Brecon and district
Victorian school days
  Walk for miles, and mind the bull...  
 

Just getting to school and home again was often difficult for country children in Victorian times, especially in the winter months. Many of the youngest ones were kept at home until the weather improved in the spring.
The school Log Books often mention the problems involved when tiny children had to walk for miles. The first example is from Talachddu School in 1889...

 Engraving of bull
Who's that in my field ?
17th October
1889
 School diary entry "Heard that Sarah Jones was leaving owing to distance and having to pass through fields where there were a number of loose horses and a bull, her Mother thinking it dangerous".
  Mother was probably right, as usual ! The next two diary entries are from Castell Madog School...  
1st May
1896
 School diary entry "Admitted one infant scholar, who lives nearly two miles away. She will not, therefore, be able to walk the distance every day, being only just four year old".
21st October
1898
 School diary entry "The heavy rains on Monday and Tuesday affected the attendance seriously. The majority of the children live a long distance, and have very rough roads; they are also young, so that it is impossible for them to come in bad weather".
 

The Log Book of Senni School from November 1881 noted -
 "Very stormy in the afternoon, so I dismissed the children a little sooner than usual that they might reach home without delay. Some of them had a long distance to walk, Annie Ferguson, for instance, whose home is four miles and a half from here".
No school bus for little Annie in 1881 !

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"Monday. Several of the little ones, who had been absent for a part of the winter, returned today. Pretty fair attendance."
Trecastell School
1st June, 1868.
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