Christie Mulkern
Chesham Bois Church of England School
In 1914 we moved from Waterside to Bois Moor Road. The area was then in the parish of
Chesham Bois and so I had to attend Chesham Bois Church of England School. I remember clearly my
first day there. As this was a church school, the first lesson naturally was Scripture.
The first hymn we sang was 'There is a Green Hill Far Away' and we were taught to recite various
chapters of the Bible. Often we had to stand up in the front of the class and read out chapters
from our books.
Various events stand out in my mind for which the whole school had to parade in the playground.
We always had to turn out on Empire Day (see note below). Then there was the day a great airship came over the schooland
another occasion when we were all mesmerised by a total eclipse. It was a boiling hot summer's
day but it became very chilly as the sun disappeared behind the moon.
As it was wartime, many things were scarce. Although in normal times the most successful
pupils would have been awarded prizes at the end of the year, in those days certificates were given
'in lieu'. I had to ask what this meant, as we were not taught French. Two subjects that I disliked
and just could not get to grips with were English and Music. This is probably because I missed a lot
of schooling early on, through illness.
As a school we did many things to help the war effort. We picked blackberries to make jam for
the troops and gathered beech nuts to make margarine. We were also allowed time off school to go
potato-picking. We had to walk all the way to Raans Farm at Amersham Common. Boys and girls,
men and women, also German prisoners of war all worked on the fields. A pole in the ground marked
out a length for each person to work on. A horse-drawn machine scuffed out the rows of potatoes.
Sacks were distributed at intervals along the ground. We wore aprons made from old jute sacks, tied
around the waist but folded up at the bottom to form a receptacle. When full we emptied our load into
the nearest sack. One day we were working in a large field when the hooters and bells rang out at
11.00am on 11th November 1918, signifying the signing of the Armistice. I was one month short of
my eleventh birthday. To celebrate, we were allowed to knock off early for the day - unpaid,
of course. As it was a very cold, frosty and foggy day, I for one was glad to be going home.
Christie Mulkern, 1907-2001
(Empire Day, 24th May and Queen Victoria's birthday, was a day of celebration for all British
subjects wherever they lived in the world. It later became Commonwealth Day and the date was
changed to March.)
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