For some reason, the short period of junior schooldays in Woolwich came into my mind the other day. From this site, I learn that the school I attended in the early 1950s was one of the original London School board establishments. I remember it for two things, the AJS & Matchless motorcycle factory next door, and a formative schoolmaster, Mr Punton. I was already good at reading, thanks to pre-school introduction to letters from my mother, but he honed my spelling ability. I remember regular lessons in which the class was divided into teams ("lions" and "elephants", if I recall correctly) and competed in spelling correctly the words he read out.
After school, I would spend too long gazing into the windows of Sidney Ross's toy emporium at the corner of Burrage Road and the main road, before catching the bus home.
I went back twenty years later. The trams had long gone, as well as the school and the factory replaced by flats or maisonettes. Muslin's, the little tailor's shop and home of one of my classmates in Plumstead Common Road had also disappeared, but I was glad to see that the family business of another classmate continued to thrive.
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