Happy Memories of Helmdon School

contributed by
The Rt Revd Dr Michael Ipgrave
Bishop of Lichfield

I have very happy memories of my primary school years, which must have started only a little short of sixty years ago. Living in the school house next door, of course I knew the place well, and could hop over the low wall from our back garden to go to see my dad after school hours, where I would find him either looking bored marking maths or looking excited devising geography lessons which involved imaginary trips to all the parts of Britain and the world he wanted to go to himself. Oddly enough, those lessons often turned out to be about places we later visited for summer holidays.

When I got to school myself, I started in Mrs Hopley’s class, and we all loved her dearly, I suppose like a substitute granny. There were only two classes in the school at that point, but about a year later the lower infants were separated out as a third class. I vividly remember the day that the children joining that new group were called out of our class; they were crying bitterly, because they had to leave their beloved Mrs Hopley to be taught by a new teacher. I remember my feeling of relief when I learned that I was not to be one of that unfortunate number – strange, really, since the new teacher who had arrived was none my mum, whom I loved even more deeply than Mrs Hopley.

A year or so later, Mrs Hopley retired and Mrs Bharali taught the second class. She made a big impression on us all: she was married to an Indian businessman; she was one of the first people to live in the newly built Shortlands Close; and she seemed to have limitless energy and good humour. I had the enormous and totally surprising joy of meeting up with her a few months ago, after a gap of 50+ years; despite many sorrows in her life, her kindness and enthusiasm still shone out.

The School in the early 70s – Picture by Will Watson.

Despite the genuinely interesting lessons which my dad and his colleagues provided for us, most of my memories of school years are extra-curricular: playtime games which involved tearing round the top and bottom playgrounds and the steps linking both on either side of the buildings; the annoyance of having my name written up on the blackboard as a member of the Chatter Club, with consequent sanctions which were in actuality mild but appeared in prospect terrifying; cricket on the school field, at which I was always a sad disappointment to my dad; but, most of all, the great annual outing to the Brackley Sports, where I developed a surprising agility in the sack race, a skill wholly untransferable to any useful area of human activity.

I think I did not realise how secure and happy I was at Helmdon School until I left, and was plunged into what seemed to be the massive, impersonal, regimented and bewildering life of what was in fact a modestly sized grammar school – MCS Brackley, with no fewer than 344 boys, all known by their surnames. Compared to that, Helmdon felt very much a family – and for me it was.

Michael Ipgrave
2020

Editor’s Note: Michael’s father, Headmaster Geoffrey Ipgrave, contributed an article to Aspects of Helmdon no:3 entitled Helmdon School – A History From School Logs 1850 – 1999.