GOOD TABLE MANNERS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22511, 15 December 1947, Page 6

GOOD TABLE MANNERS

NEW SCHOOL ESSENTIAL MOST MODERN BUILDING LONDON, Nov. 24. Good table manners is a compulsory subject at Britain’s newest and most luxurious day school. Built in seven months, the Bourne Secondary Modern Schood at Ruislip, Middlesex, accomodates 500 non-fee-paying council school children. Before lunch, the boys and girls, who are aged from 11 to 15, wash in the chromium-plated, well-appointed toiletroom, then file into a beautifully-cur-tained dining hall. They sit at tables for 10, with a teacher and a lunch prefect at either end. Talking with the mouth full is forbidden and the children are not allowed to swing round and talk to other tables. After each course the children must leave their plates in front of them until they are removed by one of the seven waitresses attending the tables. Standing in 14 acres of ground, with generous playing fields, the school has two glass walls in metal frames in each classroom. They can be swung open in fine weather and are fitted with sun blinds in pastel shades of primrose, peach and green. The rooms are arranged in square courts where flowers grow and hedges give each class privacy. The corridars are built like gentle switchbacks to avoid stairs and are ornamentally paved. Classrooms and corridors have fluorescent lighting and the blackboards have independent lighting placed to eliminate shadows and shine. No Noise or Heat The ceilings are insulated against noise and heat. The parquet floors are made from ammunition boxes and the cross-bars of telephone poles. Most of the materials are from surplus Army stores. The headmaster, Mr G. G. Walker, who can address every classroom by loud-speaker from his office, said during the week: ‘‘The children are not spoilt by their ‘luxury’ surroundings. I still use my cane.”