Here are a few junior school photographs as secondary evidence of art in education in the late 1950's / early 1960's. Creative lessons in basketry, pottery, needlecrafts and dress-making, show how it was before Acton merged into the London borough of Ealing as well as before the Greater London Council was abolished.
The pride of arts and crafts is evident in the grand display of pupils' work. I can remember making a doll at Rothschild school, it was a great feeling creating a toy doll, with my own choice of colour for her hair and eyes. In the mid/late 1960's every child learned how to thread a needle and sew.
Image:
Hi Jump
Rothschild School Sports Day
Time was also dedicated to sports, acting and even milk time!
Free milk for primary school children continued until 1980, it had been also been available for secondary schools but this was stopped in 1968.
Nowadays children are enouraged to drink more water and I'm certain that all schools still have water fountains in the playground. I can recall when the water fountains couldn't be used, because the water was 'tainted'. I'm not certain but I think it was due to the water pipes not being safe for channeling drinking water. Probably due to lead pipes or lead soldering.
I wonder if milk ever comes back into schools, would it be soya?
Image:
Is this Liverpool Victoria sports ground or Old Actonians, on Acton Hill?
Perhaps it's somewhere else, if you went to Rothschild School in Acton Green in the 1950's early 1960's can you remember where sports day was?
Rothschilds school moved from Rothschilds Road onto the Acton Lane site and was renamed 'Acton Green First & Middle School'. Today there is no school in this part of the Ealing borough even though residential properties have increased in number.
During the 1960's light engineering and laundries offered local employment opportunities within the Acton Green and South Acton districts of what was once the Borough of Acton . By the 1980's most of the laundries had gone from the area, I can recall the laundry in Rothschild Road, called Advance Laundry. I can also remember that it had a very tall chimney,
The photograph below could be a scaled down model of what is now Chiswick roundabout, before the elevated section was built. People started to become more affluent, affording to buy motor cars and motorways were in the process of becoming. No doubt they helped create a less congested connection from West London to Heathrow airport and the centre of London.
Where do you think this model is?
Perhaps you know someone in the picture.
Please contact me* if you'd like to add any photographs, you will be credited for them
Isabella Wesoly (that's me) can be contacted via Facebook.
Here's the last blast from the past!
Until the next time I blog on Rothschild School in Acton Green, West London.
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