Anne's look back to days at school

Mrs Anne Crowe, now living in Salisbury, Wiltshire, has written to me nostalgically of the Holy Trinity schools which closed down in 1937, or 1938.

In her delightful maiden name of Anne Hathaway, she lived with her parents in Lowesmoor and attended the Holy Trinity Infants School, which was just a stone's throw from her home.

It was along Sansome Place in that the section of the road leading off Sansome Walk alongside what was the Postal Sorting Office. The school was behind today's Co-operative Funeral Service premises, and the range of buildings still survive, now serving as the attractive premises of the Heenan & Froude Social Club.

Mrs Crowe writes: "Although it is more than 65 years ago, I can still remember my mother arranging for me to start at Holy Trinity Infants School. I stood in the playground with her while she spoke to Miss Fenn, the headmistress.

"At that time, pupils were not required to wear a uniform so when my first day arrived, I was arrayed in a navy pleated wool skirt with a matching knitted sweater. This garment was a little different because it had a sailor collar of which I was very proud.

"First, we had to take our coats off and hang them on a peg in the cloakroom. My arrival was obviously expected as underneath my peg was my name printed in beautiful letters - I felt quite important!

"The school consisted of three classrooms, the largest being the Admission Class which had space for little stretcher beds used by the children for their afternoon rest. To one side of the room was a large iron stove with its equally large guard, and taking pride of place in a corner was a piano.

"Another feature was a big rocking horse, and two little marks on my forehead bear continuing testimony to this plaything. I was pushing someone very enthusiastically on it and, for some reason, stopped, but the rocking horse didn't, and its pointed ears went into the said forehead! Hung around the walls of the classroom were Bible pictures."

Mrs Crowe says that the days of free or subsidised school milk had still to arrive but, at a small price, the staff would provide mugs of cocoa or Horlicks for the children.

"In fact, I have very pleasant memories of the staff," adds Mrs Crowe though she points out that "the school's lavatories were appalling, the willow patterns being their only saving grace. Fortunately, I lived nearby in Lowesmoor, so I never had to use them!"

Alas, her infant school days were to be seriously disrupted by illness.

"I succumbed to scarlet fever and nasal diphtheria which meant me being away from school for several months. My mother used to say she wondered how I learned anything as I was always ill.

"It was intended that I should go on from the infants school to Holy Trinity Girls School which was in Cromwell Street, opposite Shrub Hill Station and close to Holy Trinity Church.

"However, due to unforeseen circumstances, both the infants and girls schools were closed down during 1937-38. To mark the sad event, we had a concert at the infants school. I took part in a minuet, wearing a white crinoline and black patent dancing pumps with ribbons around my ankles. I think I rather spoilt the effect by keenly endeavouring to look for my mother in the audience!

"There were recitations, a little play, and two of the pupils performed There's A Hole in My Bucket. As it was the end of an era, the hall was packed with parents and past pupils who had come to say goodbye.

Mrs Crowe would dearly like to see newspaper reports of that concert and of the closure of the Holy Trinity infants and girl's schools but, alas, I have so far been unable to find any in our archives.

Perhaps Evening News readers can again come up trumps in not only supplying such reports but also sending in their own memories of attending the Holy Trinity schools, ideally with photographs of classes of pupils!

If you can help, please contact me, Mike Grundy, at the Evening News.

And was there a Holy Trinity Boys' School?

With the girls school closed, Anne Hathaway went instead to Stanley Road School and later, for two years, to the Worcester Junior Commercial School in the Victoria Institute.

"I thoroughly enjoyed my time there from 1942 to 1944," says Mrs Crowe, who has fond memories of the teachers including "excellent disciplinarian" Miss Doris Bloomer, "quietly spoken" Miss Selby, the "ebullient" Miss Burrell, the "excellent" Miss Leah Papworth, Miss Potts and Miss Brenda Lynne.

Her time at the commercial school was at the height of the Second World War and she well remembers the staff and students having to dash across to a damp air-raid shelter on the Gaumont Cinema car park whenever the sirens sounded.

From the commercial school, Anne Hathaway went as a junior shorthand typist to Worcester solicitors, Livingstone Wood & Son, though at the age of 19, she was to return to the Victoria Institute - as secretary to the Principal of Worcester Technical College, Mr Henry Peat.

"He was a very kind man, who had been wounded in the First World War and had a wooden leg. I'm afraid some of the boys called him Peg-leg Peat, though this was said not unkindly because everyone respected him."

Mrs Crowe left this secretarial post in 1955 to have her first child.