OIt was a Sunday in September that our lives changed forever. This was Sept. 3rd 1939. Two days later my Mother took me to my first school. We walked with other mums up Lynmouth Drive, right into Bessingby then left across to Filey Way instead of going into the 'Rec'. We went between houses into Dawlish Drive, carefully across the road into the gates of the imposing red brick school. It was difficult for me to keep up because I had suffered from Ricketts and had irons on both legs.

We went into the hall to be assigned to our classes. The Headmistress looked very stern. Miss Polden read out our names and we had a name label pinned to us. We were carrying our gas masks in cardboard boxes strung around our necks. I had brought a tin mug for the milk break and clutched some money for milk and lunch. (This I never used as I went home for lunch.

My first teacher was a shock, a grey-haired lady who had a moustache! Mum was soon sent off with the command never to come past the gates except for parent/teacher events. Alongside he front playground were two huge piles of coke. The building had a central courtyard and was two storied, except for a tower over the main entrance. Toilets were to the left and next was the Head's house. At the rear was the Junior school playground and what used to be the sports field. This had been dug up and several rows of Air Raid Shelters built.

To the right were two extra wooden classrooms and it was here that my school life started - and very nearly stopped. One of the girls in the class had lost her dinner money. It was twisted in a sheet of paper. We were all quizzed to own up to taking it. Of course, nobody did and we all ha to file out of the hut individually and answer the challeng. I was the last and a heap of misery as I said it was not me. Instead of staying uotside, I ran home. Can't remember her name but she made our lives tough.

Later on when I graduated to Juniot School we spent a lot of toime in the shelters which had duckboards on the floor. These were often afloat after heavy rain. My best teacher was Miss Kenworthy and I remember helping to build a cardboard Tudor Street that was displyed at Ruislip Library (in The Barn) for a while. I remember the class had to assemble in threes and march to the next lesson, the corr9idors being marked out as streets, complete with road signs - a good idea.

I was never a prefect, my most important, and messy, job was ink monitor. There used to be huge cardboard containers of powdered milk and egg in the cloakrooms, quite a temptation for little fingers.

Playground games for boys were Flicking Cigarette Crds, fivestones (or Jacks, marblesConkers and a race game where we would mould a metal milk bottle top over a marble and run it down the pavement outside the school. Just about the most scary moment was in 1944 when a V2 rocket exploded in the heavy air above the school we flung ourselves under the desks but the only damage was caused by some metal pipework and blazing aluminium sheet that fell on the shelters.

I had scarlet fever as I approached the eleven plus and fared badly. Next stop was Bourne Secomdary but unlike LB, that has gone.

Roy

I started school at Lady Bankes in 1938 and my lasting memories of my first days are identical twin girls who dressed alike and fooled everyone including the teachers as to their identity, and the frieze over the blackboard in the classroom showing letters of the alphabet with pictures, in particular the letter S with a picture of steam coming out of a kettle.
After the outbreak of war in 1939 we did not attend the school building until the air raid shelters had been built. Instead we were taught in groups of 6 or 8 in our own homes by a teacher who would spend the morning in one house and the afternoon in another. I was lucky as lessons were always held in my house in Beverley Road.
I remember Miss Polden as a very severe looking lady, but Miss Pearce as my first teacher was very kind. Later Miss Christian as Headmistress of the junior school was very fair although I twice had to visit her office to receive the cane. Miss Buck was the music teacher and she had caught me and my friend Teddy Whittaker singing inappropriate words to "The Ashgrove". Miss Kenworthy was a good teacher but my favourite teacher was Miss Dilys Evans. I suffered from asthma and was absent from school for long periods. Miss Evans would come to my home and keep me up to date with homework. I still have several books that she gave me. I can't imagine any present day teachers looking after their pupils in this way.
I was a milk monitor and an ink monitor at various times and was also vice-captain of Scott House during one term when I proudly wore the blue badge of office. There were four houses, Scott House, Livingstone House, Shacklestone House and I think the fourth was Amundsen House - all named after famous explorers.

Other pupils I remember are Jean Neville who gave me a Ceylon coin which I still have, Valerie Delabertouche, Mary King, 'Chippy' Pendrey, Derek Redrup, Joan Bonsor.

We used to have gas mask drill when we delighted in blowing hard into the masks and making raspberry noises. During air raids we used to sit in the air raid shelter while the teachers read Enid Blyton stories to us by the light of an emergency lantern.

My memories of Lady Bankes school are happy ones and the excellent standard of teaching laid the foundation of my education enabling me to achieve my ambition of becoming a lawyer.