The regular news blog is taking a break this month and will be updated on 1 September. This month we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Tylers Green First School.
ON MONDAY, 28 August, 1876, just over 100 children, some excited, some sulky, filed into an impressive new building overlooking Tylers Green Common.
There wasn’t a great fanfare for the opening of Tylers Green Board School – the local vicar and his wife popped in to offer prayers and a pep talk, while the head, John Hindley, simply noted in the school diary: “Commenced duties after Harvest holidays in the new school.”
But for the next century and a half the little school on the green was to welcome and educate thousands of children. It was to create life-long memories and life-long friendships. It was to become the beating heart of the Penn and Tylers Green community.
In the beginning…
Headmaster’s log, 1891: Friday, July 31st: George Morley sent home as the stench from his dirty clothes was unbearable. Tuesday, 4 August: George Morley came to school this morning clean and sweet.”
THE MAJORITY of children in Penn and Tylers Green came from families who made their living from the land, working in the area’s many farms and orchards. Children were expected to contribute to that work from an early age.
Consequently, although most parents wanted their children to have an education a lot found it difficult to adapt. Mr Hindley frequently noted low attendance at school with excuses ranging from “fruit picking” or “harvest operations” to “cricket match on the common” or “Penn Fair”.
Just two weeks after it opened he noted: “Most of the children who have been admitted lately are backward. The boys to be presented in grammar are seldom at school.”
But patience and persistence paid off. When a new century dawned the school inspector’s report for 1900 declared: “This is a very good school. The children are attentive and self-reliant and the teaching is sound and intelligent.”
Into troubled times…
Cissie Ginn’s reminiscences: “I went to the school in 1913 and I remember writing on slates. I was caught talking in prayers at the end of the school day and given 500 lines.”
THERE WAS a dramatic start to the new century. The school flew all its flags and “the whole village went mad with excitement” wrote the headmaster, T. Jordan-Rees when news arrived that Mafeking had been relieved in the Boer War in 1900. A year later “the children felt a calamity had occurred” when they were told of the death of Queen Victoria.
Illness and epidemics were often rampant. The school was closed during epidemics of diphtheria, measles and whooping cough, and thoroughly disinfected when influenza hit many pupils. By 1909 there were 225 children at the school and the local medical officer closed the infants section because of overcrowding and poor sanitary arrangements.
Harold Wheeler remembers: “During the First World War we collected conkers from nearby woods which were used to help make ammunition. There was no mains water so the older boys had to pump water. The toilets were buckets with handles.”
The outbreak of war in 1914 was at first met with fascination when all the children were allowed to leave their classroom to view a giant army airship passing overhead.
It was decided that for the duration of the war the boys would tend the gardens of cottages in the village where the husband had enlisted, while the girls joined the Girls Patriotic Club and took part in concerts to entertain troops and refugees.
Soon, however, there were shortages – no coal to light the classroom fires in the winter and materials for creative lessons, such as plasticine, wood and cardboard all ceased to be supplied.
Worse, because this was still a small community where everyone knew everyone else, the steady release of names of people from the village killed in action came as a terrible shock…not least the headmaster’s son, Capt Cyril Long, aged 23, who had lived in the school house for 11 years.
The end of the war in 1918 was greeted with as much relief as celebration. The school closed early on Armistice Day: “The children were assembled in the playground, the salute given to the flag, a short address and the singing of the National Anthem came before dismissal,” wrote the head in the school log.
The introduction of running water…and subsidised milk
Mrs Edna Viner (nee Wright) on walking to school in the 1930s: “We dawdled to school, sometimes playing with marbles, yo-yos, skipping ropes or conkers and sometimes leap-frogging each other until we heard the tone of the school bell change. It rang for about five minutes but for the last half minute it tolled. Then we ran the last few yards as it was a punishable offence to be late.”
BETWEEN THE wars the school progressed solidly. An increasing number of boys passed exams to attend High Wycombe Technical School and more girls went on to Wycombe High School.
There were physical improvements too – the school was connected to the water main in 1921 enabling drinking water from taps, and an improved heating system installed in 1927, although the fires in classrooms often went unlit because of a shortage of coke. The playground was laid with asphalt in that year too. In 1932 the school was fitted with its first “wireless receiving set”.
These were the days before inoculations and vaccinations and diseases such as whooping cough and measles continued to regularly ravage the school.
