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Timeline:
1962-1965 Mandalay Primary School 1965-1969 Victoria College Preparatory School 1969-1976 Victoria College SchoolMandalay
My first school was Mandalay, which was a private school run by three ladies, Mrs I.C. Benton, Miss Peggy Scullard, and Mrs Joan Fry (who was Mrs Benton's daughter, and related to a well-known local photographer David Fry). This was along the Route de Fort, just opposite St. Luke's Church, in the days before the tunnel had been drilled through Fort Regent, and the new road built which cut through Roseville Street to go to Georgetown. There were three classrooms, each with a different year (ages 4, 5 and 6), and was one of the main "feeder" schools for Victoria College Preparatory School. It had taken girls, but at the time I went there, it was boys only. Uniform was grey trousers, a smart blazer with a M stitched on the pocket, and black shoes; a satchel was the means of carrying homework. Occasionally, Mrs Fry's daughter, Miss Fry, would take a lesson and this would normally be a treat - such as learning about, drawing and colouring volcanoes, and hearing about Pompei. Normally lessons were run on more traditional lines - reading, writing, and arithmetic (up to long multiplication and division). Tables were chanted rote fashion to learn them. Physical training (P.T.) as it was called, took place up at the gymnasium at Snow Hill, on Thursday afternoons, where Ken Webb was in charge. There was a school play by the third year, Snow White, but having missed most of a term with mumps, I had the part of the Magic Mirror. Milk came in quarter bottles, with a straw, at breaktime, and we also had the run of Mrs Benton's grounds, but were warned severely against pinching any fruit from her plum and apple trees. When I had mumps, my mother took me to the doctor, who diagnosed it as "only a heat rash". It was a few days before school noticed, and rang home, by which time I had infected about a third of the class! While I was off sick, my father set me additions and subtractions to work through, and this was duly sent back to school. The teacher commented on the sheets that his handwriting could be improved! Another incident that I remember vividly is when my father crashed his car into Mrs Fry's Hillman Imp. She was not amused!
Now see what happened at Victoria College Prep.