Huddersfield Hub journalist Andy Hirst was among the last pupils to be educated at Oakes Junior School. Here he shares his memories of those long gone days.
When I left Oakes Junior School in the summer of 1974 it never crossed my mind I was making history.
The school was closing for good after 100 years and moving to the brand new Lindley Junior School so we were the final pupils to ever grace its classrooms before we went up to Salendine Nook High.
Now it’s derelict and crumbling which is why it’s on The Victorian Society’s Top 10 Endangered Buildings List 2026. Read more HERE.
Looking back, 1974 was truly the end of an era for this fine Victorian building constructed in 1873 and opened as Oakes Board School, one of many nationwide which marked the start of State education for the masses following the 1870 Education Act making school mandatory for everyone between the ages of five and 13 to learn the three Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic.
Oakes Board School Photo by Smith Carter on Huddersfield Exposed website.
We learned more than that, of course, in a building that seemed rambling and, at first, foreboding to me when I was there from the age of 7 to 11.
I can’t recall if there were any inside toilets but there was certainly an outside one that was always freezing and I’m not even sure if it had holes in the roof then. You didn’t hang about in there for long.
A memory that’s also stuck in my mind is that it had that terrible Izal toilet paper that was stiff, shiny and, without getting too unseemly, simply didn’t do the job, if you see what I mean.
You weren’t allowed in the building before school was about to start so we all had to queue outside and then file in.
I can’t recall too much about the lessons but remember, thinking back, that I learned all the maths I ever needed in life at Oakes.
We also had the old-fashioned wooden desks where you lifted the lid and there was loads of space inside for your books, only we used them to make elaborate marble runs to keep us occupied during the dull bits.
Oakes Junior School’s gem was its internal quadrangle that seemed huge and we used to play rounders either there or in the large playground on Wellington Street. I loved rounders … kind of like baseball but with no kit at all, just a little wooden bat.
Aerial photo showing the old quadrangle at the former Oakes Junior School. Photo by CAV Aerial.
The kitchen and dining-room were in a dingy building to the side of the main school that seemed to go underground – it was always dark in there – and was the scene of one of my first culinary awakenings and one I quickly regretted.
We were served something oily and round in batter and, in the innocence of youth, I thought it was some kind of fish as I’d only ever had fish in batter before.
It must have been a Friday and they needed to get rid of them all so I asked for another and another and another.
By mid afternoon I was feeling awful and my condition deteriorated further when I discovered it wasn’t fish at all but spam fritters. Even the pink custard couldn’t take the edge off it. I’ve never touched a piece of spam since.
Oakes Junior was where I first learned music and they gave us the chance under some kind of grants scheme to have an instrument for free.
I took the opportunity and quickly wished I hadn’t when I ended up lumbered with a violin … not the ideal instrument for a boy in the 1970s.
If I’d hung on and played the saxophone or the drums I might still be playing them now but I grew to hate that violin with a vengeance.
When it came to classroom control, yes, it did happen. Teachers did throw wooden board rubbers at pupils. I know. I dodged one launched by the aptly-named Mr Wood.
You could in those days and it did me no harm.
In woodwork we had the chance to make some stilts and I literally jumped at the chance. I really wanted to do a good job which is strange really as I don’t have a DIY bone in my body and the woodwork teacher, Mr Armitage, stayed long after everyone else went home to make sure they were done properly.
Funny how kindness like that always stays with you.
The derelict former Oakes Junior School. Photo by Andy Hirst.
It was a huge playground with bits of wall sticking out at right angle from the main wall and many a time we ended up with injured knees running into them.
You could see the stub of railings that had once been there – they’d probably been cut down when iron was needed for the war effort.
Our headteacher was Mr Featherstone who came across to me as always fair but took no nonsense and was highly respected.
For games we walked down to the playing fields behind Lindley Clock Tower or to the fields at Reinwood which had their own changing rooms.
My first kit was the black and red stripes of Manchester City’s away strip – not that I supported them, I just liked the colours.
At Oakes School you were put in one of four houses named after famous Yorkshire folk and you wore your coloured enamel badge with pride – Oastler (red), Rhodes (blue), Delius (green) and Bronte (yellow).
Seeing the building was so gothic and sprawling it was kind of a mini Hogwarts but without the magic.
And then there was the Christmas Party in the main hall that doubled as a gym and I vaguely recall eating an awful lot of jelly.
It was the Christmas when Slade first hit the charts with Merry Xmas Everybody which they released on December 7, 1973.
I’ll stop now as I’m starting to feel really old.
