TRANSCRIBED BY SALLY WAKEFIELD MARCH 2021
MURRAY ROSE INTRODUCES THE INTERVIEW AS FOLLOWS:
“Heather Penman has been a resident of Beaminster for over 50 years and has taught in primary schools in the town for 35 years. In this time she has taught at many of Beaminster schools and has taught many Beaminster children. This interview covers her early life with some recollections of life as a teacher in Beaminster School.”
NOTE:
The recording is very poor quality and almost impossible to decipher. Below are some notes which are already with the file.
‘Heather gave a particularly personal account of her whole life out of which it is possible to see some detail of life in Beaminster Schools over the period 1950 to 1990.
She explained her early boarding school life in Ireland – in a forward looking Quaker school – followed by teacher training in England.
The war came and she was in the WAAF as a Plotter and spent time in Egypt. She met her husband before Dunkirk and was married, after the war, in Jerusalem on 22nd July, 1946 two hours before the King David’s Hotel was blown up.
Her husband, who was captured at Dunkirk, and spent the war as a prisoner of war, was, after the war sent to the Korean war where he was fatally wounded.
Heather’s family (a daughter and an adopted son) spent some time in Germany and then moved to Beaminster where they moved into Hamilton House where she has spent the last 50 years.
[00:34:27] [00:34:38] [00:34:42] [00:34:44]
She was invited to teach in Beaminster, and she taught at primary schools for the next 35 years – at Beaminster’s Primary (now Hamilton Court), Beaminster Girls School (now a private house opposite Hamilton House), Beaminster Boys School (East Street) and, finally, at the new St. Mary’s School.
Describing individual events at these schools, in particular the difficulties in East Street and the move to St. Mary’s, gives a feeling for schooling in those times.
The account is very much a personal account of primary school teaching over the last 40 years; it is not a study of educational policy or a record of the school staff during that period.