School Board Trip

1945

When I was 11 years old I was playing in our street when I heard two ladies talking, and I heard I say to the other "have you seen all those Coaches at the back of the Town Hall?"

I looked at the children to see if I knew any of them. There was a girl out of my class at school. I asked her what she was doing there. She was with her brother and sister. Sheila said that her brother and sister had tickets for the school board trip because they were a family of seven children.

I stayed talking to Sheila for a bit then the children started to board the coaches. When most of the coaches filled up, there was one coach left. One of these gents said "lets fill the last coach up with the young children round here." I asked one of the gents if they would wait until I had run home to ask my mum if I could go on the coach and take my younger sister with me.

The gent said they would, so I ran home and asked my mum if we could go on the trip, she said yes so I took our Maureen down to Lacy Street and we got on the coach for the trip. We were all given a luggage label with our name written on it, and tied on our coat.

Once we were sat on the coach, we noticed a man with a big gold chain on his shoulders. Somebody said that is the Mayor of Stockport. The Mayor was carrying a tube which had money in it. The Mayor came to every child and gave them a shilling each; he said "buy yourself ice cream." Then the coach moved off. They said we were going to Lyme Park.

When we got there, there was a sports field, if you wanted to join in and play games, or you could play on the swing park. As we did not have any swings we decided to play on the swings.

At about 4pm they came round and got us all together and took us into the hall for our tea. We had a nice tea but the best part was jelly and ice cream. After our tea we were all put back on the bus and taken back home.

It was one of those days you never forget. As all the coaches went along the road people would wave to us. When we got back to the Town Hall there were a lot of people waiting for their children, to take them back home again. Our Maureen and I just walked up Millbrook Street back to our house.