THE other day a gentleman called Alan Sier dropped into our office with an old photograph of the Class of 1935 at St George’s Lane CE School, Worcester.

I first met Alan a few years back when I wrote about his involvement with the Air Training Corps in the city and this time he came prepared.

He had written down a few words about what it was like for a young lad growing up in that part of Worcester in the 1930s and 40s and life at one of Worcester’s oldest primary schools.

St George’s began life in 1839 in a cowshed, which had been converted into two schoolrooms by the Rev James Tyrwhitt, the first curate of St George’s Chapel of Ease. There followed a major conversion and extension in 1874 and a new infants school in 1911.

More work was done in the 1950s before in the 1980s St George’s survived plans to merge it with St Barnabas. But by then the childhood of young Alan Sier had long gone.

He wrote: “I was born at 17, Pheasant Street, Worcester on January 5, 1927. My mother lived with my grandad and grandma because my dad was serving with the army in the Black Watch, a Scottish regiment.

"When he left the army we moved to 12 St George’s Lane. This block of houses has long been demolished. Across the road was and apple tree field and the milkman’s horse stables.

“I started St George’s CE School and went there until I was 11. In those days there was staircase to an upstairs class room and the headmaster’s office. He was 'Boss Brotherton'.

A lot less town and a lot more countryside

"Each day we each had one third of a pint of milk, which cost mom two and a half pence a week. A side street was Henry Street with a sweet shop which sold five caramels for half a penny.

“St George’s Laundry was across the road from the school. The Armstrong family ran the laundry. At that time my mother was in charge of a section and after school I always went there and the ladies working on the big washing machines. Also the old ladies washing socks in tubs.

"The boiler house was in the yard. I spent my time with the boiler man and helped him. It was nice and warm there. Also about this time I joined St George’s church choir. Sometimes at weddings we got sixpence for singing.

“We played around the lamp post by Cooper’s shop and on the marl banks at Merriman’s Hill. We had a football and a cricket pitch and we also fished in a pond at the end of the horse rails leading to the brick yard. The lads in the area had a rule to join them. You had to jump the canal locks full and empty. I grew up in a great area.

“On Saturdays we all enjoyed football at the St George’s Lane ground. All schools had their sports finals day on the ground and we also had boxing and other activities there.

"But it’s all houses now on the site. I had to laugh when I read about the city council rejecting a city football ground at Perdiswell because of the canal. I was in the ATC and we learned to fly with the RAF at Perdiswell.

"In 1942 we had no time to think of a canal running alongside the air field. I think the council should wake up and get the City Football Club back home.”