Infants pose for picture, 99 years ago
FOR most of the Bugle’s fifty years, Olive Hyett of Gornal was a regular contributor, with her pin-sharp memories of growing up in Dudley.
Sadly we lost Olive last year, but she certainly left her mark on the Bugle. Here are a couple of photographs she sent to us more than twenty years ago, from the part of Dudley she grew up in. Above is an infants class from the Park School, at the top end of Wolverhampton Street, Eve Hill. It dates from 1923 so was well before Olive’s day, and we can’t identify any of the children, but Olive told us that the class teacher, though not in the picture, was Jessie Turner.
The blackboard seems to run right around the walls; you can see numbers written out on the left hand side, a few very short words for the young beginners, and the names of colours in the centre of the picture. At the front are a pile of books, presumably placed there for the camera, and what look like toys and building blocks.
Anniversary
Below is a later one, from just up the road at Wolverhampton Street Methodist Church, in 1949, a time when churches were still wellattended and each one marked its anniversary with full-scale celebrations.
Olive was able to supply quite a few names, as follows:
The man standing in the middle of the three men on the left was Mr Rodway, the Sunday School Superintendent.
Seated, from left in the back row, were Tony Winchurch, Max and Peter, Hazel Gough, Margaret Ainsbury, ?, ?, ?, Bernard Shaw, Arthur Ashmore, Eddie Rodway.
Middle row: Olive Johnson (later Hyett), Margaret Glover, Christine Oakley, ?, ?, Mr Shaw (organist), Sidney Ingram, Gordon Downing, ?, Thelma Round, Barbara Smith.
Front row: ?, Mavis Thomas, ?, ?, John Ingram, ?, ?, Margaret Ingram, ?, ?, ?, Eileen Glover, ?, ?, ?, ?, Graham Gough, Barry Mills ?, ?, ?, ?.