Thamesmead, Riverside School 76 - 78

Fantastic, evocative photo set here.

"In my early days I was employed, at my second school, as a science teacher at Riverside School, Thamesmead. Situtated on the Bexley/London border, it was a relatively new school in a "London" housing estate. Riverside School is now Bexley Business Academy.

I went into teaching full of belief and idealism, knowing that our children had limitless potential. After 5 years I realised that there was no place for idealism in teaching. I left in 1978 not knowing what I would do.

Some of the photographs in this set were shown in a "Half Moon Photogaphy Workshop" exhibition in 1979. I titled the exhibition "Lost at School". Of course I was referring to my own situation, not that of the children in the photographs".

Museum visitors will also, of course, know that Thamesmead was the main location for Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971). There's nothing that sinister in these photographs though.