Cambridgeshire's Village Colleges- Celebrating Pioneers of Lifelong Learning

at the Heart of Rural Communities

Oral History Interview Transcription

Interview with Mrs Lorna Delanoy by Bradley Anker and Caydn Perez-Bent (Students at Witchford Villlage College).

6th February 2020

This is Caydn Perez-Bent and Bradley Anker and we are interviewing on 6th February 2020. What is your full name and what is your maiden name?

My full name is Lorna Delanoy and it was Freeman. And I’m very local because I was born at Haddenham- just down the road.

When were you born?

1940- an easy year, a ‘nought year’ you see! Special year this year…I’ll be 80

Where did you go to Primary School?

I went to Haddenham Primary School and then in 1951 we sat the Eleven Plus so I went through to Ely High. But all my friends came to Witchford ‘Sec Mod’ ‘cause it was then opening in 1951.

When was your first contact with a Village College?

Let me see, in 1959 I came as a student teacher for the summer term when it was still a Secondary Modern School and the head in those days was Dobson who has been sent here from Primary teaching in Ely.

What did the role of Student Teacher mean for you?

It was very hard-going. I was very young and the children here, you see, were 15..14/15 and I was the ‘ripe old age’ of 19, so I wasn’t much older. And it was very hard-going yes. But easier here than at a teaching practice in London where I had been in the previous year.

How many years were you there as a student teacher?

I just came for the summer term in 1959 and then went back to College in September.

Did it differ to your previous education?

Not as much as one would expect. You see, a Grammar School education, a High School education- you have different staff for different subjects as indeed we had here.

Did you attend any other form of secondary education?

No, no I went to Ely in 1951 to 1958. And then on to London University in ’58.

Can you remember the layout much of the school?

Well yes, you see in those days the school was housed in Nissen huts from the Second World War. Very hot in the summer- you can imagine in a metal tube. Very cold in winter because it just had the tortoise stove, one per hut and it was okay if you sat near the stove but if you didn’t sit near the stove it wasn’t very pleasant.

Do you remember much about the opening of the Village College?

No I don’t because, you see I was one of the fortunate ones that passed to Ely High School so this was… the whole concept of Witchford Secondary Modern was the fact that in the old Isle of Ely it was a separate administrative county, it’s now part of Cambridgeshire. So the Isle of Ely had it’s own Education Committee and they’d got a very good school at Cromwell at Chatteris and the Hereward Schools at March but they’d got a nothing for the south of the Isle so it was decided you’d make use of the huts that were already here – and many people frowned on that..

Did life differ as a student for boys and girls?

They were taught separately for things like Science and Games but general subjects like English, Maths, Science- they were taught as a mixed group. But you must remember it was a much smaller school in those days. Sutton of course was shipped off to Chatteris so the only big school coming here was Hadddenham. And then the smaller ones including Coveney which had it’s own school in those days.

Do you remember much about your uniform?

There was no uniform. When this school opened in ’51 people came in just their ordinary clothes and of course a lot of the boys who were the sons of farm workers came in hefty boots. And there was no indoor shoes as we had at Ely High School (we had to take our own indoor shoes)

Were you aware of how different the Village College programme was when you started?

When I started here as a student teacher? Compared with when I came back as a supply teacher my goodness it had changed beyond recognition! I came back in the ‘80s as a supply teacher and of course the Nissen huts had gone and the tower block was already in use and the Art Department just through there- that was opened in the early ‘90s. So yes it was very, very different. The contrast from ‘50s to the ‘90s. And of course it changed it’s role from a Secondary Modern School to a Village College which is a part of the old Cambridgeshire system with Henry Morris who thought education should be from birth to the grave. So you catered for babies and you catered for OAPs like me!

What difference did attending a Village College make to your life?

I was a mother and my three boys came here as students from 11 -16. They came in the ‘70s early ‘80s. And the last one as Head Boy which was rather interesting

Are there any memorable incidents from your time here?

[5 MINUTES]

Oh many! (laughs) I could write a book, in fact I have started a book recording my amusing incidents in lots of the local schools ‘cause if you are on supply you could be sent to Witchford Village College but you can be sent to a small village school and um, yes I have many recollections. One of the

funniest was when I was a student teacher just at 19/ 20 that sort of age, I borrowed my Dad’s car which was a Humber Hawk… they were very big cars because my father had a leg problem- needed lots of space to get I the car. And when I drew up outside the staff room in 1959 the senior mistress Dolly Partridge said “Good God! The inspectors are here!” and I was at the other end of the spectrum because I was only a student teacher ! But arriving by car in those days was quite something as a lot of the staff just came on the busses in from the villages or biked across Grunty Fen and got here by bike.

What did you do after you left the Village College?

I got a full time job at Cromwell which is just down the road at Chatteris. And I taught there mainly Maths until I had the family and I had three boys in the ‘60s.

Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your time at the Village College?

