Wigan Album
Park Lane Unitarian School, Ashton
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Photo: Margaret Prior
Item #: 306
Back Row L/R: Headmaster John Hampton-Graves, Vincent Jones, Sylvia Beckett, Edith Fairhurst, Dennis Frodsham.
Middle Row: John Woodcock, Myles Frodsham, Phillip Speakman, Billy Dowling, Ronnie Cunliffe, Ken Chadwick, Ken Wadsworth.
Front Row: Elsie Broom, Jean Dowling, Joan Vincent, June Evans, Betty Gorner, Marian Derbyshire.
I went to Park Lane school from 1953 to 1959 and can confirm that Mr. Graves first name was George.
Both my brother and I attended Park Lane as did our Grandmother her brothers and sisters, my mother and her brothers and sisters. I attend from 1950 to 1956. Me Graves who I always believed was named John Hampton was affectionately kown as 'Papa' but heaven help you if he heard you. Mostly it was the boys who called him that. I remember great Christmas parties with Laurel and Hardy films and party bags to take away. Roaring coal fires in the classrooms in wintertime and set stocking drying on the fireguards. I remember the Nature Table and listening to stories of Black Beauty, uncle Tom's Cabin and the Water Babies on Friday afternoons. To me Park Lane was the best school ever.