RICHMOND SCHOOL: PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

By John Cookson, assisted by Colin Cookson, July 2025

The main building at Richmond School was opened for the 1925 school year and remained in use for 50 years.

John Cookson, who attended Richmond School between 1946 and 1951, has recently written about his memories of the school. John's name appears on the school's honour board which is now housed at Avebury House; John was Dux of the school in 1951, as his brother Allen had been the previous year. It's great to have such a vivid account of the school in the mid 20th century. Does anyone else have memories of Richmond School?

​ I attended Richmond School for the whole of my primary education, 1946–51, before proceeding to Shirley Intermediate. My twin brother, Colin, of course started the same day, which must have been comforting.
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These years coincided with the beginning of the post-war ‘Baby Boom’. In my time at Richmond, the roll came to exceed 400 children. A large state housing development around the eastern end of North Avon Road down to the river must have been a major factor in this increase. While I was at Richmond, a new ‘infant block’ (1951) was built to accommodate the growing numbers. As it was, I spent Standard 3 in a prefabricated classroom, apparently re-cycled from St Alban’s School and located away from the old main block. The Standard 4 class in my last year at Richmond comprised over 40 pupils, what in this era was a not untypical class size. 

John’s primer 4 class, with 41 pupils!

Back Row: Gavin Cook, Peter Wentworth, Ken Le Compte, Don Murray, Max Kenelly, Allen Weir, Colin Cookson.
Third Row: Ray Chinnery, Charlie Saxon, Roger Dixon, John Rikihana, Donald Wood, John Cookson, Gavin Port, Peter Shaw, Tony O'Hagan, Brian Moore.
Second Row: Lynette Captain, Elsa Stigley, Barbara Ede, Jean Ross, Ailsa Hamilton, Georgina Hewson, Hazel Banks, Beverley McGregor, Heather Aitken, Nola Wentworth, Pauline Clarkson, Valerie Kirk.
Front Row: June Roberts, Norma McGregor, Daphne Pike, Janice Turner, Veronica Roughan, Beverley Andrews, Faye Waddell, Valerie Burney, Jean Rennie, Barbara Shaw, Colleen Yeatman, Joy Wakelin.
Teacher: Miss Milne.

 Already there when I began at Richmond was a small block of two ‘open air’ (folding doors on the north side) classrooms located by the Pavitt St entrance where I was taught in Primer 4 and Standard 1.
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A School Dental Clinic stood alongside this building while I was at the school. A trained dental nurse ran the ‘murder house’, as we called it, using a pedal-driven drill to deal with tooth cavities. In those days the main cause of tooth decay must have been the absence of regular cleaning. I have a vague memory in Standard 3 of ‘Nurse Silcock’ coming to class and urging us to eat apples or raw carrots. ‘Coke’ and ‘junk food’ were unknown, only ‘fizzy drinks’, locally manufactured by Quill Morris or Cowles.

The other health initiative to note was the daily provision of milk (pasteurized) to every child. A ‘milk crate’ was delivered to every classroom before school, collected from the Pavitt St gate by Standard 4 boys, specially appointed. The half-pint (300ml) cardboard-topped bottles were distributed in class just before the bell went for morning ‘playtime’. Drinking straws were handed out. I liked drinking the milk but more than a few didn’t, especially if it had been warmed by the morning sun or winter central heating.

Each school day began with a morning ‘assembly’ at the impressive colonnaded main building entrance when the Headmaster briefly addressed us from the steps before dismissing us to our classes. Some schools had a flag-raising ceremony. We didn’t. But we did march off to the stirring strains of the ‘Invercargill March’, ‘Colonel Bogey’s March’ or somesuch, played through a loudspeaker located in a downstairs classroom. My elder brother in Standard 4 was one of those given the responsibility of putting the needle, scatchlessly, on the record.

Standard 4, which occupied the end classroom on the upper storey by the timbered fire escape, were permitted to use this stairway in and out of the building.

I don’t have a distinct recollection of how our day was divided – Time was something parents and teachers controlled. Classes commenced about 9, there was a morning ‘playtime’ about 10.30 and a lunch hour, 12 to 1. There was a short, five-minute, afternoon ‘playtime’ at 2, before school ended at 3. The primer children left at 2. 
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I and my brothers went home to a cooked family dinner midday – our father worked in town and biked from there. I have no idea how typical this was, though certainly almost all mothers were ‘stay-at-home’ mums. When completed, the right-of-way through to Forth St from Eveleyn Couzins Ave slightly shortened all this daily trekking.

The Cookson’s house at 148 North Avon Rd, when the house was newly built in 1937.  The east end of North Avon Road is still unsealed.

​The busiest road Richmond children had to cross was, and still is, Stanmore Rd. About opposite Bruce St, where there was a marked pedestrian crossing, a ‘School Patrol’ regulated the traffic flow to give pupils safe passage, much as happens today outside many schools. My brother and I were rostered on to this duty. Girls were excluded. Under a teacher’s supervision, we manhandled long poles to which was attached at one end a large red disc emblazoned ‘School Patrol’. The sign, uplifted on the chant ‘Stop Up’, halted approaching vehicles. ‘Stop Down’ and the return to the horizontal allowed them to proceed on their way. Wet or shine made no difference. On wet days we were garbed in a copious cape with hood.

