Traces Of Old York

I never said that this series was just going to be small detail “Traces” shots. Let me explain…

This is my old primary school, where I went when I was 4 or 5 (Poppy Road Infants, Mrs Lamb’s class) and went on to progress to Juniors until I left aged 11 to go to High School (that school's for another day. Possibly…). Incidentally, J’s dad also went here.

Foreground just out of frame to the left is Mr Brown’s classroom, where the lads went on a Friday afternoon to do well, in those days, lads’ stuff like woodwork etc. I’d rather have done cooking frankly, but hey. There are lots of changes, including a fence on the “terrace” just in front of the building where in the day, we lads used to look down at the lasses doing their hand-stands :)

Just out of frame to the right in the distance was Mrs Jackson’s classroom where we all went to read books and stuff. That was also the gate where deliveries came in and Mr Jackson (no relation), the caretaker, let us help him shovel coal for the boiler room.

Anyway, let’s get back to the main building. OK, why “Traces Of Old York”?

Look carefully and you see a subtle difference in brick color in the middle section of the building. As schoolkids, were often regaled by the teachers as to how the school took a direct hit from a German bomb in April 1942. That was the Baedeker raid when they were trying to take out the railway lines – the school is directly next to the main line. No-one was hurt in the school fortunately as it was night-time.

Actually, if you look even closer (I hadn’t noticed this before), you can see that the three middle dormer arches are just slightly different in shape from the ones at either end. And… you can see that the frost in the middle of the roof has melted at a different pace from the rest of the school.

I was here on a quiet frost Sunday morning so no-one around to wonder about me taking “dodgy” images. I was dropping some milk and bread off with daughter #3, J, and her partner, C, who were flying in later from a holiday in New York. The final link in the chain? Well, looking on-line at casualties from the bomb raid, it listed a family of five (the "Buttons") who were killed – in the house directly opposite J and C. So, maybe another blip, another day.

And there you have it, a very special “Trace Of Old York” for me anyway. And now you can wake up and do something more useful that reading my journal...