St. Kenelm's C.E. Primary School, Romsley
Centenary Celebrations
1915 – 2015

Memories of Mr Clive Davies - Parent - 1969 onwards

Our association with the school goes back to March 1969 when we moved into the village. At that time we only had our first three children; Christine, Alan and a young Steven. Anne-Marie was born in 1970.

We were integrated with the school in a few different ways but we were soon very friendly with Ben Ruddick. At that time, of course, he was headmaster. In those days I was working in the power industry on a shift system which gave me lots of days off during the week. This enabled me to go on many school visits, mainly with Edna Powell who taught our children. Jean knew her as she worked with Edna's husband, John, in the insurance business.

A lot of the trips were to local places of interest, such as Dudley Zoo, Harvington Hall, Birmingham museums, etc. A few trips were longer, however, such as those to the York museums when we went by train from New Street with a whole carriage reserved just for us! Here we went to the National Railway Museum, the Castle folk Museum and had a picnic in the open air alongside the city wall, which we also walked all the way around.

I guess the most popular of these trips was the annual one by coach to Weston-Super-Mare. I well remember one of these days out when I was in charge of a group of about ten children, most of whom I knew or at least recognised. However, when we got back to the coach it was to find that I had lost one little girl – Sally. Mrs Powell and I went back to the pier, which is where I had last seen her, and there she was still playing on the machines. What a relief!

Another notable trip was to London; this time by coach and we all had a very good day down there. The first stop was for a picnic in St. James' Park and from there we walked to Madame Tussaud's which was a fair distance. Soon after we got inside some of the children asked me if we could go into the Chamber of Horrors. Whilst I had been to the museum previously I had not been in this particular chamber before, but I thought "Well, why not?" So in we went but after just a few seconds they put all the lights out and there we were in the dark. When the lights eventually came on again I couldn't see any of my group, but fortunately they all had their name tags on and they all managed to spot me. So in no time we were off to our next stop.

Ben Ruddick and I went on some longer trips in our cars. One of these was to Ludlow where we stayed the night in a youth hostel by the side of the river at Dinham's Bridge. We bought a street map and walked around the town visiting the castle and the parish church, one of the largest in England.

Another memorable trip with Ben was when we took a group of eight boys in our cars to Fairbourne in Wales. Here we stayed in a boarding house on the sea front from where we made numerous outings. We also had a very nice day trip out to Stokesay Castle in Shropshire when we also managed to have a look around Shrewsbury.

The one thing that I have said many times is that the behaviour of all the children attending the school in those days was impeccable. They were a real pleasure to take anywhere.