My mum’s class in her South London elementary school in Brixton in 1924 when she was 10. Not all the kids were the same age because in those days classes were organised in Standards so you didn’t automatically move up each year.
One teacher, nearly 50 kids – as she was a woman her pay would be lower and she had to stay single because, if she married, she would be sacked. No exams and most kids left at 14 but my grandmother thought mum should stay on for another year when she would be bigger! She was then apprenticed to a West End milliner because “women would always wear hats”….
My mum, Marjorie James as she was is highlighted in red in this pic and her friend, Phoebe in green. Phoebe was a Jewish girl who joined the school late. Mum didn’t know her but saw her crying in the playground on her first day surrounded by some of the kids taunting her and chanting “dirty jewgirl” She went up to her, stood beside her and told the others she was her friend and to leave her alone.
That was typical of my mum. She didn’t have much to do with church and I never saw her reading a book on ethics but she had a moral strength equal to fifty bishops. She believed actions spoke louder than words. “You don’t SAY right” she told me once when I had been rather unpleasant to someone else “You DO right!!!”
Mum and Phoebe remained friends until parted by death in the 1980s.
Here they are, strolling along the seafront ten years later in 1934….the girls are back in town….lol..
