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Blue knickers and will-power was the order of the day back in the 1950s, when Elizabeth Dearle and her classmates at Normanton Junior School were turned out to play netball in the freezing cold. That and the 1957 earth tremor are just some of her fond memories of the school – as Elizabeth, of Ripley, recalls here.

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Having lived in Denmark for a while, owing to my father working abroad, I was sent, at the age of eight, to Normanton Infants School for a year as I could not read very well.

The year was 1954. I was the eldest child in the infants and glad I happened to be quite small for my age. The following autumn, I was nine and my class was escorted, by a teacher, up to Normanton Junior School.

On arrival, when we were allocated to our class groups in the school hall, I was dismayed to find I was separated from my little friends who, rightly, went into the first year, while I was taken along a long, top corridor to join the third year!

Sheena Dearle, my sister-in-law, who recently retired as head of Normanton Village Infants School, told me this wouldn’t happen today. I would have been placed with my own peer group at the junior school from the start.

However, I had a happy time at Normanton Infants School. The Junior School had not been built that long at that time, in the mid-50s. It was a very modern building with long corridors and light and airy classrooms, with big windows that looked out onto the playing fields.

Mr Cresswell, the headmaster, seemed to be a very popular and caring man. He had an intercom system which was quite sophisticated in those days. If he wanted to convey a message to the classroom, we used to hear his voice sound over the radio system above the blackboard.

The classes were numbered 1-12 and there were three separate streams A, B and C, according to our ability. Class 1 was the top, fourth year, A stream (Year 6 today).

Class 12 (Year 3) were the youngest pupils in the C stream. On arrival, I was put into the C stream, later to move up into the B stream!

Every morning, we had our Christian assemblies. Pupils stood in separate rows in order of seniority, the boys in one row, the girls in another, with the teachers keeping a sharp eye at each end of the rows!

Mr Cresswell always stood at the front on a raised platform. He addressed the pupils with “Good morning, boys and girls” and the pupils’ responded with “Good morning, Mr Cresswell. Good morning all”.

There were big windows in the school hall, looking right out onto the driveway, so anyone arriving late would be seen tearing down the drive, fearful at having missed the class register.

Boys and girls had two separate playgrounds. The boys would kick a ball about or play what was considered by most girls to be rough games. The girls would skip, swap beads or play singing games.

A favourite game was sliding down the concrete banks but, if a duty teacher caught us, we were reprimanded on the spot.

I remember Miss Smith with her grey hair worn in a plaited bun at the back. She was extremely strict. Pupils were terrified of her. When she reprimanded us, we were shaking from head to foot.

In PE lessons, the teachers were merciless. In freezing weather, girls clad in only a vest and blue/green knickers stood shivering, teeth chattering in the playground as the teacher instructed us in how to play netball and other games. If we complained about the cold, it was a quick run four times round the playground to warm up! We had to be tough in those days.

We all had mid-morning milk, which we sucked through straws sitting at our desks, before going outside to play. In ice-cold weather, the tops of the milk were frozen and sometimes pecked by hungry birds needing a drink.

I remember a boy in my class putting ink in his milk, turning it a sea-blue colour. I can’t remember what he did with it afterwards.

Mr Rimmington, who mostly taught the top class, was very keen on using the slipper on unruly boys! He even gave his four slippers names. If I recollect rightly, they were Jimmy, Jammie, Jamie and Marmaduke, the latter being the worst and certainly not a favourable choice. I didn’t have to stay for school dinners as I lived very close to the school. Pupils who stayed for dinners had a little round disc with the letter D on it, which they had to hand in on entering the school dining room.

If I had to stay for any reason, my two friends, sisters Jane and Mary Siddals, reassured me the dinners were nice dinners even if they turned out to be mashed swede or mushy peas. We all lined up outside the dining room, hands inspected en route, then went in and stood behind the long dining tables. Grace was said before we sat down for our meal, served by dinner ladies at each end of the tables.

One of my most memorable experiences was the earth tremor of early 1957 which, thankfully, only lasted a few seconds. I was in the fourth year then.

My desk happened to be at the back, right next to the big windows. As the ground shook and the windows rattled loudly, I heard the boy sitting next to me, whose name, I believe, was Terry Miller, exclaim: “I think we are having an earthquake!”

We were very thankful the big windows didn’t shatter. It could have been very serious.

I only took half of the 11-plus examination, as my family were on the move again – back to Denmark.

When we arrived back in Derby again, in 1960, I was glad to be reunited with some of my old junior school mates, Jane and Mary Siddals, and, from my own class – Valerie Attridge, Barbara Williams, Maureen Hillson, Gillian Shardlow, Marilyn Williams and Pamela Cross.

At school, I was known as Ingeborg Odell. I now use my middle name Elizabeth.

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