Back to future with rooftop playground

I WAS fascinated to read of the splendid new school in Castleward in the Derby Telegraph (“Derby’s newest school has play area on the roof”, September 6).

I can recall being given the impression, when doing my teacher training, that such things were the epitome of inner-city deprivation in times gone by.

This was because my first education tutor, the late Don Tipping, was very worried that I wouldn’t hack it at the coal face (as it were). He thought I was too upper-class to cope with educating tough working-class children! He kept taking me aside before my first teaching practice (Hardwick Junior Boys, 1967) to tell me how tough it was going to be.

‘When I started out in Attercliffe [Sheffield]’ he’d say, ‘it was a really tough area. The facilities were so bad they even had the playground on the roof. Just a rooftop with a low parapet and high wire netting. By Jove, it was hard, then, I’ll tell you, hard. You’re going to have to prepare yourself, though.’

‘You’ll meet it, Mr. Craven’ he invariably added. ‘You’ll meet it!’

I did, and enjoyed it immensely, much to Don’s surprise.

Now it seems, a skied playground is all part of the top-of-the-range learning experience – or are Compendium Living reluctant to waste good building land on a mere playground, like their Victorian predecessors in Attercliffe?

Max Craven, Derby