IT WAS a case of “make do” when Thelma Palmer went to the Central Girls’ School in Oxford.

Looking at her clothes, anyone could have been forgiven for thinking she was a member of the Royal Navy.

With money tight, her mother was forced to improvise when it came to fitting her out in a school uniform.

She writes: “The tunic I am wearing in the picture above was made by my mother (she was excellent at sewing and the sewing machine was always in use).

“The shirt I am wearing originally belonged to my sister (she was 10 years older than me) and had been part of her Wren’s uniform. There were two shirts so I was able to change.

“My black lace-up shoes and my raincoat were also ex-Wren, while an ex-Central pupil, Jessie Sparrow, gave me her school satchel.

“Money was very short in those days and even if there had been social security, my mother would not have accepted it.”

Thelma, now Thelma Dover, of The Grove, Deddington, wrote in after seeing the first section of the panoramic picture of students and staff at the Central school taken in 1949 (Memory Lane, May 4).

In the section we publish today, she is fifth from the right in the middle row.

She recalls: “It was an excellent school. PE was held in the Wesleyan Hall near the school in New Inn Hall Street. Games were held on one of the college fields in Manor Road, to which we had to walk in crocodile.

“Cookery was taught in an upstairs room in a building across the playground. And then there were wartime rations – I vividly remember large blocks of dates in the larder to which frequent visits were made!”

Girls she remembers include Rosemary Panting, Edna Woods, Cynthia Hengoed, Joyce Hickman, Esme Harris, Sheila Twining, Jean Dover, Wilfreda Gutteridge, Anne Cliffe, Lois Martin, Maureen Parker, Molly Govier, Valerie Elmey, Joan Bell, Sylvia Routledge, Jill Sturges, Sylvia Innes, Hazel John, Pamela Tull, Anne Chung, Jacqueline Bebbington, Irene Kurtz, Joan Crosland, Patricia Smith, Audrey Holiday, Pat Kettle, Janice Blackwell and Greta Payne.

Among the teachers were Miss Alden, Miss Smitham, Miss Abigail, Miss Slater, Miss Mortimer, Miss Leck, Miss Spackman, Miss Archer, Miss Haigh, Miss Knibb and Miss Andrews.

As we recalled, the school, whose roots can be traced back to 1797, had a number of names and occupied several sites in Oxford before settling in New Inn Hall Street in 1882.

It survived until 1959 when it moved to Gipsy Lane, Headington, and became Cheney Girls’ Grammar School.

The picture above was sent in by David Brown, of Jordan Hill, Oxford, who bought the panoramic photograph in a local charity shop. Three more sections of the picture will be published soon.

pAny more memories of the Central Girls’ School to share with readers? Write and let me know.