Page 6 - Frank Day's memories and Day Family article

All of us boys went to Westcott Road School, which was excellent, very strict but very

good. Mr Browne was headmaster, and we only ever had one change of teacher during my
nine years there. Our teachers were Miss Fletcher, Mrs Hicks, Miss Padley, Mrs Hayward,

Miss Clifford, Mr Nation (science) and Miss Coles (top class which was called x seven). Mr
Nation was the only one who left but he went elsewhere for promotion, and Mr Sid

Meacham, who later became headmaster of Palmer School, came in his place. We had
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Empire Day Concerts (May 24 ) in the morning and half-day after that, and we also had
half-day on Ascension Day.

I was due to leave school Easter 1936, but as we had lost our father in 1933, and a job was

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offered to me, they let me leave at Christmas and I started work on December 15 1935, as an
apprentice at the London Central Meat Company. It was hard work. There were six others
there and we were all delivering meat on bikes and I used to have to cycle miles during the

week, all for eight shillings and eleven pence per week, but I got used to it.

I started deliveries in London Road. Mr Kingston had a little grocery shop and further on
Mrs Whittingham also had a shop (that shop is still there) along the London Road through

Eatwells Road, which had a pond there where we caught tadpoles. I went up through Keep

Hatch to
'De Vitres', through Plough Lane, up Coppid Beech (the old road is still there) down to the

Shoulder of Mutton pub and turned into Amen Corner where Mr Sargent had a building firm.
On I went to,

Amen Crossing. The railway line used to run across the road and a Mr Surman lived in the

cottage at the side. From there I went through to Easthampstead Park, where I would serve
the Lodge, where Mr Goodchild lived. I had to go right through the Park in front of the

mansion, home of Lord Downshire, and out on the Nine Mile Ride. There were very few
houses out that way. In the winter which was very bleak and very cold, I felt frozen and was

glad to get through there. The next stop I made was just before Bigshott School. Mrs Stokes

had a village store and you could have a nice cup of tea there. Then I cycled onto Honey Hill
and Mr Chivers, who had a wood business, and back on to the Nine Mile Ride to St.

Sebastian, and the Reverend Carr. Miss Yaldon was organist of St. Sebastian and she was the
daughter of Yaldon's the undertakers in Rose Street. She was there for twenty-five years.

Back from there I continued to the Crowthorne Crossroads towards Wokingham where Mrs
Readings had a laundry. Her children Jim and Sheila were in the same class at school as I. I