Shirley Baker

That's so nostalgic!
I had a supply teaching job in a Sec. Mod. school in that area in, I think 1960-61. At that time there were still several streets standing, and I remember a factory chimney near to the school.
The children were very well behaved ( I was unexperienced and naive, so grateful for that.)
I had to teach them all subjects! Very few text books, and I used to prepare my own maths problems the night before. Sometimes I had the wrong answer, and some of the bright ones corrected me. There were a few very gifted children, but with that background, and level of education, they had a struggle to get anywhere.
About 30-40 in the class too.

Was talking on another forum about falling standards in schools [my daughter is about to leave teaching, which she loves because she's fed up of teaching kids that have no desire to learn anything]. We seemed to crave education and knowledge back then to improve our lives; it never crossed our minds to do nothing and assume we would be celebrities. And we had such respect for our teachers. [am I imagining a world that never really existed??]

I looked at these photographs. I thought the terraces I grew up in were grim, but I can't remember them being as grim as that. There were some back to backs on one side of our street, and I remember they were very cramped inside and shared outside toilets. Although we had a "two up, two down" at least we had our own toilet, even if it was outside and froze up in the winter! No bathroom. We were always in and out of each other's houses; everyone in the street knew each other and no-one had a lot but I can't ever remember going into a house that wasn't clean and warm. We went to school clean, fed and, as I remember, most of us keen to learn, and woe betide anyone whose bad behaviour elicited a beating, followed by a note to parents. We liked and respected (most of) our teachers, and revered our headmaster. Our parents wanted us to do better than they did, and I think most of us did. There is a park where our street used to be, and a tree on almost the spot where our house was. We didn't even have a garden. I found an old photograph of our street in a book, with our house on it in its sooty terraced row. I showed it to my children. They were shocked.

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/oct/08/laughter-in-the-slums-the-best-work-of-street-photographer-shirley-baker-in-pictures

I couldn't get any of that to work, so googled her. Her pictures are full of life, aren't they.