Beryl went to teacher training college in the early 1950s. She got her first teaching job in 1955 and taught children in both state and private schools until 1970 when she had a break to have her son while studying with the Open University. She later worked in adult education, retiring in 1994. I started […]
Education and Training
Physical education: teacher, lecturer, adviser (1960 – 2000)
Jo tells us about working within the education system as a teacher, lecturer and adviser. I left school and went straight into teacher training and did a three year course in the Midlands. It was a course to train specialist physical education teachers with some English and some maths, so that you could work in […]
Reflections on forty years at the chalkface (1967- 2007)
Bob started teaching on leaving university in 1966 as a temporary measure but made it his lifelong career. After teaching in a rough area of Nottingham he moved to Norfolk as a very young Head of English at Stalham Secondary Modern. He enjoyed interacting with the pupils and enriching their school experience, but gradually conditions […]
Seams and stitches of my life (1948-1986)
Dorothy moved Norfolk when she was five years old. She loved needlework at school and is passionate about quilting and embroidery to this day. I was born in 1926, in a village on the borders of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire called Willesley. We moved to Norfolk when I was two and, as my father was a […]
Teaching and clerical work – full circle (1968-2012)
I was born in London in 1947. At this time my father was still in the army. When he was demobbed we moved to Wiltshire where my brother and sister were born. The first school I went to was the local Catholic school. I think they took children in at an earlier age than […]
Teaching: going full circle – 1969-2007. (2015)
Janet began teaching in 1969 and worked until 2007. She says, ‘teachers are the people who know what their children need and hopefully that is what is happening now’. As I was going through my school career I swore I would never be a teacher as I’d come from a family where there were five […]
The Headmaster (2007)
My father was manager of Rusts of Sheringham during the 1940s, that was groceries and provisions and wine merchants. Their main branch was at Cromer. When I was born in 1929 he was out of work and then he worked for various stores on a temporary basis and then shortly after I was born he […]
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Sculptor (1960s – 2019)
I was born in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and my mother worked for the Post Office and my dad was a television and radio engineer. My dad was very practical, he was good at woodwork and metalwork and was also an amateur artist and he taught me a lot of skills which I was able to […]
The Swimming Teacher (2009)
My name is Mary and I live in Norwich. I was born in 1930, the youngest of four, in Grimsby Lincolnshire, and I left school in July 1944 at the age of 14. It was only a few years after that I think they raised the school leaving age to 15, but it was 14 […]
The Teacher (2009)
I really enjoyed school. We moved into the top class when we were ten so that we would be prepared for the 11 plus exam by Miss C and, because I was one of the cleverer ones, I was taken in hand and prepared for it and fortunately passed. From then on I had to […]