Wimpole Park School History and Memories
1948-1955
A local history and genealogy page for the Parish of Wimpole.
|
Wimpole Park County School was a temporary community school set up after the Second World War on the Wimpole Hall Estate, Cambridgeshire. The school ran from 1948 to 1955, until Bassingbourn Village College opened.
There is a large flat area of arable pasture situated just
inside the Arrington Gates to Wimpole Hall, a large country-house in Cambridgeshire
now owned by the National Trust.
Between 1944 and 1960 the area became host in turn to the US Army 163rd General Hospital treating army casualties from the European war, a small prisoner-of-war camp (apparently registered to the 'Hardwicke Arms'), a squatters camp, an emergency 'fast track' teacher training college to help servicemen and women returning to civilian life, a community school, emergency local authority housing, and finally the 7510 US Air Force Hospital to help with casualties from the Korean War (Bassingbourn air base having returned to USAAF control). The Air Force Hospital is perhaps best remembered now for being the 'place-of-birth' for hundreds of American citizens.
Wimpole Park c1952 The "Hardwicke Arms", Arrington and the Old North Road (A1198)
are bottom-left, Wimpole Hall is top-right. The location of the school
building is indicated.
After the Army Hospital left in 1946, wartime evacuees from London and other
places began to move into the empty accommodation blocks of the Hospital (mainly around the outer perimeter). Many were homeless related to enemy bombing. Some families squatted there illegally but many registered and paid rent to the local authority. The photograph above show Wimpole Park as it looked in the early-1950's.
View over Wimpole Park c1952 Looking due south, showing the ex-Army Huts
Wimpole Park School was a temporary community school set up in one of the ex-army huts left behind after the first hospital closed. The school was situated just inside an additional entrance
into Wimpole Park (opposite Crow End at the bottom of Arrington Hill). Children from the age of seven up to school-leaving
age were drawn from the evacuees and squatters, plus some from Arrington and Wimpole (and the seniors from Orwell). The education authorities provided cycles for all those travelling any distance.
In 1952 the United States Air Force
3rd Hospital Group (later known as the 7510 USAF Hospital) re-used the central buildings as a hospital again. The school
and those living in the outer accommodation blocks were generally allowed to remain.
I'm unsure of the exact dates Wimpole Park School was fully operational but 1948-1955 would seem about right (unless someone tells me otherwise...). The end of the park school began with the opening of Bassingbourn Village College with the seniors being transferred there in September 1954. The juniors may have continued for a year or two before the remaining pupils were transferred to Arrington Village School.
In 1962 all the remaining
local village schools were closed and pupils from the parishes of Arrington,
Croydon, Orwell, Tadlow, Whaddon and Wimpole were sent to a new Church
of England primary and junior school built in Orwell.
During 1959/1960, the USAF Hospital was decommissioned
and all the buildings and roads were completely removed. Nothing remains today of the
two American hospitals, the school, the teacher training college or the accommodation
huts. The land was handed back to Mrs Bambridge (the owner of Wimpole Hall) and returned to
arable pasture.
The Site of Wimpole Park A winter panorama (2002) across the location of the Wimpole Park complex,
panning around from due north to due east. Wimpole Hall is just visible on
the right horizon.
Memories of Wimpole Park School
by Alan Jordan (Acting Head 1950-1951, Head 1952-1954) [Written in 1990]
Wimpole Park School must have
been started in 1947 or 1948 to accommodate children of the squatters
who were more or less pouring into the unoccupied huts at the northern
end of the hospital. The first school staff were a married couple -
the name Addy rings a bell to me ["possibly a Mr and Mrs Yaffee.
As they were Jewish their daughter Gillian was excused morning assembly"
- Irene Bruce] - who were quite eccentric. They squabbled continuously
- in French, so as not to upset the children, though the effect must
have been ruined as the arguments usually ended by her heaving a board
rubber or a box of chalk at his head and storming back into her room
with a mighty bang of the door. Actually they were really a nice couple
and we liked them when they came to look us up on one occasion later.
