Interview with Enid Deeble, 10 August 2010

Abstract

Enid went to primary school in Wythington Manchester. She described Remembrance Day and Empire Day there. She was evacuated twice from her primary school and was the first person to pass the eleven plus at her second evacuated school but learnt no history at all at these two schools. Then she went to Levenshulme Grammar School where she was taught history traditionally. She particularly remembered visiting Chetham’s Hospital, Manchester Museum and slum clearance sites as part of her history lessons, but otherwise the history was taught in chronological fashion. They did not study any contemporary history, even the First World War, but they did have debates and mock elections and discussed the suffragettes. After school Enid trained as a nurse and later also worked as a school secretary. She summed up the need to teach children history very neatly “I don’t know how people can live without some background…How can you carry on your life without knowing something? And I think that politicians shouldn’t be allowed to go into Parliament unless they’ve studied history in some depth, to stop them making the same mistakes all over again.