Going Back

A remarkable architectural survivor: The old County Primary School, now Walsall Wood Youth Centre. Imagery from Bing! Maps.

I’ve noticed over the five years that this blog has been running that it brings out often hidden sides to readers, and uncovers talents folk didn’t know they had. The young David Evans of late has been discovering a new talent for a genteel, polite form of Urban Exploration.

Not content with buttering up demolition men for vicarious photos of historic rubble, David also infiltrated a remarkable local old barn to great effect. Last week, the man surpassed himself to get images of a building few of us will have been in since childhood, but so many will remember.

The oldsters will remember it as a school, but to me, it was a Youth Club, run by Doug Birch amongst others, back in the day. So sit back, grab a cuppa, and delve into the past…

Cheers to David, as ever, for another great article…

Walsall Wood’s old County Primary School, by Streets Corner

Walsall Wood Junior and Infants’ School, Brownhills Road, Walsall Wood, was opened in 1903 as the mixed and infants’ Walsall Wood Board School. A new infants’ school was erected in 1906, and the original building was enlarged in 1912. (fn. 80) In 1932 the school was reorganized to form a senior school and a mixed and infants’ school. The former became a secondary modern school in 1945, moved to new buildings in Lichfield Road, Walsall Wood, in 1966, and merged with Shire Oak Grammar School to form Shire Oak School in 1970

This is the brief reference given in British History on-line to my own childhood primary school in Walsall Wood. The recent demolition of the derelict St. Johns Junior School a little way away, in Lichfield Road Walsall Wood brought back memories of my own childhood, and particularly my school.

Whereas the St. Johns school had been derelict for many years, the Mixed junior and Infants School , which stood proud and stark by the playing fields with their swings, roundabouts, giants stride, leapfrog and all, had fared better.

The building presently serves as the local Youth Centre. What would I find inside? Had everything been changed beyond recognition, were the classrooms altered, the doors replaced, the headmaster’s office so different as to be unrecognisable?

These are the photos I took of my journey back in time to a land I thought I had forgotten.

This view show of the hall shows Miss Ellis’s class doorway. This hall was our indoor P.T. venue! Image courtesy David Evans.

MrShingler’s classroom. The eight-year olds were taught in this classroom, which has been subdivided and modern doors replace the originals. The classrooms had no carpets, of course. Image courtesy David Evans.

The hall with an original classroom door. Image courtesy David Evans.

The original brown wall tiling has survived, better than the modern paintwork. Image courtesy David Evans.

The former school stands at the foot of the playground of the current one. Image courtesy David Evans.

Mr Barker’s headmaster’s office, much as it was, apart from the new window frames. He was a kind man who owned an Austin A30 in those days. His wife taught in the secondary school, just across the school playground. Image courtesy David Evans.

The first years classroom. One of the original windows has been bricked up and a fire escape door has been added but the chimney can just be seen to the left. There was a pot-belly fire-stove and brass fender here. Miss Ellis, our teacher had her desk in the far left-hand corner. Image courtesy David Evans.

The door to the headmaster’s office. Image courtesy David Evans.

The original doors are still being used! Image courtesy David Evans.

The main entrance. Image courtesy David Evans.

The wooden partitions have gone, and two of the windows have been bricked up. Image courtesy David Evans.

The butresses are a start reminder of the mining legacy. Image courtesy David Evans.

The second year classroom, minus the wooden partition, but retaining the high vaulted ceilings. Image courtesy David Evans.

All original. Image courtesy David Evans.

Then, as if by magic, long forgotten clouded images and distant, thin sounds came back into  my mind with each step I took inside.

The school bell, lining up in the blue brick playground, the brass door handles, the wood partitions, the blackboard and ‘weasel’, the beanbags in the yard, hoops, the girls skipping and chanting, the boys fighting and kicking a ball about, the schools BBC radio broadcasts over that strange and frequently unreliable radio set as we sat on the floor in the hall. The iron desks with their lift-up lids. Ink, leaky inkwells, ink pellets, lead pencils, rulers, blotting paper, cross-legged pen nibs,  snappy crayons, that pencil sharpener that did not work, Those primeval painting lessons and rough grey paper to paint on and the bucket for the accident sponge…

Yusuf Islam sings the blues. Still love Cat Stevens…

School friends  being away from class with  measles/chickenpox/mumps. Reading books, writing practice in those tracing paper books, sums , sums and more sums, times tables, reading aloud those long words to the headmaster, school dinners in the top school hall, the cold winters and the cold pre-fab classrooms. The incredible newts and weeds and things in the school pond; taking  young fidgety frogs to school to show Miss,  the championship catapult marksmanship trials, the mournful bleakness of the coalmine hooter calling over the school field, the slides in the playground, the whiffy open air toilet block in the playground.

And so, with my photos safely taken, I left this Other World and gently closed the door behind me.

I would like to thank the kind staff of Brownhills Community Centre for so readily allowing me to  visit my old junior school in Walsall Wood and take these photos.

David Evans, March 2014