The school building was one of the
long double wards with one end divided by brick partitions into three
classrooms and the other left open for use as a hall.
In late 1948 or early 1949 the Addy's
left and Bill Summers who had been Adult Tutor at Impington Village
College took over. By this time the number on roll was about 80, with
ages ranging from 7+ to 16. At Bill's request I joined the staff on
1 January 1950, taking the 9 to 11 year olds. Bill Summers moved on
in July 1950 and I carried on as acting head until January 1951 when
John Sankey came in from the Emergency Training College. He left the
following December to join the lecturing staff at Loughborough.
When John went, the vacancy was advertised
but I think the situation and the squatters rather put people off, and
Shire Hall offered me the post on a permanent appointment, which I accepted,
becoming the youngest head in the county. I refused to leave my junior
class being allergic to children over the age of 11(!), and we had a
variety of assistants tackling the seniors, who were finally tamed by
a young ex-Guardsman fresh from college.
Between us we made a reasonable job
of running a school against the odds. We had a very good mixed rounders
team, a fairish cricket team and did not disgrace ourselves at the various
school sports meetings, despite the lack of a playing field. Two of
the canteen supervisors were cordon blue so the catering, done in another
hut, was good as school meals go, and Miss Whitmore used to bring her
children in from the infant school in Arrington.
During my time the infant class was
organised to take children from the earliest admission age, and we also
inherited the seniors from the school at Orwell, bringing us up to the
95-100 mark. The girls paid a weekly visit to a centre in Haslingfield ["actually we went to Comberton" - Irene Bruce] for
domestic science (the head paying bus fares and reclaiming them monthly
from Shire Hall), and a peripatetic woodwork teacher did two days a
week with the boys.
Contact with Mrs Bambridge [the last
private owner of Wimpole Hall] was negligible; she had never forgiven
the authorities for siting the hospital where they did, without consulting
her, and the arrival of the squatters was the last straw. She presented
the village school with a Christmas tree each year, but would not give
us one - "I have no quarrel with you personally, Mr Jordan, but
those squatters have already had far too many of my trees unofficially
to have another one for Christmas." No doubt they also made free
with the game in the park, though I knew nothing of that. I did meet
Mrs Bambridge once or twice and she was charming enough to me; had I
known at the time whose daughter she was I might have cultivated her
acquaintance more thoroughly as I am a keen fan of Kipling's works.
The end of the school began with the
opening of Bassingbourn Village College and we lost our seniors in July
1954. There was obviously no future for me; the Local Education Authority
would have offered me an assistant's post on head's salary until a vacancy
turned up, but I managed to find a village school in Norfolk, closer
to my ageing and ailing parents in Norwich.
I hope this doesn't give you the idea
that I was unhappy at Wimpole Park. At times the going was very, very
tough but we had some very good times too, and the experience was invaluable."
Wimpole Park School Rounders Team (1953)
Back(standing): Miss Ellam (Teacher) Second row(standing, left to right): Olga Lowe, Ann (Nancy) Presland, Mary Carter,
Irene Lowe, and Eleanor Smith. Front row(sitting on grass, left to right):
Jennifer Webb, Margaret Green, Sheila Lewis, Barbara Chapman, and Ruth Jacobs. (Photographed at Comberton)
Back row(standing left
to right):
Jean Clark, Irene Lowe, Barbara Chapman, Margaret Green, Rosemary Mills,
Ann (Nancy) Presland, and Mary Carter. Front row(sitting on grass, left to right):
Jennifer Webb, Sheila
Lewis, and Ruth Jacobs. (Photographed at Comberton)
Back row(standing, left to right):
Maureen Purdy, Irene Lowe,
Ann Presland, and Christine
Arnold. Front row(kneeling on grass, left to
right): Barbara Chapman,
Rose-Mary Bullen, Marjorie Chapman, Valerie
Lewis, and Margaret Green.
Photographs kindly loaned by Irene Bruce
(née Lowe), January 2004.
The names were written on the reverse back in 1953.
My 'Old Wimpole' Childhood.
