Stockbridge School

Thank you to Elspeth Wallace, now living in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, for sending me the photograph above.

Elspeth wrote:

"Here is a picture taken at Stockbridge School in Hamilton Place. The photo was taken prior to me leaving in September 1939. The name of the teacher was Miss McKenzie

BACK ROW: The boy, 4th from the left in the Fair Isle sweater was Stanley Bain from St Stephen Street who went to Australia, and the blonde boy next to him, I believe was George(?) Knox."

ROW NEXT TO BACK: The 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th girls were Netta Jack (a twin), Elsie Fyfe from the Colonies and Elspeth Kennedy.

ROW NEXT TO FRONT: The 1st girls was Jean Sherriff from St Stephen Street, and the 3rd was Annette Owens.

The 6th girl (between the twins in the gym tunics) was Annie Cameron, and on the right was Netta Jack's twin, I think named Sheila."

Elspeth added:

"It was 70 years ago, so I am surprised I remember any of the names. I seem to have completely blanked out my memory of being evacuated. I don't remember leaving Edinburgh and going on the train to Inverness but do remember arriving at the house where I was to be billeted for the next six years.

I can recall very little of the school other than the fact we used slates rather than note books and I used to pick up slate pencils at a little shop on the same side of the road as the school, right next to it.

I also remember the grocer shop on the corner of Clarence and Hamilton place where we would go in and get a penny poke of brown sugar

I do remember we had a knitting class and all made a scarf and a hot water bottle cover."

Elspeth Wallace, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada: February 22+23, 2009

Recollections

Elizabeth Fraser (née Betty Simpson)

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Thank you to Elizabeth Fraser who wrote:

School

"I am in touch with Elspeth Wallace, who sent in the 1939 photo of the Hamilton Place school class, at the top of this page. Elspeth left Stockbridge school at about the same time as I arrived at the school."

Wee Sweetie Shop

"I wonder who might remember the wee sweetie shop next to the school and the old dear there. (She seemed ancient to us.)

She used to sell ha'penny bags of broken biscuits to the kids and sometime you even found a ha'penny in the the wee paper poke.

Sadly, I don't have any photographs from that time at the school."

Elizabeth Fraser (née Betty Simpson): September 17, 2009