PUPILS at Dawn Griffis’ village school enjoyed a daily treat – a hot baked potato.

The schoolroom at Aynho, near Banbury, had two large open fireplaces, which provided heat to keep the children warm – and to cook the potatoes they enjoyed at their morning break.

Mrs Griffis, whose maiden name was Alsford, recalls: “The potatoes had our own special recognition marks on them. At 10am, our teacher, Miss Govier, would turn them, so they would cook all the way through. Then at 11am, when we went out to play, she would give us each our potatoes to eat, wrapped in paper so we wouldn’t burn ourselves. They would also keep our hands warm.

“I can’t remember any baked potatoes tasting as good.”

Mrs Griffis, who now lives in the United States, has fond memories of her time at the school.

Desks sitting two and sometimes six pupils were arranged in small groups of different levels of learning, and Miss Govier would teach pupils in one group, set a project, then move on to the next group.

Each desk had an inkwell into which a china ink pot fitted, and pupils used “scratchy pens” with replaceable nibs.

School started at 9am, with a break for potatoes at 11am. Dinner was from noon until 1pm and after an afternoon break at 3pm, lessons ended at 4pm.

Mrs Griffis writes: “We all went home for dinner because we were all within walking distance of home, and it was normal to have our main meal at that time.

“Women tended, if they had families, not to go out of the village to work, and very few worked if they had young children. After dinner, all the children would go to Miss Govier’s house at No.4 to meet her and we would all walk to school together. On these walks, the topic of conversation could be quite varied.”

With food on ration, treats were few and far between, but Mrs Griffis recalls one example of generosity by an American serviceman, who had fallen in love with the villagers. Not long after the war ended, Miss Govier came to school with several large tins of cocoa, to be divided among the villagers. It was his way of saying thank you.

“Our cocoa was dark and bitter and needed a ton of sugar or golden syrup to sweeten it. The cocoa from America was a light chocolate colour and so sweet it didn’t need sugar. We tried to make it last forever because we didn’t know if we would ever have anything like it again. That was such a special gift. I hope he knows how much we enjoyed it and what pleasure he gave the whole village.”

p These and other memories are included in Mrs Griffis’s book, Aynhoe Village Life – the Way it Was, Then, Before and Beyond, published by Lulu.