Wimpole Park School Remembered
by Irene Bruce (née
Lowe) [Written in 2004]
In September 1949, my parents, myself
and two sisters, Barbara and Olga, moved from Derbyshire to a smallholding.
It was called "Ethelbert" down Mill Lane, Arrington. At that
time it was an asbestos 3-bedroomed shack with no water or electricity.
Paraffin lamps were used and drinking water was carried from a standpipe
in the farmyard across the road. There was only one fireplace with an
oven at the side and nobody used the big room in the winter. We only
passed through to go to bed.
Why on earth my father got the idea of running
a smallholding from, I'll never know. He was not a businessman, he had
three young daughters, a townie wife and only one leg. If the stump
got sore or chafed by his stumpsock becoming hot and sweaty, he couldn't
wear his leg again until it had healed up.
After a week we enrolled at Wimpole Park
School. My youngest sister Olga should have gone to the Infant School
in the village with Mrs Whitmore but they allowed us all to be together.
I remember being disgusted at being in the same class as my two sisters.
Miss Barbara Jones was the teacher in that class. I have to say it was
a backward step as regards education because it was very elementary
as far as I was concerned but they would not place me in the second
class. I was not old enough!
In due course I joined Mr Alan Jordan's class.
That was boring too. There were several diversions with various student
teachers practising on us. One of them, a Mr Ouseman (I think) was giving
us a lecture on the bible and started talking about Jordan - the dirty
old River Jordan... I think he lost control of us for a while that day!
It must be mentioned that we had a black
and white Welsh Border Collie called Bob and when it was almost time
for us to come home from school he used to leave home and walk down
to Arrington village. His first call was Huddlestones Stores to see
if we were there and then back up to the school to meet us. Later on
when we had moved to Ross Farm Cottage, Old Wimpole, he used to follow
us to school. We would stop and send him home. When we were out of sight
Bob used to sneak down the field at the other side of the hedge. This
happened a number of times and he would eventually end up outside the
school and lie outside the french window of my class room until playtime.
Mr Jordan got fed up of sending me home with him and eventually allowed
him in the classroom where he would lie at the side of my desk. Occasionally
he would get up and have a walk around us and then come back to his
place by me. He also used to come to Church with me, and lie there.
He was my constant companion and I was heartbroken when Bob just disappeared
one night. We think he was shot. He hated guns and went frantic until
the gun was put down.
Before the Americans returned to Wimpole
Park [in 1952] we were able to use the spinney opposite the school as part of
our playing area. Once they came it was all fenced off and we had a
very restricted area. However I think the windows of the NCO club were
protected from our ball games.
John Mitchell and Class, 10 July 1953 Irene Lowe is standing on the far right
of the third row back
After Mr Jordan's class we eventually moved
to Mr John Mitchell's Class. I think he tried to train us as under some
military principles. Certainly he did with P.T. [physical training].
Of course by then the older girls went by bus to Comberton once a week
for cookery lessons. What an escape that was! I wonder if we learned
anything.
After John Mitchell we had Mrs Dorothy Mansfield,
an ex-Naval Officer in the Wrens. Mrs Mansfield started up an evening
youth club for us once a week and also used to take us to the Green
Plunge swimming pool in Royston in the summer. Miss Ellam who replaced
Miss Jones used to take the girls for needlework lessons and I believe
a Mr Street (?) used to come in to teach the older boys woodwork. The
school put on the usual Nativity play with carols at Christmas and we
had a Christmas party.
There were school sports days which were
usually held on the cricket field/cow meadow at Arrington. Wimpole Park
School used to take part in area and county sports. There were also
the rounders teams which used to play against other schools.
Sometimes a trip was arranged to the London
Museums or other similar places. This was a rare event as saving up
the money for such a trip was very difficult. We used to take a packed
lunch and of course the coach trip was a rare occasion for us. I think
the only other coach trip we went on was the Sunday School Outing.
After we moved to Ross Farm Cottage, we were
given Council school bikes, always bone-shakers, and if they needed
to be repaired we took them down to Mr Horsefield's garage at Wimpole.
