A TOWN & COUNTRY MISCELLANY - PART I


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CLICK HERE FOR A NOSTALGIC GLIMPSE OF THE
OPENING TITLES TO "NOTRE VILLE" A CURIOUS TV FRENCH SERIES

La Cigale La Cigale, ayant chanté
Tout l'été
Se trouva fort dépourvue
Quand la bise fut venue:
Pas un seul petit morceau
De mouche ou de vermisseau.
Elle alla crier famine
Chez la Fourmi sa voisine,
La priant de lui prêter
Quelque grain pour subsister
Jusqu'à la saison nouvelle.
Je vous paierai, lui dit-elle,
Avant l'août, foi d'animal,
Intérêt et principal.
La Fourmi n'est pas prêteuse:
C'est là son moindre défaut.
Que faisiez-vous au temps chaud?
Dit-elle à cette emprunteuse.
Nuit et jour à tout venant
Je chantais, ne vous déplaise.
Vous chantiez? j'en suis fort aise:
Eh bien! dansez maintenant.
et
La Fourmi


Woodgate Cottage, Beckley (Near Rye), Sussex
The home of Jean Bennett, our inspirational English Teacher,
we often spent a wonderful weekend there, and it is where,
amonst other things I developed a lifetime liking for
Earl Grey & Lapsang Souchon Tea!
This is a recent picture, and does not show the original thatch
also the small porch is a new addition
(see Jean on step elsewhere on this site)



Mr K J Johnson's (Geography) old college featured in this recorded show
to which we were kindly invited.
Visits to the Paris Studios became a regular with some of us boarders



Page from my Geography Excersise Book from my time in Mrs Bevan's (Junior House) Class (Lower fourth)


The boys particularly, will need no explanation for the inclusion of these items!


Swiss Cottage seemed cosmopolitan and glamorous.
There was a shop on the corner of Goldhurst Terrace that sold nothing but coffee;
the smell of roasting coffee beans started outside the Dorice Restaurant (gullasch, nockerl, Wiener Gugelhupf)
and drifted across the entrance of the old swimming pool/gym and down into Finchley Road tube station.
Outside the match-seller who stood at it’s entrance year after year. There were delicatessens and patisseries.
Most impressive of all, there was John Barnes, a branch of the John Lewis Partnership. No doubt it was called John Barnes after some dignified draper.
On the North side of Finchley Road, next door to the latest in fast foods The Golden Egg (opened by none other than Roger Moore),
was ‘Toys Toys Toys’ - a source of many of the latest fads such as Jetex fuses to be let off in the playground,
time-delay handgrenades which fired off caps very loudly on the teachers’ desk
after they were intentionally confiscated, and Potty Putty.


Ugly German Text Book


A peek inside cover


Swiss Cottage seemed cosmopolitan and glamorous.
There was a shop on the corner of Goldhurst Terrace that sold nothing but coffee;
the smell of roasting coffee beans started outside the Dorice Restaurant (gullasch, nockerl, Wiener Gugelhupf)
and drifted across the entrance of the old swimming pool/gym and down into Finchley Road tube station.
Outside the match-seller who stood at it’s entrance year after year. There were delicatessens and patisseries.
Most impressive of all, there was John Barnes, a branch of the John Lewis Partnership. No doubt it was called John Barnes after some dignified draper. On the North side of Finchley Road, next door to the latest in fast foods The Golden Egg (opened by none other than Roger Moore), was ‘Toys Toys Toys’ - a source of many of the latest fads such as Jetex fuses to be let off in the playground, time-delay handgrenades which were obtrusively played with in order to get them deliberately confiscatedwhich, after a few minutes they fired off caps very loudly on the teachers’ desk.Then there was Potty Putty, and Slinky, a large metal spring that could 'walk' downstairs




Ugly German Text Book


A peek inside the cover


Textbook from the school's country section circa 1945-49


Another Text Book

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