Biddick School  (called Columbia School in the latter 20th century) 

Brady Square shops

  Please email your memories  and we will include them here

c 1900                                                                                                                                2008

The local authority stopped using the school building at the end of July 1995.  The local church took over the building on that date and now owns the building.  A page showing the history of the building in more detail can be found here.

It is now run by the "Centre Management Group" made up of representatives from the groups which use the building, together with anyone from the public with an interest.  You can attend meetings and get involved by emailing cmg@wcocuk.org

Here are memories from those who attended the school:

The Headmaster in 1964 was Mr Marshall. 

He and his wife lived in the school house in the yard.  Mrs Marshall was very active with the British Red Cross and had nearly every schoolgirl in Brady Square enrolled in her BRC classes after school.  These were held in the school hall where we were taught the elements of First Aid.

Mr Marshall was very musical and took pride teaching us to sing while he played the piano.  His son was also musical and was a member of the group The John Miles Set.

Mr Jim Marrow came as a teacher in the 60s, later became Headmaster and went on to be the Coach of England schoolboys team.

My favourite teacher will always be Mr Kay. 

Miss Dickinson's classroom is now the green room where the very popular luncheon club is held.  Miss Dickinson lived in Washington Village in a house named White Ladies.  This was raised to the ground and Anchor Housing built White Ladies Sheltered Housing on the site of her house.

Isabelle Ward, nee Wood

All of my family attended this school and there was six of us.  We lived in "The Gables" and I can remember walking over the iron bridge at the cross streets - which is gone now.

Mr Green taught us Maths - which I was not very good at.  He was a very big man - yet he would sit with me at my desk and help me with my maths.  Our English teacher was Mrs Dickinson.  She once caught me eating a sherbert dab from under my desk and hit me over the head with a very heavy book. 

I was left handed but was forced to write with my right hand or I would get the cane.

M Clembintson

Washington was a different sort of place when I first attended Biddick Primary School in 1964.  We were almost exclusively the children of miners and chemical workers and you could feel and sense that close sense of community that big industry often brings - and families, uncles, cousins, grandparents, usually lived locally and everyone knew each other.

It's not easy to look back over 40 years and recall memories accurately and time plays tricks on you, but I remember fondly a happy time with young people doing what children do everywhere, enjoying themselves, beginning to experience the wonder of learning and all the opportunities it opens up.

Opposite the school entrance was Jimmy Chadwicks - the barbers - and next door the sweet shop that sold 4 blackjacks for 1 old penny and in the shopping mecca that was Brady Square we had shops selling all the essentials.

I recall teachers, particularly Mrs Anne Moran who I still see and who is active in politics, and the Head was a mystical all-powerful figure in those days.

I am grateful for everything Biddick School gave me - not just in education but for the life experiences it offered and I know it helps me immeasureably being in the privileged position of representing in Parliament those I went to school with and their families.

Fraser Kemp MP

The following extract is taken from an article on a webpage and is an account of life given by an Edwin Saint:

During the time I attended Brandy Row Junior School, but early in 1941 my mother gave up the “temperance Bar” and we moved to Biddick Villas, at that time it was the last street in Washington before Fatfield, as a result I transferred to Biddick School in Brady Square where one of my teachers was Mr. Ramshaw. He was on a Royal navy ship which was sunk at Jutland in WW1 and spent over 12 hours in the sea waiting to be rescued, and he always blamed this episode for loosing his hair. Of course, during the war exotic fruits were not available and I remember Mr. Ramshaw once drawing a banana on the blackboard in yellow chalk, showing the skin peeled back, and after a short silence one boy asked “which bit do u eat, the skin or the inside?”

An email received on 29/02/08:

I was interested in the leaflet I found on the doormat this morning. I don't have any photos of Biddick School itself, just two or three school photograph's of myself the one I'm sending is of me aged about 11 years old. I attended the School from 1953 to 1959.Teachers I remember most Miss Dickinson of course, she was a bit of a tyrant. Then Mr Kay and Mr Ramsey. My best friend was a girl called Kay Forsyth.
Good luck with the Internet scrapbook.

Mrs May Proudlock previously May Cave    (below a picture of her aged around 11 years old)

Some of my memories of my time at Biddick School 1946---49

The school had doors going up the middle of the playground to separate the infants section from the primary . Also having our cooked lunch in the hall.
There was a sportsground on the primary side of the school just below Reynolds Avenue .
Some of the children that I attended school with were Tommy Lewins, Brian Booth .
Games that we played were buttony ,marbles, conkers and soccer.
I also remember the little tuck shop opposite the school which sold sherbet, liquorice root. and other varieties of sweets .
These are a few of my very happy memories of my time at Biddick School
Thank you

Jim Reid, Australia

Ed:   "The school had doors going up the middle of the  playground" 

- do we take it the wall that extends some twenty feet from the building in a westerly direction, height 5 feet, once extended completely across the yard, with a doorway in it to connect two separate yards?"

Here, left, we see the remains of the wall, with the level of the yard raised by successive layers of tarmac

Photographs and memories of the area   ( please!  )

We would love to find a photograph showing a train going over the crossing

merged version of c 1900 and 2008 pictures

Station Road, Washington Station, c 1900  and 2008