Tragically a serious diphtheria outbreak occurred in 1933 resulting in the death of two pupils. Children found to be carrying the disease and their siblings were sent home for weeks on end. The school attendance fell to 40 per cent. In 1936 the children were amongst the first in the country to receive mass immunisation for diphtheria.
Mrs Joan Bailey’s (nee Charlotte) recollections: “Great stress was laid on getting our writing evenly spaced and holding the pen at the correct angle. Also sitting correctly – the length of a 12 inch wooden ruler from eyes to desktop. Sometimes rulers were positioned from the bridge of the nose to a useful channel in the desktop to ensure the minimum distance between eyes and work.”
Coping with wartime again
Mrs Joan Bailey (nee Charlotte) on the introduction of evacuees: “Some of the evacuee children were from Marylebone and very posh. They made fun of we country children who spoke funny but they soon discovered we were not stupid bumpkins. Sandbag walls were built outside the school and two big trenches dug across the front common.”
WAR WAS declared on Sunday, 4 September, 1939 but the staff worked through the weekend preparing for evacuees from London who were being sent to the village on the day war broke out.
One hundred and sixty children arrived, mainly from Ealing and Marylebone. They included German speaking Jewish children, who had escaped the Nazi regime and were living in the vicarage in Hammersley Lane.
The evacuees’ arrival meant the population of the school virtually doubled overnight and it was agreed that the 169 village children would attend school in the morning and the evacuees in the afternoon. Everyone of them had to carry gas masks wherever they went.
Mrs Marion Poole (nee Chandler), an evacuee: “Occasionally bombs dropped fairly close to the village. No-one had shelters. We sat under the table. I was scared because I used to believe that if a bomb dropped on our Anderson shelter at home in London we would be safe, but I felt more nervous in Tylers Green as there was no protection from bombing.”
Mrs Joan Bailey (nee Charlotte) recalling Jewish refugees. “I particularly remember two boys who were with us for a short time – Harry Dux who wore metal spectacles and Siegfried, a taller boy, noisier and full of fun. He came to school one day wearing one red sock and one of a darker colour. We nicknamed him Oddsocks, but he didn’t complain.”
It was during the war that perhaps the most tragic event ever to hit the school occurred in 1941 when two pupils were murdered by an army truck driver. Five year old Kathleen Trendell and eight year old Doreen Hearne accepted a lift on their way home. Their bodies were found in woods at Mop End the next day. Their killer, Gunner Harold Hill, was found guilty at the Old Bailey and later hanged. To this day the families of the little girls, many of whom still live in the area, continue to mourn their loss.
There were the usual shortages during the war but acts of great kindness. Often the children wore their coats all day because shortage of fuel meant no heating. Charities in America sent gifts, including providing every child with a pair of wellingtons. People donated clothing, blankets and food from their own rations.
Mrs Pamela White (nee Rolfe) on wartime schooling: “The school received a parcel from the USA with a gift for every pupil. I had a bar of soap. We had to learn the song “I vow to thee my country” and sing it constantly. Not to waste any paper we had to write in the margins.”
The school closed for a couple of days to mark the end of the war in Europe in May 1945 and to enable the headmaster Mark Filby, a First World War veteran, and some of the older pupils prepare for the village celebrations including building a huge bonfire on the Common in front of the school.
Hugh Cook on VE (Victory in Europe) Day: “Effigies of Hitler and Mussolini were hung over the bonfire by a gibbet. Mr Filby went indoors and fetched out his shotgun and shot the flaming effigies to pieces. When one of the onlookers threw his hat in the air, he shot that too!”
A slow recovery, then overcrowding…
Mrs Jane Tapping (nee Keen) on schooling in the 1950s: The headmaster Mr Filby always dressed in a suit and wore spats over his shoes. His wife, also a teacher, always wore botany wool twinsets and pearls. There were outside toilets that always used to freeze up in the winter.”
Mrs Pat Siderfin (nee Stapleton) on the 11plus: “In January 1947 we had to take the first 11plus paper. We sat in the classroom wearing coats, hats, scarves and gloves. Three of the girls, including me, ‘passed’ for Wycombe High School. We were ostracised to some extent for the rest of the term. I remember being called names and said to be ‘stuck-up’.”
THERE WERE still shortages but things inevitably began to improve after the war.
A school canteen was added in 1947 and flush lavatories in 1953. The school telephone (Penn 3201) was installed in 1956. In 1962 the parents clubbed together and paid for a school swimming pool.
