Polly Fleetwood's Schooldays

Mary Machin

My name is Mary Machin, nee Fleetwood. Everyone knows me as Polly. I lived at 91, Rainbow Row, (also known as Midland Crescent), with father, brothers and sisters. I was born in September 1899. My mother died when I was two. The first school I went to was the Wesleyan Day School in Doncaster Road. I attended there from the age of five until I was ten. It was pulled down in about 1910 and a theatre was built in its place.

Another school was built, close to my grandmother Beecroft's in Pittfields. From my Grandmother's back door, I would go up a slope and some steps, into the garden, to the garden wall. Over the wall was a cornfield, and that's where they built the new school for us, at Grove Street. I think they call it Coniston Road now. I went there for about three years.

I can remember several teachers from the Wesleyan Day school. Miss Beatrice Sugden was one of them; she also taught at the Baptist Chapel in Sheffield Road. In the photograph I am the one in the front row with my arms folded. The teachers are Miss Jackson and Miss Royston. There were two men teachers I remember, Jack Night and Harry White. The school caretaker was Mr Thresh and the school bobby was Mr Kellet.

I can't remember the names of the children in my class other than my friend Ethel Turner, and unfortunately I can't see well enough now to recognise faces from the photograph. Ethel's parents kept the Model Lodging House in Pontefract Road. Her mother was very good to me and would pass on Ethel's old clothes when she had finished with them. Another friend of mine was Ellen Williamson, she was in the class above me, and lived on Rainbow Row. The Williamsons were a very large family.

The school building had two storeys with three classrooms on each. I think there was also a basement. It was heated by a boiler, with pipes in each room. I would say there were at least thirty children in each class, and the classes were mixed. There was no such thing as school uniform, and we wouldn't have been able to afford it if there were! We wore ordinary clothes, just a dress and pinafore. The pinafores had to be white, no coloured ones allowed, and the dress had to be dark. My sister Harriet made my dresses out of old coats. A big piece doubled up with a hole for the head, sewn up the sides with gaps left for the arms. Although we were poor, there were other families who had less than us.

At lunchtime, I would go home. It was only a few minutes walk away. Harriet made my lunch, bread and jam maybe, we didn't have anything cooked, not until my dad came home in the evening. We had an hour and a half off at lunchtime, twelve until half past one. School started at 9a.m and finished at 4p.m. I was lucky in that I could go to school. Harriet had to stay at home and look after the family.

We were taught everything by the class teacher. I enjoyed arithmetic, and I liked knitting but I detested sewing. We had proper exercise books and we would copy things from the board on to them. I wasn't a bad writer. I can clearly remember reading "Gulliver's Travels", it's the only one I remember and that was because I detested it! I enjoyed most of my school life.

Mr White had a reputation for a short temper and he was quick to use the cane. We used to sit on long forms at our desks, and he would walk round the back of us and crack the cane down down across our backs, or on our elbows. Ooh, he was a tarter! Mr Knight was of a completely different temperament, he was a real decent sort of fellow.

There used to be swimming classes, just like they have now, but I never went, you weren't forced to go. There were also domestic classes, I couldn't go to them because you had to take your own ingredients and we didn't have any. My sister spoke to the teacher and explained the situation. I wasn't the only one who didn't do the domestic class. The children who did the domestic classes had to go to a big house at the top of York Street, about ten minutes from the school. When Grove Street was built, it was no longer necessary to go elsewhere for cookery classes.

The school bobby was called Mr Kellet. I can remember him well, he was a small fellow. He used to walk around the streets, looking for children who should have been at school. If anybody saw him first, they used to say, "Look out, there's the school bobby!" and they used to hide until he was out of sight. All the children were frightened of him. He used to go to the school, and if you weren't there, and there was no note from your parents, he would come to the house to look for you.

I started school at five years old, and left when I was thirteen. If you were thirteen in the middle of the week, you had to wait until Friday to leave. You had to go straight to the Education Offices to collect a report which detailed all attendances, year by year. It was like a reference, and included details as to whether you were a good scholar, regular attender, and punctual. I was on my way to the Education Offices, when Mr Kellet stopped me and asked me what I was doing, was I ill? I told him, "No wasn't ill." "Then why aren't you at school?" I had great delight in telling him I'd left on Friday.

The Model Lodging House

I would often play at my friend, Ethel Turner's, house. This was the lodging house for homeless people. It was a three storey house, with a caretaker for the men, and one for the women. Married couples had to sleep separately when they were there. I recall that the nightly charge was 4d for men, 2d for women, and nowt for the kids!

Ethel's dad was called Albion, her brothers were Tom and Harry. Mrs Turner had a bit of a shop where she sold bread, butter and cheese. The lodgers would make their own tea. There was sand on the floor which they would sweep and change daily. There were wooden seats to sit on, and tables which would also be washed down daily.

Once a year, a man would come with two performing bears. He would stay at the lodging house, and the bears would be put in the coalhouse. The coalhouse had a grating for the window, and we'd go up and growl at the bears. We got a fright when they growled back. They would pace back and forward across the coalhouse. The coalhouse was massive because they had to keep a lot of coal on account of all the fires they had in the house. I can remember they always made the man clear up the coalhouse before he left.

Well, that's a brief look at my schooldays. My working life is a story for another day.

© Mary Machin 1996

The above article was first published in the Journal of the Barnsley Family History Society in October 1996. It is reproduced here by permission of the Committee & Editors.
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