A happy bunch

A quiet day, doing odds and ends. 

The conversation about the 11+ yesterday reminded me of a photo that I came across recently. It shows me with my classmates in the year that we took our 11+ exam, we all left Lowther St School in Carlisle after our exams. We look so happy and very tidy bunch. 

I don’t remember much about the experience or there being pressure to achieve, just to do our best! 

I had spent my earlier years living in a top floor flat with my parents in Warwick Rd, it overlooked the Girls High School with enormous playing fields. I spent hours in the back bedroom watching the girls playing hockey. It was my biggest wish to be able to join them, so I was delighted to hear that I had passed the exam. I did play on those fields. We had moved to a newly built council house by then and so I had to get the bus to school.

I don’t remember ever seeing any of these kids after that year. Before anyone asks I’m the girl on the left,  in the group of three standing. Those of us still breathing will be in or approaching our 80th year!

The junior school is no longer standing. We visited Carlisle a number of years ago and it had been demolished and was being used as a car park.  The Girls High school has been totally rebuilt and is now a coeducational secondary school and sixth form.