Having been born into a 'Four-Wheel Christian' family, when I started school aged 5 years in 1936, I was introduced to a practice of which I had no previous experience. Miss. Hinchy started each school day with an assembly, where we prayed and sang hymns. Thus were 'The Lord's Prayer' and 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' permanently grafted into my memory.
One thing that did puzzle me was that a few pupils stayed in the cloakroom, only rejoining us as we proceeded to our classrooms. We were simply told that they were Roman Catholics, thus not allowed by their parents to attend assembly. It was all too new to me at that early age to enquire further into this mysterious segregation.
Religion was taught as a lesson called 'Divinity' and for us very young ones, consisted of the Bible stories with relevance to the young "Suffer the little children to come unto me" etc. All quite sweet and cosy. So different from secondary school when preparing for School Certificate exam's, Bible study became a heavy burden.
Back to Divinity lessons at St. B's. The subject was enlivened occasionally when Miss. Hinchy persuaded a ‘guest’ speaker to talk to us. One such was her brother, who was a clergyman, but more usually it was the current curate from St. John’s Church.
The first of these, Mr. Lawrence, became a missionary, I believe to the Soloman Islanders, so I hope he did not end up in a cooking pot. Presumably he told us how important it was to take the Good News to 'heathens'. The other was Mr. Binnie, a more memorable character, who I think took up an appointment at Exeter Cathedral.
Here endeth my epistle to fellow former pupils of St. B's.
N.B.
Reference to the subsequent fates of Messrs. Lawrence & Binney are from 'hearsay' and have not been tested for accuracy.