A FORMER Barnsley teacher has come across a 63-year-old photograph from the first time she took Barnsley children on a school trip.
It comes from a beautifully decorated and preserved scrap book which Mona Bray - Miss Hayes as she was known at the time - produced after the Barnsley Central School trip to the Lake District in August 1955.
Mona, now 86, was then just 23 and had been teaching for a couple of years, but it was the first time she had taken children on a trip, and made the scrap book to document it entirely for her own enjoyment to look back on.
“It was a wonderful trip, with some lovely children,” said Mona, who now lives in Baildon near Bradford.
“I’m sure there’s lots of the children still around in Barnsley, and it was friends of mine who said I should take it in to the Barnsley Chronicle so people can see it.”
Mona can be seen with fellow teachers Chris Johnson, a PE teacher on the back right, and next to him is Mona’s sister Kathleen Hayes, who went along to help.
Mona herself can be seen third from the left at the back.
Mona started her career at Barnsley Central School, which was on Mark Street near the town centre, where she taught science, and later had short spells at Worsbrough Dale and Wombwell Day Special Schools, before relocating to the Bradford area. She still has family in the area and visits regularly.
“I have very happy memories of Barnsley and Barnsley children,” she said.
“That trip had an impression on me, that’s why I kept the scrap book. The picture was taken at Grassmere, and we went up to Keswick.”
Headteacher at the time was Mr Green, and the deputy head was Mrs Harrison.
“I don’t know what their second names were. In those days you didn’t ask. It was just Mr Green, Even the staff didn’t know.”
Mona kept the names of all those in the picture. They are: Sylvia Whitehead, Mary Nuttall, Betty Pratt, Hazel Morris, Maureen Beverley, Janet Bedford, Norma Wood, Maureen Lewis, Howard Marshall, Geoffrey Varney, David Wright, David Storr, Brian Brown, Horace Hall, John Gooder and Brian Pursley.