I would like to say that my three boys are very contrasted in character and the head teacher who became Warden; Ernie Middleton, who was here for a number of years- he catered for each of them individually. You know, one was quite bright, and one hated school but they found suitable subjects for them to take – the old O’Level in those days, or CSEs. They treated each child individually and I think that’s great. Because when you’ve got a class of 30 it’s so easy to assume that they’re all very much the same.

Is there anything else that you would like to say?

Yes I would like to fly the flag for Witchford Village College because it was frowned upon when it was opened in Nissen Huts. And a lot of the wealthy people said “Ugh Witchford! Think of what they’ve got at Chatteris, think what they’ve got at March” which was part of the old Isle of Ely. But I’ve always flown the flag for Witchford so I was delighted to be invited this morning to chat to you about my memories of Witchford Village College.

You said you were a student teacher, were there any specific subjects that you taught?

Yes I trained for Maths and Music. And the music teacher here in the ‘50s lived way out at Erith, beyond the Bedfords and he caught a bus in Erith to Ely every morning and then he got a lift from Ely out to Witchford. You couldn’t do that now because there’s no public transport linking Ely with St Ives.

Did you ever meet Henry Morris yourself?

No, no I didn’t. He was the Chief Education officer of the old Cambridgeshire. And it was his idea, as I mentioned earlier, to form a community catering for toddlers, OAPs with clubs and so on. But one of my Grandchildren got a Henry Morris bursary which are still available for people from Soham Village College or from Witchford Village College which helps them- it’s a financial bursary which helps to pay for exciting things that they want to do. And my Grandson did the North Norfolk walk and camped for five nights in and around the bulge of Norfolk and got a bursary towards the cost of that. So yes, he is a great name in Education.

Do you have any friends that you still keep in contact from your days of teaching here?

Yes, Yes I do. You see a lot of them have died off because I’m 80 so my heads of department and people who were older than me are now no longer with us. But I read in the paper recently that bett Palmer who used to do PE here and her colleague Roy Carter – they did PE, not that I did PE but they

were here when I taught in supply, that the two men who were art specialists; Murray and McPherson, they have only retired in the last ten years.

You said that it was quite a small school back then, has the number of pupils increased a lot do you think?

Oh yes, because you see – someone kept mentioning Little Downham? Well that was foreign parts in the early days… and with not having Sutton it was basically around Grunty Fen, I don’t know if you know the geography of Grunty Fen? You’ve got the two ridges; Witchford and Ely along that ridge and Sutton here. And then you’ve got Haddenham, Wilburton, Streatham, Little Thetford. So you had Haddenham, Wilburton, Little Thetford 11 year olds and then Little Downham went to old Littleport Secondary School. So there was only about 200 on the roll when I was a student. Which was a very small Secondary School. But of course it has blossomed out because by adding Mepal and Sutton you’ve now got choice; you can now choose to come to Witchford Village College. So yes the role has changed enormously.

[10 MINUTES]

And of course in the ‘50s many of the dads were farm labourers and they hadn’t much money. It was quite poverty (sic) in the ‘50s, you know. You ask your Grandparents about the ‘50s they’ll tell you we’d just recovered from the War and there wasn’t much. Uniforms cost a lot of money whereas a Granny could knit a sweater for you.

Coming back today and looking at the college, do you think it’s changed much?

Ah, as I mentioned earlier we had the tower block and then the corridor that went in that direction and now of course the college is expanded across the fields, as it were. And it’s a much bigger complex. And you’ve got smart uniform and you’ve got people- very few of the dads now work on the land. You’ve got a more affluent parentage. You’ve got a more affluent incoime group who are sending their children here. And it is very popular as a Secondary Education pool.

Can you tell us anymore about the reception of Witchford Village College?

Well as I mentioned earlier, you see, Chatteris in 1939 had had this wonderful brick built college which is on the left as you go into Chatteris. So the Chatteris people- they’d got this grand looking place to go to. Well the councillors here, they felt that they wanted a secondary education. It was Butler’s Education Act in 1944 said that children should have a secondary education and not be kept at the village school until they were 14. So they hit on the idea that economically in the ‘50s they could use the existing buildings here left over from RAF Witchford- you probably know that the other side of the road there’s the RAF Museum of people who were stationed here at Witchford. And it was an economic plan to make use of what they had. But the richer farmers could afford to send their children to King’s which was fee-paying and is still a fee-paying place. The middle class people were shipped off to a school called The Shrubbery in Cambridge which was fee-paying but not as expensive as King’s, and then everybody that was left was told to come to Witchford Village

College. Well, as I said earlier, people felt that this part of the Isle of Ely was not being well looked after. You know, we’d only got Nissen huts and a very muddy sort of area for Games. And So I always feel that Witchford Village College got off to a bad start. Through no fault of its own. Because the staff were very dedicated- Mr Dobson who came from teaching in Ely he was the Head and Mr Wenster who lived at Wilburton- he was appointed Deputy. And I mentioned Dolly Partridge, she was Senior Mistress for the women. And they really did care about the children that they were looking after. But there’s a snobbery isn’t there about where people live and there was a snobbery about property of educational establishments.