Our School Icons The Dental Clinic

The dental clinic, also known as the murder house by the past pupils, has been with Grey Lynn School for about 82 years.

They used many different tools from today and it was very scary for the children. The dental nurses did their best but the old drills were very slow and caused pain.

My mother and father often talk about going to the frightening dentist as children. It brings back horrid memories and my mother is still paying money to fix what the dentists started. Unfortunately for Grey Lynn School our dental clinic is actually getting moved from our school to Ponsonby Intermediate at the end of the year. By Faye

The photographs show the old clinic over by the oak trees in the top west corner of the school field.The other one is of the present clinic due to close at the end of 2011.

Anthony Bovaird, a former pupil recalls the Dental Clinic:

One of the scariest parts of being at school was a visit to the Dental Clinic, commonly known as 'The Murder House'. The screams that came from it left most pupils in fear and trepidation. Once I was summoned there by a previous patient and while seated in the waiting room I couldn't bear the screams of the pupil in the chair, so I ran away to the sanctuary of the toilets. Later I was sent for and returned to face my fate. Excerpt chosen by Maia from a memoir of the school sent in 2010 by Anthony Bovaird.

Inside our Dental Clinic in 2011

A page from the wages book for the Dental Clinic from the 1950s. Note the Social Security stamps on the page.The wages book is in our school archives.