Atherton House

When I was in reception - year 3 I went to a school called Atherton House. It was a wonderful school and it was truly a family. I loved every second of it and have many fond memories. I had my first love, my first kiss, my first friend, my first enemy, my first bully and many other fond memories. Let me talk a little bit about it and I will reveal more stories in further posts.

It was run by a women called Mrs Apel who was also the headmistress and the nicest, kindest teacher you could imagine. We had 4 main classes:- Nursery, Lower School, Middle School and Upper School.  So I started in lower school of course in reception and had a strict old cow named Mrs Hollinghurst. She was a bitch with major OCD. She would inspect our pencil tins and we had to have all the pencils facing the same direction or she'd snap. I may have called her a cow but I owe a lot to her. She was phenomenal  at teaching. She taught me to read exceptionally quickly and I raced through the books we were given to read. I developed a love of reading then that I continue to have because of her.

Now if anyone knows me who is reading this then they will know I am a complete atheist but when I was younger I was a devout Christian. I remember in Year 1 I had a teacher called Ms Tiffan (Also just to note I was still in the same class of lower school the same class as reception and year 2). She encouraged me to take part in a bible reading competition. Yes that's right a bible reading competition. Well I came first out of about 10 kids. How could I not have done? That is the moment I discovered that even though i'm very shy I am bloody good at public speaking. The only time i've ever not won in a debate or public speaking competition was last year in school. Which was probably because saying how capital punishment should be enforced with gory details doesn't go down well in a Catholic school :\

In Year 2 I was still in Lower School and had Ms Tiffan again. I will reiterate this was a small school and I will give an example of how small very soon. I could tell a million and 1 stories about reception, year 1 and 2 but I will save them for further posts.

 My last year in the school was Year 3 :(. I was looking forward to going into middle school which Mrs Crawford taught but then the Headmistress decided she was going to move the whole of year 3 into upper school instead. The reason behind that was because she wanted to teach me and my friend. So suddenly I was in the same class as the year 6's!!! Now most people would think how did Year 3,4,5 and 6 fit in 1 class? Well I'll explain.

In year 3, 4, 5 and 6 put together there were 9 people. 5 year 6's, 1 year 5, 1 year 4 and 2 year 3's. That was it. Me and my friend Michael Clayton were the only 2 people in the whole of year 3 and our friend Stanley was the only person in year 4! I said it was a small school!

It was certainly an odd class but then disaster struck. My friend in year 2 called Jordan decided he was going to move to Merchants at the end of the year. Then his best friend Joshua who was also 1 of my best friends decided he would leave to Merchant's. Of course the 5 year 6's were leaving. The year 5 left before the year was over. Then Stanley (the only guy in year 4) decided to move. Me and Micheal then decided we had no real choice but to move. I went to the mount and he went somewhere else.

That was the last proper year the school ever had. Ever since then it has been a nursery. I was in the last year of it being a school ever. If you walk past it I think it still has the original sign saying children from 4-11 but in  fact it only children from 0-3. It is sad, so very sad. I sometimes walk past it and peek through the fence to take a look. It holds so many happy memories and I wish my time there hadn't been cut so short. I mean I liked the mount but compared to Atherton it was like going to school in a pile of dog shit.

I miss Atherton and wished it still existed properly but there are more tales to be told that will be on this blog from that place.

Yours,

David