As a child I attended Nelson Street School, I can’t
say it was a bad school, but I wasn’t happy going to it. Perhaps if I had
liked it more, I might have finished up cleverer than I was when I left to start
work at the age of fourteen.
Some teachers at Nelson Street were nice; some were not. Our
teacher was named Miss White (Miss Peggy White was what we called her). The
rumour was that she lived in a pawnshop. I doubt it but that’s what the
children used to say.
She was not a bad teacher, unless a child was very naughty,
then she would give them the leather strap. One day one of the boys had been
really naughty; and just as she was bringing the strap down with a swing towards
the palm of his hand, the boy stepped back. Miss White jerked forward and her
top dentures fell out of her mouth onto the floor. As you can guess they broke
in half, she picked them up and rushed out. We had no teacher for a while and
what a noise we must have made before another teacher took over the class.
I was also a brownie at Elm Street Sunday School. I remember
I could never fasten the knot on my tie; I used to end up with the knot bigger
than my head! By the time I had got used to doing it right I had moved up to
the guides where the ties were much bigger and I had to struggle all over again.
This photograph was taken in Heaton Park in the 1920s. In
those days the Manchester Evening News used to give young boys (who could not
afford a holiday) the chance to go away for a weeks camping at Heaton Park.
The holiday must have been a Godsend to those boys who never got a break from
the dull smoky houses around Miles Platting, Collyhurst and Ancoats etc.
My late husband who could not afford the 2/6d to go
to the camp, was given the photo all those years ago by the mother of his friend
who sent the card. I guess she thought it was a little bit of compensation.
Mrs Dora Byrne. Nee Pearson
