Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue

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Reference
X354/7/7/6
Title
Article '1906 and all that' by Waddy Wadsworth. An account of the author's childhood experience of home and school in Bedford from 1906-1921. With cover letter to the editor.
Date free text
Written c. Oct 1988
Production date
From: 1906 To: 1921
Admin/biog history
Ainslie Murray Wadsworth was born on the 3 May 1906 in Bedford. His father having retired to Bedford from India. Ainslie 'Waddy' attended the Crescent School and Bedford Modern School. By the 1980s he was living in Devon, where he died in March 2000 aged 93.
Scope and Content
Includes reference to: his father, John Murray Wadsworth's retirement to Bedford from India and his passion for clocks; his step brother, Granville and step sister Mildred; life in Chaucer Road and other families in the road, servants, Kindergarten, other children, and his time at Bedford Modern School. His time at Bedford Modern School he describes as 'Six years of hell' and explains his rebellious attitude to sports, and how corporal punishment made him give up trying at school. He mentions school masters by name, none of them favourably, and says 'I grew up with such a hatred of schoolmasters that I was over the age of forty before I could even be civil to one.'
Level of description
item