SCHOOL days! Who can forget them, hey? For the more mature amongst you, the smell of boiled cabbage, the sound of chalk furiously attacking blackboards, the sadistic whip of a cold-hearted cane and the monotonous recital of Latin will have all conspired in darkened corridors to create a period of life unlike no other.

For those with a fresher face and a leaner year, there will be a host of other memories associated with the learned life.

Hereford Road School
Hereford Road School in an era where everything was in black and white. A decade or two later a gang of scousers called The Beatles would introduce a bit of colour into the world and we've never looked back! (Abergavenny Chronicle )
Castle Street infants.
You certainly don't see frocks like that anymore! Castle Street Infants sometime in the early 20th Century. (Abergavenny Chronicle )

The shrill cry of a red-faced and slightly overweight PE teacher. The dreaded two-fold weariness of Monday morning, double math. The bite of an all-conquering conker on a sore knuckle come a crisp October morning, and the riotous stampede of dirty white trainers, scuffed Doc Martens, and Joe Bloggs beating a triumphant march to liberation come Friday afternoon, 3.30 pm.

Now it’s all social media and social conditioning, but progress is a comfortable disease as E.E. Cummings once said.

Did that learned man of letters go to school Obvs! His father was a professor at Harvard University doncha know?

KHS
Check out this angry mob! You wouldn't want to upset this bunch in a pub. They might start spitting Latin or attacking you with algebra. Standards were different back then and a gent could be solely judged on a well pressed shirt or the cut of his trousers. This is old school KHS and they mean business! (Abergavenny Chronicle)
Victoria Street School
Check out this lovely old building. It's no longer there. It fell foul of the wrecking ball and a weird urge by the powers that be to destroy anything historic or aesthetically pleasing. But it was once a school and was situated in Victoria Street. (Albert Lyons )

Simply put, school is an educational experience. Take a look at the hordes of happy, smiling faces in these pictures and dare to tell us otherwise.

Abergavenny has a proud schooling tradition.

We once had a lot more of the educational institutions than we now have coffee shops.

But what are you gonna do? Folks get thirsty!

Victoria Street School
This lot look like they mean business. But having your picture taken way back then, and we're talking 1928, was a rare and serious business. Imagine how these kids, and teacher (Miss Casson), from Victoria Street School would feel if they knew that nearly a century later a new generation of Abergavenny types would be gawping at their pic? (Albert Lyons)
Grofield School
Here's an interesting one for you! It's Grofield School Sports Day, 1947, held at Bailey Park. The front row includes the Lewis girls of ‘Coldbrook’ who were Abergavenny’s only recorded triplets at the time. (Albert Lyons )

Although a school is fundamentally a building, it’s also a state of mind, an experience, and a memory. Whether you spent your time ducking and diving through a series of detentions or were a triple-A scholar, school days have a habit of getting under your skin and staying there.

Cantref School
Do this lot look they're having fun? As in all things, it's a matter of perspective. What we can ascertain for cold hard fact is that we're looking at a Home Economics class at the old Harold Road Girls School, which is now Cantref Primary. (Abergavenny Chronicle )

Schools, like everything, go the way of rack and ruin, but when the dust settles and leaves an empty place where a building used to be, it’ll be the memories the school made, the experiences it engendered and the characters it helped shape that will be its enduring legacy.

Here’s some pics of what once was…..

Park Street Infants
What can you say about this pic? Except to say it's Park Street Infants School in the 1920s. Recognise anyone? (Albert Lyons )