Many's the time freewheeling down Hoddy Doddy Hill [local name for
the narrow road from the corner by New Farm, down past the folly to
Wimpole Home Farm. A 'hoddy doddy' is local slang for 'snail'.] we and
the bikes came to grief. Either because the brakes didn't work or a
tractor and trailer or combine were in the way.
Mostly we went to school through Wimpole
Park but we weren't supposed to unless we were on foot. If we saw Mrs
Bambridge we used to get off and walk. It was not unknown for her to
put her shooting stick through the spokes of a wheel. Mr mother did
write to her requesting permission to cycle through the park rather
than use the main road. It was refused. Of course, if one of our bikes
was out of action then we would ride two up with one another.
About once a year, a dentist would visit
the school with a caravan. His name was Mr Toller ("Mr Toller makes
you holler!"). Another thing was the periodical inspection by the
"NIT" nurse. Usually Nurse Wentweed or Nurse Jarman who were
District Nurses and midwives. There was also the daily issue of malt
and cod liver oil for certain children.
School dinners were cooked in a building
away from the school and monitors were detailed to collect the dinners
in big containers and the empty containers were taken back again on
a big trolley. It's a wonder any of the crockery ever survived. It was
not unknown for a trolley to tip over due to going too fast and riding
on it.
In those days the elder children were allowed
time off school for the potato harvest. Wonderful to earn some money.
I went in 1953 but I think it was stopped after that.
Needless to say I failed my 11+ much to the
surprise of my teachers and although I re-sat at 13 and passed the exam,
I failed the interview. On being asked if my father could afford my
books I said "no". I have to say my parents were very upset
but it was the truth. My father was off work for about 2 years after
an appendix operation - he had a large wound because the appendix had
curled round and stuck to his liver. Horrendous - so many times he put
his artificial leg on and it pulled the wound open again.
It was after this that my father worked
for the Americans at Wimpole Park on the Emergency Standby Unit for
the Hospital. Other people worked on the unit as well but one night
when the power went off there was no one who knew how to operate the
changeover and they had to send for my father. It was a wild and windy
night and we lived in a cottage up a track rutted by tractors. They
used a jeep with a driver and a Mr Cox who knew where we lived and there
was such a commotion! The woods and fields lit up from the jeep's headlights
and Mr Cox getting out and falling in the mud and shouting "Shit,
bloody shit" and quite a lot more but we didn't hear all of it.
Of course, my father had to put his leg on before he got dressed by
torch light, while Mum scuttled around lighting the lamps. Eventually
off they went and Dad started the generator to return the power. Unfortunately,
because of that lapse of time a young woman died. Of course, there was
an enquiry and appropriate action was taken. I don't recall hearing
the ladies name and no enquiry was going to bring her back.
My father was asked to go with the Americans
when they left to some other base but my mother didn't want to go.
Roberts Transport Cafe used to be on the
Old North Road [A1198] where Jack's Hill was. Another
transport cafe was run by Dolly Folbigg at Arrington Bridge. We used
to bike down there and buy crisps, sweets or a drink and then go and
sit on the bridge wall. Just before Roberts Cafe was another Tea Room.
We used to go to the back door to take our shoes to be mended by Mr
Reed who was deaf and dumb.
A doctor's surgery used to
be held in a house in Arrington village, or in the Park. About once
a week there was a film show in Arrington Village Hall where we all
sat on hard wooden chairs. Often the film used to break down. There
also used to be dances in the Hall. Hard seats around the walls, a little
band, some french chalk on the floor and the youngsters from the local
villages in their finery. Most of us had to walk or cycle home. If we
went to Royston or Cambridge, we used to leave our bikes in Bernard
Newell's blacksmith shed next to the Post Office run by Miss Newell.
I think she was a sister or aunt. Bernard Newell lived at the top of
Arrington Hill and kept greyhounds.
At the bottom of the hill next to Arrington
Hill there is a drainage channel under the road. We used to be able
to stand up and run through there shouting naughty rhymes at the top
of our voices. It echoed too.
One incident that happened at "our"
entrance to the woods was a car set on fire. We were coming home with
our dog and saw an American go into the woods at the top of the hill.
