Bus went without me on first day (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Bus went without me on first day

4:26pm Tuesday 5th July 2011 in Nostalgia

Brenda Lloyd, nee Braithwaite, of Kendal, who grew up in the village of Mealbank, recalls her first day at school.

BY THE time I went to school in 1951, the village school that my sister, Renee, and brother, Roy, attended was closed.

This meant we children needed to be transported into Kendal to either Castle Street School, or one of the senior schools.

Mitchells garage, opposite the auction mart, provided the school bus.

I started the term after my fifth birthday, January 1951.

I was put on the bus at 8.30 in the morning, with all the other children.

I was the only new starter that term. It was cold and wet. The school room was very large, with lots of colourful pictures on the wall.

The windows were set very high and it was impossible for us small children to see out of them.

We were given milk at playtime, which I did not enjoy. Dinner was good basic meat, potatoes and veg, with sponge, or milk pudding to follow.

We did not get a choice and, although it might not have always been to our liking, we usually ate up because we were hungry after racing around the playground.

At the end of the day my teacher, Miss Pearson, insisted that I was to remain in the classroom until the bus arrived and she would inform one of the older children to come and collect me.

Unfortunately, she forgot and the bus went without me.

Thankfully my heroes, Digby Hodgson and Jimmy Long, realised I was missing, halted the bus and came to rescue me.