Did anyone else out there go to Mary Dean's Infants & Junior at Tamerton Foliot?

Tamerton was still very much a village in 1953 (some time before the Southway estate was started).

In 1952 I took what was then called the Scholarship at the age of nine at Montpelier Primary School in Beacon Park. At that time boys either passed A, in which case a very few went to Plymouth College and the remainder to DHS or Sutton, or B which meant Public Secondary or Tamar. Girls who passed A went to DHS or Plymouth High or Stoke Damerel, and the B girls went to Public Secondary. Everyone who failed and couldn't afford a Private school went to Secondary Moderns and were never heard of again.

I'm not sure that those who went to the Sec. Moderns were never heard of again. What about Angela Rippon ?, she went to Public Sec. at the same time as my youngest sister and I'm quite sure that many of the "B" children have done well.

John Stanyon wrote:
I'm not sure that those who went to the Sec. Moderns were never heard of again. What about Angela Rippon ?, she went to Public Sec. at the same time as my youngest sister and I'm quite sure that many of the "B" children have done well.

Hi John,

But Public Sec was a B school where girls who PASSED the Scholarship went - albeit one down from the High Schools. No, I must admit that I was being unkindly and totally snobbishly and unnecessarily rude about the Secondary Moderns and their inmates.

However, let's face it, we were encouraged at inter-school dances and the like to learn all about girls and their wants - but our research material was restricted to the damsels that attended DHS, PHS, Stoke Damerel, St Dunstan's and Notre Dame only.

Did the delectable Angela Rippon really attend Public Sec?

Montpelier Junior (Beacon Park) in 1969, along with a few others. Only names i can recall at this time are Alan Mayes, David Cockram and Paul Hunkin. No idea what any of those are now doing.

Hi Tone, good to see you here again. If I'm not mistaken Paul Yiend, Malcolm Hayhurst, Roger Henwood, Ric Williams and Richard Hill from our year were also at Montpelier. I think I saw a couple of them on Friends Reunited.

Hope all's well with you.

I was hoping that we would see a reply from a pupil who came from outwith Plymouth, so far everyone who has responded has come from Plymouth or Devonport Primary Schools, is there anybody out there who can shed some light on the pupils past or present who have come from or are from the larger catchment area ? Perhaps some village school way out west!!!

John Stanyon wrote:
I was hoping that we would see a reply from a pupil who came from outwith Plymouth, so far everyone who has responded has come from Plymouth or Devonport Primary Schools, is there anybody out there who can shed some light on the pupils past or present who have come from or are from the larger catchment area ? Perhaps some village school way out west!!!

"Outwith" What a descriptive word - and one which is totally new to me. Anyway back in the Middle Ages when I was young and we had our own school creek I never met anyone who attended DHS from any further away than Tamerton Foliot. Certainly nobody came across the Tamar and, out to the East, clever country-dwellers from beyond the City limits (Laira?) went to Plympton Grammar (or was it Plympton High?).

"Outwith" is of course the Scottish word for outside, glad that you find it descriptive, there are other words used up here which may be thought to be strange, such as "clerkess" for a female clerk although it is not used often. Enough of the English/Scottish language lesson though, I think you are correct about the catchment area in the 40s/50s but then the size of the school was less than half the size it is today. Also in those days I believe there was a Grammar School at Saltash and at Plympton, was there another at Torpoint?. I don't remember there being a Plymouth High School for Boys.

In reply to the question regarding Angela Rippon attending Public Secondary Girls, I've checked with my sister and she confirms that she was there during her stay which would be the late 50s early 60s, my sister is 65 years young.