"Brearley Street Nursery in the blitz"

A review of Brearley Nursery School by Mr Trevor Lewis written on Monday 16th of September 2013

In World War Two I attended Brearley Street Nursery prior to attending Smith Street School, then Summer Lane School adjacent to Brearley Street Nursery as my Mother made munitions for the war effort on the corner of Brearley Street and Summer Lane.

My lasting memory of this nursery is being given a cup of cocoa with a beetle floating in it, so I did not drink it. The teacher gave me a lecture about men risking their lives to bring it across oceans after the beetle had submerged out of sight and she clearly thought I was lying. She reached for the cup of cocoa, so thinking she was going to force me to drink it I beat her to it - then tipped the cocoa all over the floor. "Oh! You wicked boy!", she said in great disgust. So I picked the beetle off the floor and told her, "Here it is, put it in your own mouth".

She stared down at the beetle, then made me mop the cocoa off the floor, but I had to go without a cup of cocoa, and all the other kids thought it delicious.

Another memory of this nursery is of dripping paint on the painting I was painting, messing it up, so I changed my subject from a river scene to one of a leaping salmon - it was given pride of place in the assembly hall, and was still there when I left, which greatly surprised me, for my sense of perspective is usually absolute rubbish.

I also remember we planted vegetables in the "Dig for victory" campaign - they all failed to grow.

At that time I lived at 6 back of 296 Brearley Street, Hockley, Birmingham 19, long since demolished.

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