School

Dad started his diary in November 1938 one week before his 14th birthday and one month before leaving school, due to the good fortune that his teacher introduced the class to a book on diaries. This was obviously just before one of the most momentous moments in history and therefore his diaries are an amazing first-hand record of his and his families lives, just before, during and for a few years after the war. He also kept much memorabilia from that time, including reports and school exercise books, some to which I will share in this section.

He attended Ravenhill Junior Boys’ School, Plaistow E.13 until July 1936 and then Ravenhill Senior Boys’ School until December 1938.

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After leaving school Don had some false starts finding suitable work. He started his first job on 18^th December 1938 which lasted 2 days! However it was clear that he always wanted to “make something of himself”, and within 2 weeks of leaving school joined the Lister Institute – A Day Continuation School, where his lessons included Bookkeeping. By the following year it would seem that he had decided on Accountancy as his career and maybe that was in part due to the bookkeeping classes. It is clear that whenever he was working he took up evening classes and continued with bookkeeping. He also continued further education when in the RAF starting night school as soon as possible and when the war ended when in the British Air Forces of Occupation (B.A.F.O.) in Germany he took up EVT, the RAF’s Educational and Vocational Training Scheme. I was interested to discover more about Day Continuation School and my research let me to discover that the Lister is still a Community School.

Wikipedia

The school was founded by West Ham Council in 1921 as the Livingstone Day Continuation Institute, in Balaam Street Congregational schoolroom. It relocated a few times, was briefly absorbed into North West Ham Technical School after World War II and was successively renamed as Lister Day- Continuation Institute (1933), Lister Technical School (1956), Lister Comprehensive (1972) and finally Lister Community School. Purpose-built facilities for the school were completed in the 1990s.
Also I found an interesting PhD thesis by Kim Lorraine O’Flynn on Post-primary education in West Ham, 1918-39 https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10021607/1/148942.pdf
It seems my father was very lucky as she states, “One feature which distinguished West Ham from its neighbouring boroughs during the interwar period was the implementation of continuation education in its area.”
There is a wonderful entry in the last Diary no 49 on 28^th July 1949 when he learnt he had passed his Accountancy Exam 6^th in order of merit. Link to diary
Another entry that made me laugh was in Book 7 12^th February 1940 when he discovered a mistake in the bookkeeping textbook. Link to diary