WE’VE got some more memories this week of life at the Sidney Hall when it was used as a Weymouth school.

Ann Bright of Chapelhay, Weymouth, got in touch with us to tell us the Holy Trinity School was formerly at Chapelhay, opposite the Chapelhay Tavern pub.

Thanks also to Joy Mitchell of Weymouth for pointing out that the original school was at Chapelhay too.

It was bombed in the Second World War and, as a result, the school’s pupils were moved to the Sidney Hall, which is now where the Asda supermarket stands in Newstead Road.

Ann said: “The Sidney Hall was a lovely place to go to school.

“We used to look out of the window at the paddle steamers being repaired in the harbour.

“I started at the school in 1947 when my family moved to Weymouth from Surrey and stayed there until I was 11 and went to the grammar school.

“There was a building on the side of the football ground that was used as a canteen, we went there for our dinners and it was open to the public.

“There was also a hut on site that was used by the Red Cross. Of course, we would also go roller skating in the hall.

“We had a teacher there who looked like the actress Margaret Rutherford, that was Miss Pafford.

“There were some very nice teachers there – Miss Woolacott and Miss Rashley I remember well.

“After I left school I would see a lot of the teachers around and they always took a lot of interest in what we were doing.

“I’m still in touch with a few of the people who I went to school with there.”

Remarkably, Ann now lives at Trinity Terrace – flats which were built on the site of the old Holy Trinity School.

After the building was bombed, it was patched up and used as a youth employment centre on a temporary basis, she said.

Brian Knight, of Portland, phoned in with his memories of being at Weymouth Central Boys’ School and of walking to the Sidney Hall for school dinners.

He said: “I was at the school between 1943 and 1946 and we would go to the school for dinner. I remember it not being very nice and consisting of semolina and all those horrible things.

“We’d all walk down from Cromwell Road for our lunch.”

When he was older, Brian would enjoy the dances held at the Sidney Hall.

He said: “We had some lovely dances there. All the big bands would perform there.

“I went to a dance there in 1947 or 1948 and I remember a fight breaking out between two sailors over a girl.

“A very large policeman came in and lifted both of the two sailors off their feet and threw one of them outside.”

Patti Aston remembers being at school at the Sidney Hall in 1952 and hearing of King George’s death.

She said: “We were having lunch at the time and one of the dinnerladies was serving the lunch and started to cry.

“We were all told about the King’s death and had a minute’s silence in the school hall.

“At lunchtime all the boys from the school at Cromwell Road came over – my husband was among them, although I didn’t know him at the time.

“There are still friends who went to school with me there who I’m still in touch with now.

“They are Joy Graham, who now lives in Australia and is coming back to visit next month, Rosemary Caddy, Valerie Banks and Eleanor West. My maiden name was Moore.

“We had a lot of fun while we were at the school, even later in life I would go there to play bingo. We would play games at school making little houses on the earth road at the side of the school and drawing out rooms and brushing them clean.”

WE’VE got many more memories of life at Holy Trinity school when it was in Sidney Hall coming up in future weeks of Looking Back, so keep them coming if you were a pupil at the school.