Listen to Rita (Need help?)
I went to a school in Clive Street which was called the Nash. The real name I think was Grange National. I went there, my children went there and my grandchildren went to the school.
It's called St Paul's now, and I'm a dinner lady in the school. I started when my daughter was eleven, and I've been there thirty years. I really enjoy it.
I've always lived here and I like the community. We've got a very close community here. Maybe it's just my street, but you can knock on the door any time and you'll always get help. The only thing I don't like is that we now have a lot of druggies around here. We're doing our best to stop it. We report it all the time, but it's very worrying, especially because of the school.
When I first started as a dinner lady I used to work for two hours. I was in the juniors playground on my own with the whole of the juniors and the other lady was with the infants. Now we have about five dinner ladies, which is ideal when it's raining because we each have a class.
Quite a while back when I was working for the two hours, there was a crowd of girls sat around talking, and I was stood there - obviously I heard them. One girl said to the other one "Why are you a different colour to us? Why have you got dark skin?", and she whispered, "because I was born in the dark". I had to laugh to myself.
Another incident is - when the children ask you to go to the toilet or ask you for something, you always say "what's the magic word?" I said it this particular time. A little boy came up and instead of saying "please" he said "abracadabra". What could I say?!
your comments
WAP, Cardiff
John Davey I was on that TV programme. It was not Tinker and Taylor, it went out on HTV's magazine program filmed at the Pontcanna Studios in 1970. By that time Tinker and Taylor was already scrapped - Alan Taylor had already moved on from it. Terry Ryan is wrong on that point.
Kevin McCarthy, Dinas Powys, formerly Grangetown
I went to the Nash form 1959 - 1965. What great years they were! Made many friends through out such as Alan King, Stuart Dickie, Kenneth Davies, Wayne Smith, John Dean, John Harris, John Wilkinson, Sammy Woodward (deceased) Billy Walsh, Clive Laverick amongst the boys. What about the girls - Kathryn Stewart, Kay Cockwell, Linda Wakeley, Carol Fish, Libba Walsh, Cheryl Mardon just to name a few. As what overs have mentioned on this site I remember the cold winters especially 1963! Yeah, what time we had off school because of the frozen toilets etc. Building igloos in the street. Walking down to the Marl in mid winter freezing cold to play football with old "Pop Wright" trying to ref the games.
Terry Ryan, Grangetown
John Davey - the kids telly programme on Saturday mornings was called Tinker and Taylor, a children's TV magazine show hosted by Alan Taylor.
Jack Payne, Easton-in-Gordano, North Somerset
I attended The Nash from 1938 to 1944 when I left to attend Howard Gardens High School. The teachers in the Nash were Fred Parkin, headmaster Mr James and Mr Edwards both wore horn rimmed glasses, Miss Stewart and Miss Harry. Sschool time then was 9am to 12noon and 2pm to 4.30pm. Each classroom had an opne coal fire which supplied heat to a single radiator. Each day monitors were selected from the pupils in each class. A coal monitor who had to collect coal from the coal shed in the playground (teacher put coal on fire). A milk monitor who collected the onethird pint bottles left by the milkman and placed them around the hearth of the fire in winter to warm the milk, and the ink monitor who filled the inkwells in the desks from a large stone ink bottle. School dinners were supplied free I believe to children from exceptionally poor families. They were brought to the school by lorry in large tin boxes smelling strongly of boiled cabbage. During the war besides having to take out gas masks to school each day we also had to wear visibly a piece of ribbon - red, blue or green which depicted where we had to go in the event of an air raid. Some of the names I remember from those days Dobbin Seeward, Algie Tannetter, Donny Salter, David Jolliffe, John 0'Connor, Teddy Beavan, Graham Guppy, Chrissie Williams, Ron Pearce, Iky Andrews, Gordon and Dennis Parry, Alfie Olsen.
John Davey
Can anybody help? I recall the entire group of kids who used the adventure playground on the Marl being invited to appear on a television programme hosted by Alan Taylor. Does anyone recall the name of the programme? I have also just obtained a DVD called "Tales of old Grangetown" which has a few minutes of footage from the very early seventies/late sixties which includes a few of my old friends. I am also very keen to obtain some photos of old St Pauls.
Don Payne from Cardiff
Went to the Grangetown National School, left in 1951. Played baseball and football. St. Peters cup in baseball and played football against Radnor Road on Ninian Park drawing 0-0, would welcome any contact with team-mates
Jimmy [James] Lloyd from Grangetown
I went to Grange National. Not a brilliant pupil, use to jump over wall to mitch. I remember having the cane, we had a good baseball team,and did ok at football. I was in the class with Terry O'leary, Malcom Shave, George Thorne, the twins Grantly and Grenville Hill. Have seen a few of the class over the years and had a laugh. I would like to say hi to Sandy who by chance lives next door to my brother-in-law in Scotland. By the way I'm a taxi driver and took one of the teachers of St.Paul's school and they have still got records of former pupils there.!
