South Shields Sanddancers Forum

There must be some ex mortimer pupils reading these pages who were there around my time! I left in 1953. I feel I am a dinosaur and am the only one left as I never see anyone from my era on here. Must go and get my medication before I too disappear.

Grandpa Maplin not remember you, sorry.

But he remember Hairy Jones

I remember peterson, oh that time he fell down the well. hahah what good times.

I'm a specimen of whatever preceded the dinosaurs so my historic recollections may be of interest. At Mortimer infants I remember Miss Meikle and Miss Scott. We were evacuated to Cumbria with the latter. Among our teachers there were Mr Brogden (HM), Miss Milne and Miss Over.

Because of wartime evacuations, I think I only attended years 2 and 4 of the juniors, and not all of year 2. I recall Miss Goudie, Miss Blair and Miss Hooper - oh, and Miss Turnbull. In year 4 I had Miss Blunt:

Blunt is her name
but she's sharp with her cane

In her form the star girl was Dorothy Laws, top of the class, also Joy Stephenson, and Joy Coulthard, who used to pull my hair and force me to read her foul girly books. 'A Princess by Proxy' was one I recall. I was as soft as clarts in those days.

I think there was a Mr Hub about, and Mr Tuff, probably in the mysterious senior school upstairs. In the 11+ only one person in our class failed. I still remember the sympathy I felt for her when this was revealed at assembly. I felt there must be a better way of educating children than this
endless classification at such a young age.

You might be interested in an 11+ question I got wrong:

A man falls asleep in church and dreams he is being guillotined. Someone taps him on the neck to wake him up. He thinks the blade has dropped and dies.

There was a choice of answers to the fallacy in this and I picked: 'Nobody dies from a tap on the neck'. The right answer was that if he'd died, how could anyone know what he was dreaming? I still think I should have got place money.

I taught for 25 years and of course avoided all the horrific behaviour other people have posted. Except the one about being apprehended drunk up a lamp-post.


Jerry

Jerry welcome to Sanddancers.

It nice you survived Morty School .

Story about being drunk up lampost would be interesting to hear.

Glad I'm not the only geriatric on here. Interesting information you have supplied but nothing there that I know of. I only attended the senior school having gone there from Holy Trinity School juniors. Your t*t bit about the dreaming man is familiar to me in theme but with another story line. Another good one regarding the military was asked by an officer in the army. You are guarding the base and I attack you with a battleship what do you do? the recruit replied "sink you with a submarine sir" the officer asks "and where on earth did you get the submarine in the middle of the countryside?". Same place where you got your battleship sir the recruit replied.

The lamp-post story is less interesting than it sounds. I was celebrating Sunderland's FA cup victory. Just a touch of exuberance, officer.
I WAS once barred from the Majestic ballroom in South Shields for having looked upon the wine when it was red while out carol-singing. Wild times.

An earlier poster has complained about being labelled as a washout when a schoolboy. I believe Hitler's school report stated that he was 'lacking in leadership'.


Jerry

Well they were right..... He lost..

Plenty of great military leaders were eventually defeated - Hannibal, Spartacus, Napoleon.

Churchill lost the 1945 election...

What I meant was that teachers are not in any position to predict a child's future and should encourage rather than deflate.


Jerry

I agree.

Yes, I was at Mortimer Road Junior School from 1945-1952 and I remember
the teachers very well, among them Miss Turnbull, Miss Blunt, Mr. Ellis and Mr. Dodds, and the Headmaster at the time was a Mr. Blanchflower.
Our family lived in Ambleside Avenue at the foot of Mortimer Road , King George Road and Harton Lane.
With the passage of time it's difficult to remember other pupils, except those who were friends such as Ian Murray, Eddie Robson, Walter Leask, John Coxon. Among the girls I remember Anne Mason, Anne Ward but others
slip my memory.
It would be great to hear from or of people who were at Mortimer Road during this period, maybe I could recall others who were there too.
I left for the Boys High School in 1952.

having now decided to join the ranks of trying to find what happened to old friends I came across the comments of Robin reference his place of abode and the people he remembers well I believe he was refering to my sister Ann Mason and would possibly know our cousin Billy Lowe. Suffice to say this could start some sort of exchange which in turn could widen the circle alanm

hi all,
i was born in mortimer road,moved ,to the bottom of aston street around 1940 went to mortimer infants then to the juniors, iwas now living at 21,aston street, i then went to the senior school and around1950went to the boys high school.i remember the shop abernethys sold sweets and newspapers. the teachers i remember were mr. hutton morton, albergh,gedling, miss turnbull and her partner miss blunt. my friends were arthur anderson, ian modral jimmy spence freddy moody, david galagher, george johnson and many more , i would love to hear from anyone who knows me or any of my old friends.
robert. moran.