OPAWA SCHOOL

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25950, 2 November 1949, Page 2

OPAWA SCHOOL

RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD PUPIL

Associations with the Opawa School, of which the seventy-seventh jubilee celebrations concluded last evening, date back to 1874 for Mrs J. Pycroft, of 36 Cholmondeley avenue, Opawa. Mrs Pycroft, who is now in her eightyseventh year, was the oldest former girl pupil present at the celebrations. None of her old classmates attended.

Mrs Pycroft, who was formerly Miss Mary Cox, came to New Zealand at the age of 11 with her parents in April, 1874. In May of the same year she enrollee? at the Opawa School, which had then been open two years. There were only about 30 scholars at the school in those days. The school was a small two-roomed building, and there •were very few houses near it. Mrs Pycroft, whose home was then in St. Martins, recalls walking to school in the winter “over the coot tops in mud.” Opawa road was then only a very narrow lane and the horse coaches used to churn up the mud badly. “We used to pass Risingholme on our way to school. Mr Pember Reeves Hived there then,” she said.

Mrs Pycroft attended the Opawa School until she was 15. ‘‘There were not nearly as many subjects then as there are now,” she said. “We had no organised games such as the children play now, but we used to have drill instruction from Captain Farthing.” Mrs Pycroft’s daughter, Miss Alice Pycroft, has also been associated with the Opawa School. She attended the school, and received her first lessons in the room in which her mother was taught. Later she herself taught for a period at the school. Mr and Mrs Pycroft celebrated their platinum wedding at the end of last year. Although Mr Pycroft was not educated at the school, he has always been keenly interested'in its welfare and he was -a member of the school committee for 17 years.