Battersea Central School for Boys

Rowlands Castle Reunion

14th. July 2001

Sixty years ago they were young children, mostly boys although some girls accompanied their older brothers, but on Saturday 14th. July, while the Village Fayre occupied The Green, the same persons, now pensioners returned to where they had their secondary education. Once they carried satchels and gas masks now it was a camera hanging round the neck. Walking sticks, spectacles, and hearing aids indicated the nuisances of passing years but the same searching eyes looked for the inevitable changes of six decades.

Battersea Central School was evacuated on 1st. September 1939; the girls going to Petersfield, while the boys split, one third to Hawkley, the remainder to Rowlands Castle. The Hawkley group has been gathering annually for several years and the B.C.S. girls can boast of reunions for over half a century. Only a few of the original London children attended this first reunion at Rowlands Castle, the rest being boys who had lived in the vicinity: Petersfield, Horndean, Havant and Finchdean.

 

Now in mid July 2001 on a bright, sunny day, twenty ex-pupils who had shared classrooms arrived, many wondering if they would be recognised with their receding hairlines and generous waists. Clive Hancock provided a room in the Robin Hood - the Railway Inn of previous times - and as the group, now swollen to about sixty with the addition of interested villagers, spouses and partners gathered, greetings were made, memories shared and embarrassing anecdotes circulated. B.C.S. pupils recalled that in the two rooms above them in the pub, they were taught Mathematics and Art. There had been classrooms elsewhere: one at the Fountain Inn, two in St. John's Hall, a similar number in the Parish Hall and lunches were taken in the hall of the Congregational Chapel, now the Church on The Green. The 'Rec.' was used for games but 'just across the road' and not hidden as it is today.

 

Ted Redsull's remarkable exhibition conveniently adjacent to the Robin Hood, included photographs reassuring the ex-pupils that the village was as they had remembered it.... a tailor's shop, post office, and Charlie Royals bakery where buns were bought for break times. Also on Ted's display boards were some of the school's memorabilia...dated photographs, faded reports and the nicknames of teachers. Of equal interest were visual and written village records so that locals shared their knowledge with visitors and Paul Marshman was on hand to confirm historical facts.

 

There are pleas for another BCS reunion next year and to coincide with the Rowlands Castle Association's Village Fayre for it was this event which added to the ex-pupils return visit. On this special day for the village residents, many remembered the evacuees billeted with their parents, relatives, or neighbours. Mrs. Skinner of Castle Road had evacuees living with her and Mr. Ling; the Headmaster of BCS resided next door. Mrs. Millson, Mr. Ling's daughter, has kept in touch with many former pupils and only a family commitment prevented her from attending the reunion.

 

As one 'old boy' expressed it", quite a sizeable chunk of my life was spent in Rowlands Castle and influenced by the environment and folk there besides the school, all of which I hold in warm regard". Such were the thoughts of the 'Battersea pupils' as they headed homewards to Oxford, Suffolk, Kent, Berkshire, and Northants, Sussex, Devon and other places