JERICHO ECHO ARTICLE
December 1980
Sixty to seventy years ago most Barney children went to school at the age of three. There was no separate nursery department, and as far as I can remember we settled down immediately to formal education. The infants' head teacher was a tall aristocratic-looking lady named Miss Spry and other teachers easy to recall were the Misses Johnson, Packford, Forty and the two Brucker sisters. Married women teachers were almost unknown in those days.
Miss Marion Brucker, the younger of the two sisters, was a well-known local tennis player, winning the Oxford Mail challenge cup on at least one occasion and later on she became head teacher of the school. Later still, on retirement from teaching, she married, but when I saw her a few weeks ago she looked as young as ever and very easy to recognise. At the age of seven we graduated to the "big" boys' school, to "standard one", and to a certain Miss Coles, a lady who gave many years of devoted service to the school. The Head was Mr. Richard Neve, a well-loved man and one of Oxford's famous head teachers. I shall never forget his retirement presentation in the early Thirties when the school playground was packed with people eager to show respect and gratitude to a very popular figure.
Two lady teachers I remember especially were Miss Wilson and Miss Dunn. I am sure the latter was what romantic novelists would have called "a raven-haired beauty". I certainly thought she was beautiful. Mr. Neve's first lieutenant was Mr. Harry Miles who succeeded to the headship on "Dicky's" retirement. "Milky" had a distinguished war record and was a real fitness fanatic. Many of our P.T. (now P.E.) lessons were taken running and marching in the streets around the school. Traffic presented few problems, since the only hazards we were likely to meet were an occasional cyclist, the odd horse and cart, or Mr. "Fishy" ' Faulkner trundling his wares of fish, fruit and vegetables round Jericho in his hand cart.
Great Clarendon Street was our Olympic stadium but there were few signs of running shoes or athletic vests and shorts. Many families were desparately poor and, although I never saw any bare-footed Ovetts, it was not uncommon to see boys wearing studless football boots to school, until such time as their only pair of ordinary boots were repaired, probably by a Mr. Pearson, a big, kindly ex-policeman who lived in Cranham Street but had his workshop at the bottom of Richmond Road. He had two most attractive daughters. I wonder where they are now?