AN ARTICLE published in March 20's Chronicle has jogged the memory of a local historian.
Phil Yates, of Tower Street, has a family connection to All Saints C of E Primary School, which was featured in the Learning for Life supplement, reminding him of his mother who used to teach there.
He said: “My mother taught at that school between about 1910 and 1921 when she married my father at St Peters Chesil (now the Chesil Theatre). She was also a Sunday school teacher there.”
Mr Yate’s mother, Millicent Rummey, also known as Millie, was born and brought up at Chesil Terrace and is pictured in a booklet written in 1983 to celebrate the centenary of the school’s opening.
The booklet, Old Highcliffe Remembered, also pictures the first headmaster Mr Whitfield, and Mr Yates attended the celebrations in 1983 and spoke to some residents who were taught by his mother.
“I asked ‘what was she like as a teacher?’,” he said.
“Came the reply ‘thorough but very strict’. I can vouch for that she was a strict mother!
“She died in 1965 aged 80 and my father died in 1947, aged 67, while I was working down the pits in West Yorkshire as a Bevin Boy.”
The school had a total of 158 scholars and 106 infants when it first opened, and the curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, scripture, geography, singing, needlework and history.
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