sutton
Ann Daly
Keama Brynne
If I have missed anyone out I am so sorry but my memory isn’t what it use to be so please come along anyway I’m sure there will be someone that remembers you!
Look forward to meeting you all, you will be made most welcome!
Thanks Richard and John,
Lots of love
Mrs Colette Bayliss (Kirwan)
Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband Keith for helping me arrange the reunion at Leigh Road it was such a special day for all of us! He loved meeting all my school pals and they enjoyed his company too.
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