An aerial view of central Richmond in 1940. The highlighted areas show the school site between Perth & Pavitt streets, and the Cooksons’ home at 148 North Avon Rd.

Most of us walked to school, younger children without parents but in the company of older siblings. Today’s ‘drop off’ and ‘pick up’ by car was a world away. Pupils who cycled to school, relatively few though they were, had their bikes regularly inspected by City Council ‘traffic cops’ (traffic inspectors). A green ‘pass’ or yellow (repair needed) or red ‘fail’ (unsafe to ride) sticker was affixed to the frame, and a follow-up visit soon afterwards ascertained whether the necessary repairs had been made.

The two headmasters during my time were ‘Mr Parry’ and ‘Mr Dalley’. They remained remote figures, ensconced in an office I never remember entering. However, I do recall Mr Parry coming into our Primer 1 room and playing on the piano with admirable brio ‘Three Blind Mice’. 
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The ‘School Committee’ was an even more remote authority. There was no PTA (Parent Teacher Association). Nor were there teacher-parent consultations. The mid-year and end-of-year ‘school report’ taken home was parents’ sole source of reliable information, extremely sparse in their detail compared with today.

A school report from 1948.

We were an exceptionally docile lot in class; we were instructed rather than learning things for ourselves. A teacher who wanted to get our attention might say ‘Hands on heads place’ and the whole class would immediately respond. I honestly can’t recall any impertinent or rebellious behaviour. New Zealand society generally was highly conformist, united around the same values and aspirations and showing ample respect for authority figures, teachers included. 

‘Mrs Thomas’ was the ‘infant mistress’ and my first teacher, but the name and the fact that she was kindly is the sum of my memory of her. Her successor, ‘Miss Burr’ (well-named?) was, apparently, a different proposition. To this day I can recite her sharp rebuke on one occasion to move us on – ‘Children, don’t dilly-dally in the alley’.

Primer 2 and 3 are lost on me, I suppose partly because my twin brother and I ‘skipped’ a year or part of a year. ‘Miss Milne’ and ‘Miss Davies’ were my teachers in Primer 4 and Standard 1, both kindly. Then followed a succession of male teachers, ‘Mr Silcock’, for a short time, and ‘Mr (Clifford) Bezar’ at Standard 2, ‘Mr (Gavin) Royfee’ at Standard 3, and ‘Mr (Rewi) Street’ at Standard 4. 

I later met up with Mr Bezar at Christchurch Boys’ High. He had served in the War. He was the only teacher at Richmond who gave me ‘the strap’ – for rushing off from some outside class activity when the bell went without waiting for his permission to leave. That said, there was very little corporal punishment administered, with the exception of ‘Johnny Bell’, of whom more later.

Mr Royfee was a talented cricketer, representing Canterbury in Plunket Shield and international matches. However, he never coached the school cricket team. We didn’t know it but he also sang in the Royal Christchurch Musical Society, and so was a man of many parts. Among the exercise books he required us to buy was included The Dominion Song Book; for some reason, ‘Shenandoah’ is the song that sticks in my mind. Thus we were introduced to group singing, if we had not already experienced it at Sunday School. 

The ‘prefab’ in which he taught us was freezing cold in winter, heated by a coal stove at the front of the classroom which inevitably favoured the teacher and a few of the pupils. We ought to have been more thankful of the caretaker who lit the fire earlier in the morning. Mr Clancy, the caretaker, lived in a house, presumably Education Board-owned, on the corner of Pavitt and London Sts.

Mr Street was an experienced teacher but possibly overstretched by the size of the Standard 4 class. At some stage during the year he requested that my brother and I help with the class arithmetic marking, furnishing us with his very own (red ink) ballpoint pen; ‘ballpoints’ were new to New Zealand. Doubtless he checked our work and informed us of any mistakes, but in no way would it happen today and should never have happened then. The greatest praise I can bestow on Mr Street is that he made school interesting and enjoyable. One example: a pile of soil had appeared in the playground on which he poured water to let us see the rivulets carrying material downhill; he then planted a sign labelled ‘EROSION’, and a new word was added to our lexicon of knowledge.

On another occasion, he sent me off to the Square with the bus fare to view the War Memorial by the Cathedral. His instructions were to hold it in my mind and provide a blackboard drawing when I returned. Next morning my rendition was compared - not altogether to my advantage – with actual photographs. I suppose Mr Street wanted to impress on the class the fallibility of memory, or perhaps that we should always rely on the best evidence available.

Mr Bell, ‘Johnny Bell’ as everyone familiarly called him, was the school character, not in the best sense of the word as he terrified his classes as much as taught them. He was notorious for his liberal use of the strap and much more serious misdemeanours.  I have it on good authority that in one class he sat at his desk ostentatiously sharpening a knife before hurling it across the bent heads to lodge in the back wall of the room. Such behaviour reduced children to numbed passivity.

