ABSTRACT
Barbara Mill (A236) was born in 1921 into a large working-class family from Lincolnshire. Her mother had been a barmaid before marriage, and her father was a sheet-metal worker. Barbara’s varied career began as a rural pupil teacher in Nottinghamshire from 1935-39, following which she taught as an uncertificated assistant teacher for three years. She then turned to nursing and trained at the Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1942. From 1948 she worked in Corporation Day Nurseries and in a variety of roles which included health visiting, advising in ante-natal health clinics and lecturing to nursery students for one day per week. But increasingly, Barbara hankered after the classroom and eventually undertook college training as a mature student at Scraptoft, Leicester from 1961-63. Thereafter, she worked in primary schools, particularly teaching children with special educational needs. She retired in 1981 as a teacher in a Special School. Barbara’s interview was an emotional occasion during which she ranged over her whole career, interpreting it both in the context of her own personality and her childhood experience.
