Family

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Thoughts on my Teen years.


When I was a teenager living in Richmond, Surrey, between seventeen and twenty, I became a Sunday school teacher. I am not sure how this happened I just fell into it. Their were three of us my age and two older ladies with about four to five children each. We were not aloud to read stories to the children from a book, we had to memorize the story and tell it off cuff. Just occasionally I had to play the piano when the other lady was absent, for the hymns. We held the Sunday school in a hall which was quite large or seemed to be at the time. This hall was about half a mile from the main church itself. One day we took the children for an outing, on a bus to Petersham Park, just outside Richmond. Where their was open spaces, trees, swings and a sand pit. We took sandwiches, I am not quite sure how we got them all there safe and back home as the journey involved very busy roads. I don’t think they would allow it today.

One year the church held a pageant in the church itself, involving ourselves and the children and some parishioners. This was a nativity type play, I was a large angel and had to stand on a stool at the back holding a trumpet. I know I was picked for this as I was tall anyway. So towered over everyone.

After two years the three of us teenage teachers went to Southwark Cathedral on the tube train for a special service to collect our Sunday school teacher certificates from the Bishop of Southwark, Doctor Coggin. I remember being shocked to find such a big building and it was packed to capacity. It seemed a long service as each one of us was called out to collect the certificate. I still have this somewhere in the house.

Joyce Gale 2005

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