I had only one encounter with Johnny Bell, in a drawing class. I think my grandfather had just been knighted after nine years as Mayor of Christchurch. He spotted that I had signed my picture ‘Sir John Cookson V.C.’ I was taken by the scruff of the neck and dumped in the large wickerwork wastepaper basket which was then placed tottering on the edge of his desk. He then stood back and taunted: ‘So this is the great Sir John Cookson’. Of course, I got what I deserved, especially if it was true, as many believed, that Bell had suffered grievously during the war.
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It is very difficult to recall what we were taught and when, probably because learning is incremental and children simply absorb, rather than analyse, their progress. Year by year, with arithmetic, we extended our capability at addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We avoided decimalization because it was more important to know pounds, shillings and pence and other ‘imperial’ measurements. Reading instruction began with New Zealand-published Whitcombe and Tombs ‘readers’. We first learnt to print before embarking on cursive writing in Standard 2, eventually forsaking pencils for ink wells and ink-filled G-nib pens. I vaguely remember being taught how to set out a business letter with the formal ending, ‘Yours faithfully’. I have no memory at all of composing short pieces of original prose, though we must have done. No homework was rigorously required; Schonell spelling lists came later. After school, for the most part, we simply played with siblings and friends.

John painted this view from their North Avon Rd house in 1953. The scene shows the corner of North Avon Rd and North Parade — yes, there was a garage on that corner even then! The grey canopy is an army truck in for repairs, with someone’s blue Morris Minor behind.

There was no systematic teaching of art or music. Sunday School was where a singing culture for children mainly existed. An innovation was radio ‘Broadcasts to Schools’ which were heard through a speaker in the classroom. This was one way pupils could extend the very limited repertoire of songs. We sang in parts: ‘Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily merrily, life is but a dream’.

These remarks don’t do justice to the standard of performance exhibited at the School Concert in my Standard 4 year. The boys, interestingly enough, presented a raucous haka in outfits and painted faces that nowadays would almost certainly be deemed offensive; there was only one boy in our class with a Maori family name – John Rikihana. Colin and I played a piano duet, me fumblingly. Many were similar individual items, since many children learnt the piano, dance, and so on. Carol Hampton of Standard 3, stole the show, prettily dressed up to sing with remarkable poise and confidence, ‘Mocking Bird Hill’.

Apropos children and music. On Saturday mornings ‘Miss Bell’ offered piano lessons at the school. At a guess, about 30 attended where they were given about five minutes of instruction in the Primer 1 classroom before being sent on to the Hall where a senior pupil heard them ‘do their practice’. Practice didn’t make me perfect, mainly because I did so little. But it must be acknowledged that doing the rounds of perhaps two or three schools over many years, Clarice Bell provided music-making opportunities for literally hundreds of Christchurch children. 

I remember the vacant ground at the Perth St entrance being developed into a ‘school garden’ for growing vegetables, most likely in response to some Department of Education edict. No real effort was made to bring things to harvest; indeed, the long summer holiday must have left any plants to fend for themselves. Yet we were encouraged to establish and tend vegetable plots of our own at home, with a certificate as the reward for our efforts.

At ‘playtime’ organized games hardly featured, certainly not under any kind of teacher supervision. Boys and girls amused themselves separately. Girls skipped or played knuckle bones or hopscotch or whatever activities boys were unaware of. Marbles were popular among boys. Strangely, I remember the two best players in my year – Ray Chinnery and Charlie Saxton – though perhaps that is because they relieved me of most of mine when ‘playing for keeps’. There was a vocabulary attached to the game; a ‘bum squasher’, for instance, was a marble the size of a large ball bearing that might send any number of others out of the ring.

There was little inter-school sport. Not everyone had bicycles to get to away matches. I suppose the few that did occur were specially arranged, and then usually cricket or rugby. I loved cricket but recall playing only one or two games, of course in Standard 4, and the same may have been true of rugby. Our rugby jersey was the closest we had to a school uniform; it consisted of a navy blue top with a reddish band around the middle. There were school baths outside the school grounds across Pavitt St but they remained rundown and unused until some enthusiastic locals cleaned them up and formed a swimming club about a year after I left Richmond.
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The school’s 75th anniversary celebrations took place while I was there, in 1950. Of course, most of the events were directed at ex-pupils. Even so, the teachers organized what they called ‘tabloid sports’ for us which included relays and three-legged and sack races for the different age groups. I seem to remember we competed under different houses to add to the excitement of the day.

John mentions pupils receiving Honours Certificates at the end of the school year. This is the first one we have seen.

​The final event each year was the School Prizegiving attended by parents, members of the School Committee and sometimes the local MP (Jock Mathieson). It was held in the School Hall. I don’t remember it as an exhilarating affair – plenty of speeches above our heads and the constant churn of pupils going up for their awards (‘Honours Certificates’) punctuated by applause. The real excitement was the final act in the classroom when desks were pushed to one side and stacked so that Mr Clancy could oil the floorboards during the long summer break. The emptiness was cathartic. What a joy it was to contemplate ‘no more school’ for six weeks! Didn’t every kid?

The medal John was awarded for Dux of the school in 1951 — front and back views.