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MEMORIES OF BECKENHAM TECH circa 1941-44

By David Alston

THE SIGHT of The Studio always brings back   memories for me, a former pupil of the Beckenham Tech, which  started life  on this site   a century ago.

You probably know  something of its history, but suffice to say that what began life as Beckenham Technical Institute in 1901 carried on until 1958 before moving to Keston as Ravenswood School. 

On my first September day, as a boy of 12 in 1941  I stood on the former island  bus stop opposite The Bell Hotel in Bromley Market Square, feeling conspicuous in my new blazer,  cap and socks,  complete with brand-new satchel on my back, and boarded the Penge-bound 227 .

Excitement blended with nervousness as I saw other pupils school-bound, and memories of  that crisp morning  gathering outside the doors of the building fronting Beckenham Road  have never left me.  Apparently woodwork was on the agenda for that  (and every) Thursday, so off we were immediately shuffled to Clock House Station along the road on  the first of many train trips to Eden Park, where in the midst of a field - no Langley Park School there at that time - stood a cricket pavilion, lately transformed into a woodwork centre, presided over by Mr Yabsley, a craftsman of unparalleled skill.  (I have a bedside table still which bears witness to his ability as a teacher.)

Back to Beckenham Road for school lunch, at which I  encountered for the first time a dish known as cheese pastry. Delicious, I decided, but I became suspicious when it appeared at almost every other sitting day by day.  Being a boy of normal appetite, I devoured whatever came my way in the school dining room (the basement of the premises) and  joined the happy throng which bolted its food in order to get second helpings which were in limited supply.   There were clever ones among us. I think of  one - Peter Smith -  who  used vile descriptions to put us completely off our food, and who would then  proceed to consume ours as well as his own!

We were a class of 28,  (Alston, Burchell, Cobby, Day (Tiger), Dunn, Evans, Gooding, Haynes, Hatton, Jones, Knight, Laws, Lay, Maris, Martin, Miller, Macleod, Preuveneers, Pratt, Riley, Roffe, Shepherd, Smith, Secret, Simpson, Townsend, Keith Woods, and another Woods) all  gathered from  surrounding areas including as far out as  Farningham near Eynsford.   Roy  Dunn, a country boy with interests in ferrets, guinea pigs  and the like, never ceased to be a source of awe with  whatever he brought into class; certainly his white rat was as intelligent as any of us.  Many of us had come from local schools where we had known  others, but some like myself were not so fortunate.  However, friendships were soon made.

The Institute.

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