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THE HERALD • MID-MARCH 2019 • Tel: 01530 244069 • Email: info@markfieldherald.co.uk
More recent Bagworth eye witness history
BAGWORTH COUNTY Primary School was situated between Church Hill & School Hill in front of the churchyard.
scare everyone. For bonfire night Mr Fearnehough would tell the story of the gunpowder plot and use a paper Houses of Parliament and a trail of gunpowder. In his version Parliament always got blown up not once but twice which we found quite amusing. He would show us all the fireworks we had and explain what they did. The bonfire would be built on the site where the old primary school used to stand and some of the juniors would be allowed to help build it. Near Christmas we'd have a pantomime, which took some organising. The costumes and sets had to be made and lines had to be rehearsed and learnt. Before the performance we had a full dress rehearsal in front of the local OAPs which always went down well. We always did a popular fairytale but with added jokes and ad libs that Mr Fearnehough had written into the scripts. Also at Christmas we had a party. The infants always had a present hidden somewhere which they had to find, but the juniors had to win their presents. So, the earlier you won, the more choice of presents you had. In later years, after Battram School was demolished, their school moved to Bagworth and was sited on the ground where we had our bonfire, which didn't go down too well with us. They also had a double-roomed mobile and another large mobile came which we all used as a dinner hall and a better place for activities and, of course, our pantomimes. Just before I left Primary School in 1980 plans had started being made for the new site for a school in Nailstone, now Dove Bank. Bagworth Primary School is long gone now, but the memories are still alive in all the old pupils who attended the school.
At this time it consisted of two double-roomed mobiles, a mobile toilet block in the playground between the two mobiles, and a mobile for the kitchen. Well I say kitchen; the food came from Market Bosworth and was just loaded onto heated trolleys at Bagworth. You knew it was dinnertime when you heard trolley wheels rolling down the ramp to the side door of the mobile. At dinnertime the tables were set up in Mr Fearnehough's office side of the mobile. Each table had 3 big chairs and 5 smaller chairs. Older juniors used the bigger chairs and served the food to everyone around the table. It made you feel quite grown up. Every morning Lorna and Karen Marriott, Leigh Price and myself walked up to school, yes walked! Mrs Taylor would see everyone over the road at the bottom of Church Hill and we'd call in to the Barrel Pub owned by Johnny Riley for our supply of 1p and 2p sweets to see us through until break time. At break time Lorna and I used to run the tuck shop selling various sweets and crisps sited in the corridor between the 2 rooms. Mr Fearnehough was headmaster and taught the juniors and Mrs Sell taught the infants. Mrs Reed was school secretary and Mrs Watkins used to come in and help with the cooking and making things. We had turns at cookery and, the week before it was your turn, you had to pick a recipe and write down all the things you needed to bring from home. There were usually three people at a time for cooking. It was quite exciting when my name got to the top of the list. For sports and sports days we'd troop down to the field behind the W.M.C. which at that time was always used by the school for sports and sponsored walks. Once a week we'd go by bus to the swimming baths at Coalville which were opposite the Technical College. A block of old folks flats are there now. On the way we'd sing songs, which always ended up being silly, on the back row of the bus. At school we also had a National Savings Bank, which was run each week by Christopher Clamp, Leigh Price, Lorna Marriott and myself, as we were the oldest. We were in charge of taking everyone's savings and recording them on savings account cards and making sure everything tallied at the end of the session. Every year for Halloween Mr Fearnehough would dress up as a witch and
I woke up at the Police Station this morning with no memory of the previous night. I really need to stop drinking on duty.