Village School

When we first moved to Mickleover, Ravensdale School hadn't been built yet, so I went to this school in the village, about a mile away from our house.

Mickleover really was a village in those days, not just the suburb it is now, and this was a proper old-fashioned village school, with separate entrances marked 'Boys' and 'Girls' and a big central hall with all the classrooms leading off from it. Anyone of a certain age will know exactly what I'm talking about, and how the smell of school dinners being prepared gradually permeated the building during the course of the morning.

It isn't a school any more, but it gets a lot of use as a community centre - so in one of those nicely circular moments in the wheel of everyday life, the hall where we used to do our PE is now used for gym classes for adults.