Family Memories Cinderford

Bilson Schools

Bilson Schools: Bilson Infants and East Dean Grammar School 1917 - 1926

In the generation of which I was one, attending Bilson Schools, children attended from far around, a wide area from where quite small infants walked a distance of up to two miles to attend and back again after school in late afternoon. I recollect search parties in the dark days of winter when children had not arrived home and once when some of them spent the night in the woods. They took their dinner to school in dinner baskets and it was eaten at their school desks.

After the first months with slates, clay, abacus, sand-trays and the usual infants things, reading became of importance and the chanting of the multiplication tables. Some of us became specially selected for reading. About eight or nine of us from a class of nearly forty were segregated and simple reading books handed out to us. Amongst these I always looked forward to being the lucky recipient of Beatrix Potter or Aesop's fables. With the help of these reading and learning became a happy partnership.

Amongst us small children, Mantle, the Headmaster was held in great awe. He could use the cane quite efficiently. Almost as bad was the fear of older boys who as is usual, enjoyed bullying the younger ones.

During playtime we indulged at each seasonable time in many delights, marbles, clay and coloured glass "allies" and the plain ones extracted from the pop bottles of those days. There were marble boards, a sort of fair-ground game, where you tried to shoot the marbles through the hole in the board, losing to its owner if unsuccessful and receiving a bonus should you be skilful enough to get them through the hole. There were the girls skipping ropes with the chanted rhymes, which went with their games. There was hopscotch, jacks, whips and tops. After school out on the green or in the woods there would be our bowlers (hoops), the making of the outline of a house with stones or pebbles and furnishing it with bits of wood or china; there was tip-cat, climbing trees, kite flying, games with cigarette cards, rugby, cricket or rounders. Organised games or play centres did not exist. It was easier and better to us when our playground, the woods and commons, were outside our own doorsteps. Some activities for the older ones had elements of danger when old mine workings were explored, culverts crawled through, railway trucks in the sidings played with, explosives made with carbide and tins. All this, our individual school life in the freedom of the District, gave to us a freedom with no teachers, parents or "Welfare Superintendents" to interfere. It was a world of our own.

Back in school, thrift was encouraged. Penny banks existed, later known as School Savings schemes. Penny stamps were purchased and affixed in your book, thirty weeks later they could be cashed for 2/6 (two shillings and sixpence) and most likely taken over by parents to help to buy clothing or boots.

In 1896 Double View Schools were opened for seniors, thus relieving the pressure on Bilson. In 1901 Queen Victoria died, the end of an era in many ways including Education. March 31st 1903 saw the termination of the Forest of Dean United School Board and the 1st April the first day of County Council rule. Very gradually accommodation and equipment improved. In 1904 gas-lighting was introduced. In 1910 a Higher Elementary and Pupil Teaching Centre was opened opposite Bilson Schools destined to become East Dean Grammar School. 80% of the future teachers of Bilson and other Forest Schools came from this source.

I attended Bilson Schools from age of five to thirteen. Firstly in the Infants, then the elementary and at age eleven with a scholarship to East Dean Grammar School. The most promising were segregated for special tuition with a view for this scholarship. They were mainly the sons of traders, where home conditions and the encouragement of their parents was a distinct advantage. Life began to be hard in Cinderford during these years. Iron making had finished, and colliery workers had started on short time. There was much discontent amongst miners and strikes for better conditions had started. The children were provided with meals but it is highly probable that their parents went hungry. It was a time that many mostly younger people left the district for places where prospects were brighter.

At the end of 1910 John Hale, who had been headmaster since the schools inception, retired. His place was taken by Arthur John Mantle who remained with the school for twenty-two years. Remodelling took place, which were the last major alterations for many years. Medical examinations now took place with a nurse to examine our heads and report on the child's condition. I remember the school assembly each mornings when A. J. Mantle would stride sternly down the long schoolroom, ebony ruler firmly held, to take his place on the platform watching his two hundred pupils with a stern and penetrating gaze. Later in the day that same desk would have a line of miscreants awaiting their punishments. Another recollection is how he would read to us selections from Greek and Norse mythology, which to me very strangely proved interesting. Although seemingly harsh his way of maintaining discipline could have been warranted. As was to be expected in a mining district of those days, there were tough and unruly boys. I know from experience the awe in which some of them were held and worse the fear held of those who were of a bullying nature.

The 1920's began a period of depression in the forest of Dean. The coal industry was on the decline and miners were out of work or on short time. This was reflected at school. Times were very hard indeed. Meals were provided in the shed at the back of the school each day and continued throughout the school holidays. To make matters worse smallpox broke out on Factory Road, a length of slum houses near to Bilson Mission Church and not so far from the school, which was closed for five weeks. Vaccination of as many as would agree was carried out, red bands on their arms signifying that they had been attended to. My parents would not give their consent but nevertheless I did not catch the disease. In 1926 a general strike occurred which was prolonged for many months. With my father's death in this year my school days at Cinderford came to a close, to be continued under very different conditions in the City of Birmingham.

During these days an upheaval in teaching methods occurred in the Forest of Dean schools. The methods of an organization called Parents National Education Union has spread and were adopted at Bilson Schools in 1920. The motto of the P.N.E.U. was "I am, I can, I ought, I will" and written by all scholars in their exercise books. Slates, sand trays, cowrie shells for counting were now banished for ever.

Bilson became a school of memories some joyful but many, which are not. Like the foresters who built it, the building was sturdy and unpretentious. Within its walls thousands of Forest children received an education equipping the majority of them to face an often unkind working world with the tenacity of purpose and stubborn independence which is their strongest characteristic.

The Higher Elementary School was across the road directly opposite and to this place of learning we graduated in due course. Later the Higher Elementary School became Cinderford Secondary School, the former standards being transferred up to Double View School. Scholarships were awarded to Cinderford Secondary School which later became East Dean Grammar School. Here I remained until I was 13/14 when we moved to Handsworth, Birmingham.