Dorothy C. Maguire, of Arnside, recalls her time as head of Underbarrow School
DURING the first half of the 20th Century most of the children attending Underbarrow School were from small-holdings and farms within a two-mile radius.
One family, I remember, had to walk nearly two miles through the fields from ‘Bonfire Hall’ –what a romantic name – which was quite a walk for a four year old. We’d dry the wet coats over the fire guards.
In those days, in the late 1950s, I was a keen walker, so I bought a large scale map of the area.
On fine afternoons we enjoyed nature walks, and often visited these isolated farms and were shown around by the proud pupils. It made me realise how little contact the children had with the outside world in the evenings.
There was no telephone in the school, and no mobile phones, so several times, when an emergency arose, I had to walk all the children to the nearest public phone a quarter of a mile away!
At the bottom of the school playground was an ‘unfenced’, idyllic beck; very shallow in dry weather, but a raging torrent in heavy rain.
This worried me as it was only a few yards from the outside toilets, so I’m afraid I had a fence constructed a year after I became head for ‘health and safety’ reasons!
Before that a pupil, Kenneth told me he’d caught me a salmon, but unfortunately it escaped before the end of the afternoon! The thought was there!
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