ONE reader has this week recalled her schooldays from more than 70 years ago, after she spotted former pupils on our page.

Mrs Finnigan of Blackburn remembered her time at St Silas’s school, after our class photograph from 1937 (Lancashire Telegraph, June 10).

She left the school in that year, after passing her 11+, to attend Blakey Moor, from where she recollects being evacuated to Troy House, in Preston New Road.

She had started at St Silas’s at five, in Miss Bateson’s class, where a picture of a black cat sat on a red mat was pinned on the blackboard.

She said: “Pupils had to form the words on a little board and a lump of clay and that was my first lesson writing.

“Next class was Miss Harper, where we sewed the hem of a hankie, learnt long division and about Milly Molly Mandy.

“Then it was Miss Pemberton, who was a popular teacher, although the next class was taught by Miss Middleton, who was a bit of a tartar and kept a cane hanging from the radiator.”

Mrs Finnigan continued: “The head man was Mr Merrill and Miss Lupton played piano for the singing sessions and country dancing.

“I remember the Christmas when we were all sitting cross legged in the main hall, with a lovely big tree, when I realised Santa Claus was the school caretaker, Mr Brown.

“It’s all the little things that stay with me, the milk with a hole for the straw, a paper egg cutout with a pop up chicken and a box containing a couple of chocolate creams, tied with gold braid, to take home for mum.

“I can remember the rare penny to spend in Brown’s sweet shop, making it go as far as possible and looking after the tadpoles”

Mrs Finnigan recalls friends Betty Thistlethwaite, whose folk were farmers in Meins Road, the Munroe twins Dorothy and Helen, whose parents had a cafe in the market and also ran the canteen in Weinberg’s sewing factory, behind the Clifton Hotel in Park Road.

Then there was Walter Margerison, whose father had a grocer’s shop in New Bank Road.