Not long before I started school Dick Shepherd had left St Martin’s – but he was often to be seen in the churchyard which was used as a playground by the school, having a game of cricket with the boys ….. the churchyard was the playground for St Martin–in-the-Fields Elementary school which actually served the local children from 5 – 14, in a Georgian building founded in 1731 which is still standing …. The church yard saw all sorts of functions: lunch time cricket matches with the vicar yielding the bat, football for the boys and netball for the girls. (the church windows had a wire mesh over the windows); Empire Day pageants; school sports; and on 9th November, if it fell between a Monday and Friday, we pressed our noses against the railings and watched the Lord Mayor’s Show trace its way down the Strand. Later they gave the school a day off for the Lord Mayor’s Show. We also had Armistice day off as it fell on St Martin of Tours day and many of us would be in Trafalgar Square with our parents as the cannons signalled 11.00am.
St Martin-in-the-Fields