‘St Mary’s was run on a quasi-public school basis’

Claude Hart who started at St Mary’s in 1955.

“I was born on 11 May 1944.  My 11+ results from St Stephens in Welling were borderline so I had to go, with my mother, to Sidcup to be interviewed by the headmaster Fr Leo McIver. Luckily, I was accepted and four or five of us went from St Stephens and we were the last intake to spend a full year at Main Road before the move to the new school.

“In those day, the purple school uniform – which was very similar to Chis & Sid’s – had to be bought from Swan and Edgar Ltd, the department store at Piccadilly Circus. Short trousers had to be worn until the winter term in Year Two.

“I used to catch the 241 bus from Welling up to the police station in Sidcup and, after that, one had but a short walk round the corner to the school in Main Road. I remember that some boys used to come all the way from Gravesend on the train.

“The main building was the house next to the church with two classrooms behind the church, a classroom at the back of the yard for science and the art room was on the top floor.

The Swan and Edgar building on London’s Piccadilly where the old uniform had to be bought from

“The toilets were open on the edge of the yard, the tuckshop was situated at the back of the houses that formed the presbytery and years one and two were accommodated in the classrooms behind the church.

“Rules were fairly relaxed but punishment was meted out in the yard each week, particularly so when half the school went down to Footscray to collect parts of a crashed airplane.

“Caning was fairly frequent, with our entire class once caned by our Latin master, using a bamboo cane that was supporting the sweet peas in the presbytery garden.

“One priest kept his cane tucked under his cassock with just the curved handle showing.

“The staff, both priests and laity, appeared to leave the boys to police themselves, which meant that the second years bullied the first years and the third Years defended the firsts. Fights were not infrequent.

“Lunches were served in the church hall in Hatherley Road, which meant that hordes of schoolboys rushed along the High Street, past the cinema, to get in early.

“Football was played in a field at the back of the hospital or at the sports grounds at Avery Hill, with cricket in Hall Place.

“The shops by the school sold soft drinks by the glass and individual cigarettes to the smokers.

“We had Mass once a week and occasional religious ’retreats’ with visiting clergy. Overall, the school appeared to be deliberately run on a quasi- public school basis.”

 There will be more memories to follow from Claude in the coming weeks.