Joy Hicks (Cattle)

“What comes to your mind when you think of your school days?

Taking Ali the alligator for a walk and if Ali was busy, the terrapins.

Learning to use a cartridge Parker ink pen and how neat the writing was then! Now my writing is shocking! 

Visiting Fan Court and memories of the very cold swimming pool. 

Playing teams of catch the flag. 

Having to run 800m athletics several times in the afternoon age 8!

Making fires with magnifying glasses with the Science teacher’s permissions.

The glass wall of bees in the Science lab. 

Who was your favourite teacher and why?

Mr Willcox always fair but fun and could always be diverted from teaching to talk cricket. Ray’s (Willcox) delight at Geoff Boycott’s scores (he often had a sneaky radio in class). 

Miss Pope (became Mrs Allen) helping with Maths. 

All the Andreaes but Mrs Andreae especially teaching us to cook. 

Favourite moment you remember the most?

School minibus, navy blue and getting in for day trips to the Natural History Museum and seeing the Blue Whale. 

Singing in the choir (Jacinta Barker was choir Mistress) at the choir schools competition in the South Bank’s Festival Hall. 

How do you think your school years have shaped you into the person you are today?

Gosh, can’t answer that right now! Too many memories! 

Thinking of everyone’s point of view, a moral compass, friendships, kindness and always understanding.”

“At Fan Court and moving to Claremont the first year in Middle School we raised money for two Vietnamese orphans  Bin and Ha, I think they were called. It was a charity in Woking. They came to the school to visit to explain what being a refugee was like and how our fundraising had helped them. More information can be found here.

Also in our first year at senior school in Fan Court, we went a couple of afternoons to talk and play with the children at White Lodge in Lyne near Chertsey. It’s still there. We were not very old but just went to talk and play with them so that we understood disability and to give back to society.

Charity wise all the teachers were very altruistic and would give up their times after school to help us of struggling with subjects.

I missed a lot of schooling due to eye operation and Diana Pope (now Allen) used to teach me extra maths on Saturday morning in her flat above the transition classroom and Mr Willcox used to teach maths to me after he had retired.”

“Last memory was that we had blue linoleum in the girls changing rooms  and on days it was polished. The most senior girls would teach us how to skid across the lino and it usually ended up with flying into the fire exit door which joined up with the hallway to dining room .

Punishment was always lines lines lines, writing I will not skid across the changing room floor!

And famous actors we had Benny Hill who filmed much of his shows there and teachers hope that we would all be in prep but we watched some of the filming and got his autograph he was a miserable man! James Bolam visited doing some scary drama at the end of Lyne Lane on the Fan Court gates . Everyone went down to watch the filing at night.”