Juliet PhillipsNorth West
A group of primary school classmates have reunited at their old school after 75 years.
Urmston Primary School in Manchester’s class of 1950 travelled from all over the world to meet face-to-face for the first time since they left.
The now 86-year-olds, who first reconnected on video calls, reminisced about their school days, from playground scars to street parties marking the end of World War Two.
The group, who started school in 1944, also recalled their memories of wartime Britain to the school’s current year six class, including being caned as a punishment for breaking a window.
Colin Brown told North West Tonight: “We’ve had a Google meet for the last two or three years now but I’ve never seen any of them live for the past 75 years.
“All the women look younger than I remember!”
Elizabeth Myers, who came from Canada for the reunion, said it was “exciting” to be back at her old school.
She said: “Even the noise in the playground rang memories for me.”
She said one of her most vivid memories was how she got a scar on her head.
“We used to play a game called ‘curb or wall’ and we ran back and forward from a wall and on the way back I couldn’t stop and I ran straight into the wall and cut my head.
“I had to go to Park Hospital.”
She added: “We started [school] when [World War Two] was still on but gradually as everything stopped eventually we all had VE Day and parties in the street and things just got better and better.
“We had a wonderful life at school in those days before 1950 when we left.”
The group shared their wartime memories with today’s year six students, including how Manchester City shared their old Maine Road ground with Manchester United after Old Trafford suffered bomb damage.
One of the questions from the pupils highlighted how different school was in their day.
When they were asked what punishment they got when they were naughty, one of the older group told them: “We broke the window and we had to go see the headmaster.
“My excuse was ‘he broke more pieces than I did’, but we still got the cane anyway!”
