A PATH that runs beside Bratton Primary School has been named after one of its former headteachers, Miss Paige, to recognise her enormous contribution to Bratton and its community through her dedication to the lives of its children.
The school said, “Miss Page was the headteacher at Bratton Primary School from 1945 to 1967. During these years she lived in a tiny cottage in The Butts. On the day that she retired, she had been headteacher for more than half the lifetime of the school.
“In those years, she would have taught 300 or more village children, and so would have had a huge influence on the character and well-being of Bratton. Former pupils remember her now as quite strict but a nice, kind teacher.
“She seemed ancient to us,” remembered former pupil Claire. “She always wore a skirt, usually blue, a blouse and a grey cardigan. She always had a handkerchief tucked up her sleeve and had her hair in a bun. That was her signature hairstyle.”
Another former pupil, Jill, recalled, “She used to bring her dog to school every day. It was a jet-black spaniel named Bogie. It used to sit under her desk all day. She was really different in her approach to teaching. She had a big dressing-up box and we used to put on concerts and things, and I think some of the parents thought too much time was spent on that sort of thing than the actual learning.”
The school added, “Miss Page also encouraged nature studies, leading nature walks out around the village, teaching the names of all the wild flowers, bringing them back to press, draw and write about in nature diaries.”
Claire said she remembers a big nature table, “People used to bring in wild flowers, the shell of an egg after it had hatched, and fossils were another thing that we used to find.”
In the school grounds, children were also given their own plot of garden, and Miss Page allowed them all to choose a packet of seeds to grow and the schools says that even today, people can remember what they grew there.
“Every year she taught us three or four dances round the maypole for the church fete that was up at the vicarage,” recalled another former pupil, Valerie. “Each Christmas, she’d arrange to go across to the Jubilee Hall and have a proper Christmas tea laid out on long tables for the children, with Father Christmas giving everyone a memorable present, like a craft set or a sewing set.”
