Memories of Moorside.................................1959

I must say Lindsay Bell and Elaine Robinson are doing a splendid job delving into Moorside’s past. In the last two weeks we have met some interesting ex Moorsiders, previous staff and students.

I really wanted to know what Moorside was like in 1959. Lindsay and Elaine managed to find both a member of staff and a student who was here at the very start.

Let’s begin with Bill Stockdale who was a Head of Science when the school opened in 1959. Actually, he was here before the school opened because for the whole of the summer holiday, he along with Jack Ellison, the first head teacher and a fellow called Horace Brown supervised the workmen and unpacked all of the resources in order to get the school opened on time.

September 1959 arrived and all of the children arrived. Both children and staff were previously from Leadgate County, Leadgate Church of England, Consett Church,Consett County and Allendale School. Moorside was a huge change for them having been used to very small schools where they didn’t change classes for lessons and had the same teacher all of the time. They were now in a building with three floors, a lot of teachers and different subjects.

According to Bill it began as a very happy school and continued to be happy. Until two weeks ago Bill had not been back to Moorside since leaving in 1969. What does he think of it now? Well, he told us he thought it was a very delightful school, he knew of its success and he was impressed with what he saw.

Joy Raisbeck started at the same time as Bill, as a pupil. She told us that she enjoyed being at Moorside and particularly enjoyed and excelled at field sports. Joy told us about when she was in the fourth year (that is year 10 now)they sat tests and if you passed the girls were put into 4C – Commercial and the boys were 4E – Engineering. She studied subjects like shorthand, typing, secretarial English, and accounts. Joy must have really liked it at Moorside because when she was 15 (the school leaving age then) she applied for a secretarial post at the school and got the job.

Joy was now a member of staff. She remembers Mr Ellison (the Head teacher) asking her to ring his bell twice when a phone call came through that he was expecting. He was in another part of the school and did not want to miss it. Well the call came but instead of ringing his bell Joy rang the school bell. Everyone thought it was a fire drill and the whole school evacuated the building, standing outside in the yard. Joy has a lot of good memories of Moorside . To quote her “I enjoyed my time here”.

Well Moorside is still a happy school as well as being very successful. Like the children of 1959 our current students now face change. I am sure they will adapt and rise to the challenge as their predecessors did so long ago.