They say when an old man dies a whole library is lost! Certainly, historians are very keen that one should record useful memories!

When I passed the 11+ at Llanion Primary School at the age of 10 for the old Pembroke Dock Grammar School, a teacher called Mr Thompson told me, “Now you have your chance!” My father was a carpenter but self-educated and my mother had done very well before the War at the old County School, so they were both delighted. Education was ‘everything’, in Wales at that time.

Before walking to the school in Argyle Street, I prepared the fire grate for later and then climbed three flights of stairs to do the same for my grandmother.

Afterwards, I had a cooked breakfast before leaving the house at 8-30 a.m. I was put in 2C, but it was a difficult year for me, as I had an emergency operation for appendicitis at the end of the first term, but at the end of that first year I came 1st in the form.

We’d had a charming form-teacher called Mr. Evans, who was unfortunately leaving, and I was deputed by my class mates to buy a present. He was a pipe-smoker and I chose a pipe-rack! I had the most glowing report I have ever had in my 70 years! I still read it with pleasure. Encouragement is so important.

On February 6th 1952, King George 5th died. Miss A.R. Lewis-Davies, known as ‘The Red Dragon’, came into our classroom at 12 a.m. and said, “The King is dead – you can go home.” I remember in her English class she insisted that once a week we learned a poem overnight. This was, I feel, invaluable training for the memory!

Other memories persist from the old school: polished wooden floors, and Mr Garlick waiting outside the Headmaster’s room. He never taught me, but being disabled and having black sideburns he seemed an exotic specimen. I’m told that he only recently died in Cardiff. In the old school, I was in the school play ‘The Old Man of The Mountains’ playing the young boy who dies and is then brought back to life by Elijah! I remember, having died, lying on the table and having to be still for a long time. The headmaster, in his review of the play in The Penvro, said I died convincingly but, afterwards, never really came to life. I was very young-looking and seemed to specialise in such parts. We put on a play in Cosheston – ‘The Happy Journey’ by Thornton Wilder, and half way through it, the whole cast had a fit of giggles and the audience joined in! Later, I had small parts in ‘Coriolanus’ and ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’.

The Pembroke Grammar school canteen was affectionately known as ‘The Cow.’ It got its name from the stumpy little bottles of milk that were doled out to every pupil each morning at break time.

When the school bell sounded for play, pupils would skip up the steep steps to the canteen. Crates of Craig’s milk covered the floor space and kids dived on the dumpy little bottles as if they had never encountered, or ever seen a bottle of the white stuff before.

There was always a competition as to who could drink the most milk. I could manage three, but my mate Susan could easily manage four, or five at a push. The boys, of course, could easily outstrip the girls in this challenge.

Melanie Phillips

In 1946, I became a pupil at Pembroke Dock Grammar School. I was ten years old…

Soon afterwards, the school had a new Head, Roland Mathias, and I had a new English teacher, Raymond Garlick, appointed by Roland Mathias in 1949.

It was not in the normal way of things for me to have much direct contact with the Headteacher, but I remember one occasion when I was sent to his study. I was there, together with two friends, because we had been caught misbehaving during a wet lunch-time break. I clearly recall that Roland Mathias dealt with us in a manner that was calm, very firm and altogether civilized.