Nothing new, but on reaching our corner saw the car alight. We looked
in and under it and then moved away as it really got going and a tyre
burnt. We went to the farm to phone for the fire engine then home to
say what was happening and then back down to the road to wait for the
fire engine and the fun! Gamlingay fire engine came out and the American
crew. Talk about panic "stand back, stand back!" - checking
it over - "everything under control". Repeatedly. Not listening
to what we were telling them. My mother made tea in the milk churn for
the fireman which we took down the woods in relays and collected more
water to make more tea. Someone told us to be careful going through
the woods because of the loose American but, as a fireman said, no one
would touch us with Bob around (True! Even Mum couldn't smack us because
he'd go between her and us, although he never bit anyone.) My father
was told to make sure we did not talk about the incident with the car.
Never found out the reason why.
Then there was the episode of Eileen Wright
from Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire, my mother's home town. My mother
met her on Hoddy Doddy hill. She had walked from Old North Road Railway
Station and was looking for Wimpole Park USAF Hospital. She was pregnant
and looking for her boyfriend. My mother bought her home and next day
they, Mum and Dad, took her down to the Park. She did find her boyfriend
and she stayed with us for several weeks and he also came up to our
home to see her. Eventually he was court-martialled and she had to go
back home. The morning she was going she hung about until Mum went to
the farm to work and when we came home we found she had stolen our best
clothes. We hadn't much anyway and then stealing from people who had
provided her with a bed and shared our food with her was very upsetting.
She never carried a bucket of drinking water from the farm or did any
work and we had resented that. I didn't like her. Mum was too soft.
I recall the vicar coming visiting up the
woods and he sat on the settee. Unfortunately he sat on a broken spring
that stuck through sometimes and he kept fidgeting. It was hard not
to laugh and even more so when several kittens came up out of a hole
in the box arm of the settee.
One of my cousins saw a cow being milked
for the first time and said "don't you pull the tail?" Denis
nearly choked trying to bury his head in the cow while we heathens just
roared. Another townie cousin asked where were the Indians in the woods!
My father once saw a gamekeeper standing
in the hedge opposite our bedroom window. Never drew the curtains did
we three girls getting undressed by lamplight. Dad was furious with
us for not closing the curtains and said he'd scare him. He then went
and emptied the lavatory bucket where the man had been standing.
Sometimes the water from the pond came as
far as the gate to the back door. The pond is still there but the house
isn't - it can be seen on the old ordnance survey maps.
Drinking water and milk was carried from
the farm and there were tanks around the house to catch rainwater for
washing and cleaning. Sometimes pond water was used. There was no electricity.
Bread, coal, groceries and similar things were left in a box at the
end of the wood. Money was left too. The post we used to collect from
New Farm. 'Spare time' up Wimpole Woods was spent getting wood for the
fire and sawing and chopping it. It kept us warm though and kept the
woods clear of all the rotting trees that are there now.
My mother had a very hard life but she was
loving and kind to everybody. I will never ever match up to her. As
children we had a wonderful carefree life with lots of freedom and a
loving home. No mod cons, only hand-me-down clothes, very few toys.
A pack of cards and a few games and, if we were lucky, a cake once a
week. But we were happy, fit and healthy.
Memories (via Guestbook)
"I actually lived in Arrington, but am familiar with all the names in the Wimpole Park School photos. Irene Lowe was in the same class as me and I knew both her sisters. My memory is fading now that I am approaching 80 but have fond memories of all the people in the photos and I can remember everyone of them.
"I remember Mr Jordon with his motorbike and sidecar. He used to take me to school cricket matches because although I lived a mile away from the school I did not qualify for a school bike, so I travelled in the sidecar with all the equipment.
"I remember the American hospital well. When I was at Arrington school in 1944 I was running away from my older sister Betty who was trying to make me put my coat on and I ran into the road and was knocked over by a car. The American hospital ambulance picked me up and took me onto camp for assessment, they then took me to the old Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge where I spent the next six weeks with a broken leg."
