Laindon High Road School

The minimal facts

Radford Estate on the site of the old Laindon School

The next item on our journey is the newest addition to the High Road the Radford Way Estate.  This is right next to the British Legion hall was our next building of note the ‘Laindon High Road School’.

Laindon High Road School 1928

This was for seventy-two years the well loved educational heart of Laindon, as you can see from the memories of the members of our community elsewhere on the site.

It open its doors on the 7th May 1928, with five classrooms, staff rooms and two cloakrooms for children from 5 to 14 years of age. It finally closed its doors in September 2000.

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  • Thank you Richard for your lovely memories, I still have my blue report book as I expect many of you do, I have travelled a good deal over the past years, and lived in the Middle East for a while but have always hung on to this book, I also have a couple of school reports from Langdon Hills Primary School. When my brother Dave and his wife came to see us from Laindon a couple of months ago, they were looking at my reports and also my autograph book, where I had managed to get loads of signatures from friends at both schools as well as a lot of the teachers. Miss Jollyman’s is there very neatly tucked into a corner of the page. I am so addicted to this Laindon site, and try to have a look every day to read all the lovely memories. Keep them coming!

    By Joan Baterip (01/10/2011)
  • Joan, you are so spot-on with your summary of our school. You say that Mr Rosen was a good teacher, so true, he was my first teacher in Upper 1B and saw some potential in me, pushing me and Vanessa Crew up to Upper 2A in the second year.

    I was with Mr Rees from then right through to 5X. Like you said, Mr Minniken also was way ahead of his time, throwing off the stuffy attitude of most teachers and allowing us to shape whatever we wanted out of clay for him to patiently fire in his kilns and take home to show mum. 

    Mr Bear also was a brilliant teacher, us boys had him for maths in 4X and 5X and he was serious but funny at the same time, a tricky subject and not one I was good at. 

    Then we had Mr Cluff, his room filled with glass bottles containing strange objects floating and suspended, what was all that about? I remember in Chemistry class I was gazing out the window at a girl walking in the High Road. Mr Cluff noticed this and said ‘fall in love after the exams son’. Good advice but sadly it had already happened.

    Mr Rees was easily the best teacher in the school, so strict but at the same time recognising good work when he saw it. I was never one of his favourites and at one time he threatened to take away my Prefects badge because I was lazing around in the cloakroom combing my hair into a DA. The trouble was, it was the girls cloakroom, the only one with a full length mirror you could check out in – what a cheek. He could stuff his Prefects badge. Seriously though I still have all the Honours Certificates he painstakingly wrote out for me, top in English, top in Technical Drawing, reading prayers in assembly, there are loads of them. The blue report books we all had went with us all the way through the school. 

    The PE teachers we had were Mr Gilchrist first year then Mr Munday for the rest of the time. Brilliant football games in the winter, bogged down in mud, hard leather footballs, misty days cross country running, galvanised baths to wash in afterwards. Then the summer with cricket, followed by sports day. On the last day of term in 5X we borrowed the pitch marker machine and wrote ‘Class 5X’ on the field – brilliant. It must have been a good start career wise, I went on to college, got HNC in Civil Engineering then Chartered Engineer with Institution of Civil Engineers, building roads and bridges all over the country. Another story.

    By Richard Haines (29/09/2011)
  • When looking at the photo of the old school, memories come flooding back, some, not so good with exams and getting told off and sometimes struggling to keep up when you really don’t quite understand what you are being told. But others of the mainly good times, the friendships, being totally amazed at something new you learned that day, and rushing home to tell your parents, who probably knew anyway but acted surprised to please us. The many good teachers including Mr Anthony who taught poetry anthology and read us stories from many authors who we may not ever have known. He gave me a love of poetry that has stayed with me forever. Mr Minniken the art teacher who was so “way out” for the times and made art lessons something to really look forward to. Mr Hughes who taught history, making it come alive and Mr Poole the RI teacher with his gentle voice (almost made me want to become a nun but not quite !!) Dear Mr Bear who was also my form teacher who taught maths, he never succeeded in making me a brilliant accountant, but made the lessons interesting and bearable. Mr Cluff the science master, Mrs Badger for cookery, I learnt how to make cocoa and beans on toast !! but it has come in handy sometimes. Mr Emery my last teacher at the school another nice person. Miss Jollyman my first teacher, who had a wormery in the classroom !! At the time all those years ago, I don’t think we appreciated what we had, but on the whole I think it all did set most of us on the road to our future with good basic knowledge. Mr Rosen was also a good teacher and Mr Mort, there were so many of them. The smell of cigarette smoke always reminds me of having to go to the staff room with messages for a teacher, it hit you as you opened the door, but it is still another fond memory. At one of the sports days at the school I was told that a movie film was taken by one of the staff, and that I was filmed poking my tongue out (as if !!) I never did see it, so maybe someone was pulling my leg. Oh happy Days.

    By Joan Baterip (24/09/2011)
  • I am wondering why they put a dividing fence down the front, presumably to separate the girls from the boys. I don’t remember it being there, I guess if it was metal they may have scrapped it during the war.

    Looking at the building work it appears to be first class, look at the chimneys and the other architectural features. Five years there didnt do me any harm.

    By Richard Haines (15/09/2011)

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