Olga Sullivan
I used to live in Penhevad Street, I was 11 years old. All my friends were off to The Bishop Of Llandaff, the new comprehensive school, but we moved house and I went to secondary school in Penarth. I remember Miss Morgan and Mrs Benwell in the infants, Mr Parkin was still the Head teacher, Mr Jones, Mr Wright, Mrs Lewis and Miss Lewis taught there if I remember correctly. I remember cold winters, and the outside toilets freezing up so we had to visit either the police station or someone's house nearby to go to the loo! Judith Jenkins, who lived in Clive Street was my best friend at the time. I can also remember John Dean and John Harris as we four used to regularly swap seats depending how we all did in the weekly spelling tests. I'm about to move back to Cardiff after many years absence - I'm really looking forward to it!
Eddie Poynter
I went to Grange Council in about 1956 - does anyone remember St Fagans Street? We used to call it the flat street because everyone used to rollerskate in this street as opposed to the others because of the surface. There were literally 100s of skaters there after work or school. Memories just great.
Michael Griffiths, Stirling
I attended the "Nash" from 1949 until I left school to work in 1960. The main male teachers after head Fred Parkin were Mssrs Jones, Jenkins, James and Wright. The school dinner lady for all those years was Mrs Haggerty.It was a brilliant school to go to except that it was not technical and most of my electical technical and mathematics came from Llandaff Tech.
Natalie Common
I went to St Pauls. I remember the dinner lady and Kathrine Pitt. I wanna go back to primary school, it was so much more fun! I'm 18 now and going back to college, it's boring :-(
Terry Ryan
Hello John Davey and Graham Smith. How the devil are you? I am still in Grangetown but it's not the same. Still have very fond memories.
Vilis Kuksa (AKA Keogh)
I went to The Nash about 1960-63. Can't remember any teachers names - just some pupils - John Gainey, Jimmy Folland. We used to walk to the dinner hall in Paget Street, past the Bird in Hand public house, Dowdings fish shop and the 'bomb patch'. I lived in St Fagans Street but Clive Street was my playground.
Graham Smith from Grangetown
Went to the Nash at the same time as John Davey and Mark Jenkins. Would love to hear from either of them as i'm now living in S.E.Asia.
Gerald Escott
During the war years I attended Grange Council (the Board School) and Ninian Park. In 1946 we moved to Ely and I went to Windsor Clive until we moved back to Grangetown in 1949. I went back to the Council until we were transferred to Ninian Park. After a couple of months at Ninian Park, myself, my cousin Freddy Keeping and Billy Richards asked to be moved to the National. Billy and I played for the soccer and baseball teams during our short stay, Freddy left school December 1950 and Bill and I in Aug 1951. Our first day at the National was eventful - Bill and I were caned for dipping a girl's plaits in the inkwell!
John Davey Pontypridd
I went to St Pauls leaving in 1972 - I have so many good memories of the school. I remember Lynn Davies visiting the school after he competed in the Olympics and gave us all a small signed photo. I was the Milk monitor with Phillip Harris. I also recall we had a stunning model of the Severn Bridge in the classroom.
Mark Jenkins London
I went there in the 60's early 70's. They were happy days.
Lesley Jenkins (nee Smith) Pembrokeshire
I went to the Nash from 1950 to 1957 and then to Cathays HS. I remember some of the teachers - Mrs James, Miss Morgan, Miss Sparks, Mr James, Miss Harry, Mr Wright, Mr Jones, Mr Jenkins and of course Mr Parkin the Headmaster.
Both my Father and Mother went to the Nash as did quite a few of my cousins. Len Smith (The Veteran) is one of my cousins and I well remember him running the sweetshop in Clive Street.
Sandy (Alex)Leitch Scotland
This is by way of being an addendum. I just downloaded the java plug-in and our old house is on the panoramic pic! It's the house behind the red van number 142, and my Auntie's house is there as well, amazing. Also you can see in the old black and white pic of the National the corner of the Police Station - the cornice stone which fell on my brother's head!
Alex Leitch(Sandy) I now live in Scotland
Grangetown national School was attached to St.Paul's Church in some way. I remember playing in the tiny school playgrounds. I think I started in the infant school in about 1949 and I remember my teacher was Miss Alexandra, later I went into the 'big' school. Fred Parkin was headmaster and I remember teachers Mr James and 'Johnny' Wright. We played football in the winter and cricket and baseball in the summer. We used to live across the road, my great aunt still lives over there! This meant that the playgrounds were ours 7 days a week. I vaguely remember that there weren't any railings at first then at some stage there were! I left in 1956 and went to Cathays HS but my brother was there until he left at 15 in 1961 and of course, although I didn't go to the school any more, I still played there in the evenings and weekends. When we played cricket in the evenings in playground next to the Police Station there were, depending on numbers, between 1 and 3 boys fielding in the street! Of course the streets weren't as busy then and not that many people had cars. No computers in those days, I think we lived a healthier lifestyle, I certainly don't remember many fat kids!
Jaci Collard ( nee Trickett) from cardiff
I went to St Pauls. It was a brilliant school. Rita was my dinner lady, she is also my uncle Freddy's mother-in-law. She is a lovely lady and the best dinner lady you could wish for.
Matthew Price from Grangetown
I went to St Pauls school and Mrs Spinola is my nan. She was also my dinner lady. I totally agree about the problem with drugs - there are quite a few people in my block of flats who are on it and it smells awful. I got nothing else to say - just that I love her very much.
Katherine Pitt
I went to St Pauls and have known Rita for many years. She has lived around the street from my grandma and throws the best street parties ever.
