Ryeish Green School – Spencers Wood Local History Group

Summer Outings

Early on in the 1900s, children didn’t have many outings, but tended to go to local places that were easily accessed. The Library School children went to Grazeley in 1906 as the school treat. The Band of Hope had an outing in 1903 to Oxford when the whole school closed.

According to Rita Goodall who was a teacher from 1985 to 2000 and wrote a piece in our Lambs Lane History, one summer’s day, in 1978, the juniors were invited as part of ‘rent-a-crowd’ to welcome Prince Charles to Wellington Country Park. He visited to open the Dairy Museum. After lining the route, the children were free to wander the Park. One group were speechless when Prince Charles came over to speak to them when he saw them in the woods. Between 1920 and 1939, there were many school outings and the children once went to Bognor, in 1930, by motors which were probably charabancs. In the 1950s, coaches belonging to Smith’s took the children to places like Hayling Island, Southsea, or Brighton and sometimes to London. In 1958, one class went to Portsmouth Dockyard to look over The Victory. Some lucky children were taken to the Palace Theatre in Oxford to watch a ballet.

Ryeish Green School also had outings to London and they were taken to and from Reading Station by wagons and carts where there were two compartments reserved for them by the Great Western Railway. Their exhausting trip took in Charing Cross, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Hall and Bridge, Science Museum, Embankment, Colonial Institute, Albert Museum and back to Paddington.

In Our Village of Spencers Wood, Elaine Stobo recalls a Sunday School outing to Frensham Ponds in around 1952, for a picnic. Rev Lewarne was the vicar who accompanied them. There was panic on congregating to return home the only person missing was Rev Lewarne. Nobody knew where he was and one coach load of children returned alone with the younger children on board. Mr Lewarne eventually turned up an hour late. Marion Pyke said that the water was orange, probably from some iron content and that the children’s legs were stained with it. Marion suspects that the public is not allowed into the water these days. Notice from the photo that the girls tucked their dresses into their knickers as they were apt to do in those days!

Margaret Bampton. The above was taken from our history books.

The day dawned bright on the Saturday morning of the Memorial Service. We had done everything we could to advertise the event. We had put notices up in all of the village communal places – Spencers Wood, Three Mile Cross and Swallowfield Post offices; Spencers Wood and Swallowfield Village Hall and lastly St Michaels & All Angels Church. We had put an article in Loddon Reach (twice!). We had also written to the Reading Chronicle and they had published an article about the Memorial Service.

Where some of us were still in contact with ex-teachers and pupils from Ryeish Green School, we had used word of mouth to publicise the service … but nonetheless we were still anxious – Was that enough? Would anyone actually turn up? Would we be faced with an empty Church?

We should not have worried. Over fifty of Ryeish Green’s ex-teachers and pupils arrived in the sparkling sunshine. They welcomed each other warmly and the service began with the Reverend Beatrice Pearson leading.

She commenced with talking of Memories , and we sang “All things Bright and Beautiful”.

William Mearns - Student at Ryeish Green — William Mearns – Student at Ryeish Green

Jeannie Brice from our Spencers Wood Local History Group then read out a poem called “God’s Lent Child”. The feedback was so warm that we have taken the liberty of reproducing it here, in full.

Simon Coster Student at Ryeish Green School (28.9.81 - 24.4.97) — Simon Coster
Student at Ryeish Green School
(28.9.81 – 24.4.97)

God’s Lent Child

I’ll lend you for a little while, a child of mine, God said
For you to love the while he lives and mourn for when he’s dead.
It may be six or seven years, or forty-two or three
But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for me?

He’ll bring his charms to gladden you and should his stay be brief
You’ll always have his memories as a solace in your grief.
I cannot promise he will stay, since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught below I want this child to learn.

I’ve looked this whole world over in my search for teachers true
And from the folk that crowd Life’s lane I have chosen you.

Gail Tildsley - Student at Ryeish Green School — Gail Tildsley – Student at Ryeish Green School

Now will you give him all your love and not think the labour vain,
Nor hate me when I come to take this lent child back again?

I fancy that I heard them say “Dear God, thy will be done.
For all the joys this child will bring the risk of grief we’ll run.

Robert Jones (1978-1993) - Student at Ryeish Green School — Robert Jones (1978-1993) – Student at Ryeish Green School

We will shelter him with tenderness, we’ll love him while we may
And for all the happiness we’ve ever known, we’ll ever grateful stay.
But should the angels call him much sooner than we’d planned
We will brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.

~ Author Unknown

Beatrice then said a little about the children of Ryeish Green and we remembered each of them one by one –

Gail Tildesley, John Taylor, Lorraine Denton, William Mearns, Simon Coster and Robert Jones.

We also remembered the teachers Richard Turner and Maureen Galloway.

Richard Turner (teacher at Ryeish Green School)

All of them will have memorials in the churchyard.

Margaret Bampton, from the History group, then read from the New English Bible. An extract from The Gospel according to St Mark, chapter 10, verses 14-1: “He said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not try to stop them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you,

Chair built by pupils of Maureen Galloway

whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like child, will never enter it.” And he put his arms around them, laid his hands upon them, and blessed them.”

Beatrice then completed the service with an Address and the Lord’s Prayer, before we sang “Give me oil in my lamp”, and we all left the church for her to bless the actual plaques, and a plant of remembrance was placed.

Our group would like extend their gratitude, although many people have supported making the service possible, in particular to Lesley Somerville, David Maloney, Anne Luckhurst, John Veale, the ex-pupils who came, those from the resource centre, and of course the Reverend Beatrice Pearson.

Thank You.