The late 1950s and 60s saw a big expansion of housing in the village and it soon became evident that the school was too small to deal with the growing population. In 1960 there were 150 children aged between five and 11. By 1967 there were 390.
Temporary classrooms were brought in and the village hall was used for school activities. The school cook threatened to resign. It was obvious that a permanent solution was required.
Mrs Jackie Weston (nee Brooks) on a famous pop star: “A boy called Andy Gibb attended school for a short time. He was in my brother’s class and his parents rented a house on the common. His brothers went on to be the Bee Gees and he was a pop star himself, but unfortunately died young.”
Mrs Margaret Morris (nee New) recalls another famous name: “The actor Rupert Davies lived in the village and sent his sons to the school. One was a vegetarian – very unusual in those days – and he didn’t eat his meals in the canteen but separately in a rest room.”
The battle for its future
Mrs Emma Bulley (nee Perry) recalls the school hamster: “My second year teacher Miss Simmonds looked after the school hamster. Occasionally it would go missing! During the school holidays the hamster was taken home by a pupil who looked after it.”
THE DEBATE about what to do about overcrowding went on for several years.
In the 1960s the school was already 90 years old and some argued it was too antiquated to be adapted and a new bigger school should be built on the edges of the village.
Others argued that the school could be used purely as an infants school, while another junior school should built for older children within the village boundary.
The second argument won the day and in September 1968 a new Tylers Green Junior School (now Middle School) opened in Cock Lane with Arthur Rees, the head of the old school taking charge as head of the new school. Tylers Green School became known as Tylers Green Infants School.
But the problems remained. In the 1970s the school’s facilities were still poor and antiquated. Once again the argument raged about whether to sell the school for housing and build a new infants school, possibly as part of the new Manor Farm School being planned at the end of Ashley Drive.
In the end the decision was made to totally refurbish the school, buy some land from the adjoining Rayners School for deaf children to allow extensions and thereby secure its future. The new look school – and the one we largely see today – was completed in 1982.
Katherine Trendell on TV fame: “Some children were chosen to be in a TV advert for Firestone tyres. We drove round and round on a double decker bus, past the pond and what was then Penn Post Office for most of the day. We were each given ten shillings and an ice lolly.”
Celebrations and success
IN THE closing years of the 20th century the school went from strength to strength.
When school meals were abandoned nationally in 1986 the school kitchen closed for it to be transformed later into a technology block. The first school computers were introduced in the same year.
A music room was added in the 1990s and in 1998, in response to national changes, the top class – year three – instead attended the middle school. However that enabled the first school to introduce reception and nursery classes
By the end of the century Ofsted – the Office for Standards in Education – judged the school to be “excellent”, its top rating. In 2001 it received an Investors in People award and the Department for Education awarded it an excellence award for its results in SATs (Standard Assessment Tests).
The school has always celebrated significant landmarks in its long and eventful history, and the 150th anniversary is no exception. Last month the children enjoyed a Victorian day and had photographs taken in Victorian togs. They were each given a Victorian writing slate and an oak sapling to mark the occasion. The school is to install a commemorative sun dial next term.
Today it embraces digital learning with enthusiasm and never shies from new educational methods.
But it remains a village community school. Ofsted’s last report two years ago concluded: “Tylers Green First School has a lovely, warm, welcoming feel. There is a strong sense of community, both within the school and beyond.”
You can’t disagree with that.
Finally, the school has an enduring mystery. For as long as anyone can remember there’s been a teddy bear guarding over the school from the old bell tower. Look closely and you’ll see him there today.
Extensive searches and requests for information to discover how long he has been there and why have drawn a blank. If anyone has any idea, please let us know.
Mrs Glennis Thomas, head teacher from 1990 to 1997: Tylers Green First School is a very special school because it is an essential part of the community.”
Mrs Beryl Chapman, head teacher from 1997 to 2002, deputy head from 1992 : “It was a privilege to work with such committed and hard working colleagues in this delightful setting and to be part of this vibrant village.”
My thanks to current head teacher Mrs Jude Talbot and Tylers Green First School; Liz Tebbutt, who wrote a book on the history of the school; Chepping Wycombe Parish Council; Tina Brown and all the contributors to Village Voice’s 20th Century Remembered series and the village’s Millennium exhibition for their assistance in enabling this tribute.
You can contact this blog at peter@pennandtylersgreen.com. The regular news blog will resume on 1 September.