Little Haven resident back to school at 93!

Pearl Gregory went back to South Baddesley Primary School for the first time since 1936.

We organised for one of our residents to go back to school this month. Pearl Gregory (nee Smith), Little Haven resident, hadn’t set foot inside South Baddesley Primary School for 79 years, ever since she left at the age of 14 in 1936. Stepping back in time, she visited the school with her daughter Lesley and was interviewed by a group of children from Class 4.

Pearl chatting with the children, sharing memories and photos.

She told them what it was like at South Baddesley in the 1920’s and they swapped photographs. The children brought out photographs of the school in 1903 when Mr Canterbury was the headmaster and his daughter Freda was Assistant Headmistress. Pearl spotted her Uncle Jim (James Gregory) in the back row and many other family members too. Pearl shared pictures of herself as a child when she would have been a South Baddesley pupil. Pearl remembers Mr Canterbury clearly and said that during her school years, from 1927 – 1936 his daughter Freda was the headmistress. Pearl was struck by how smart the pupils looked in their red uniforms and told the children how they didn’t have uniform in 1927, attending school in their weekday clothes, saving their ‘best’ for Sunday church. She told the children about the original part of the school and how they used the original front door, now an unused entrance. Their daily trips over the road to the hall, now the Children’s Nature School, for their lunch and annual school fetes. Pearl was thrilled to hear that the school still used the hall up until 7 years ago when the Montessori took it over. South Baddesley pupils also used to compete against other primary schools at their annual Sports Day, held at Pylewell Estate, where cups were awarded to the winners. The children learnt that William Ingham Whitaker II, the owner of Pylewell Estate in the 1930’s used to supply the school with a beautiful Christmas tree every year which would be decorated in the hall and a fabulous present given to every South Baddesley child. “One year I got a beautiful doll, I was the envy of all my friends” Pearl recalled. Pearl also told the children how they had open fires in their classrooms to keep them warm in the winter with their milk bottles warming for break-time. She couldn’t believe the children still had milk at break-time. “It’s cold milk now” they told her. Pearl learnt all her haberdashery skills at South Baddesley, sewing, knitting and darning, proudly telling the children she was the school’s best darner, to which the children asked “what’s darning?” Pearl left South Baddesley in 1936 to work as a housemaid for a family in Highcliffe, earning no more than 50 shillings a week, most of which was sent home to help the family. The children were very interested to hear what 50 shillings would be equivalent to these days. Having done some research into their school history the children were fascinated to hear about past headteachers, the size of the school and that children left at 14 years of age to seek employment. If they were removed from school any earlier, in order to work, the Attendance Officer would come and take them back to finish their education. Pearl remembered fondly her time at South Baddesley but reminded the children “times were hard, we worked hard and had little, but what we did have we were grateful for. We always made sure we did our chores before school and wore our Sunday best for church outings.”