First Schooling

Well, of course, so many of you guessed the photograph yesterday.  It had to be Mike didn't it?!  He did not think I would put it on my journal.  The picture was taken when he was seven.

My first day at school. It was all a big adventure for me, not knowing what to expect. I remember arriving at the school gates and my mother being in tears, it upset me to see her upset so by the time she left we were both crying. However, my tears stopped when she assured me that she would be picking me up later, saying she just had some shopping to do and she would be back.

The school was a large building built in Edwardian times. Very high windows You could not see out of them. It was supposed to be like that to stop the pupils being distracted. So different from the bright and airy classrooms of today. The paintwork was all dark greens and dark browns, the desks worn and scarred by the doodling of many former pupils. The rooms seemed like vast caverns to me. A place that truly dwarfed me. However, that first day was such fun because all we did was play with toys and get to know our teacher. Miss Doyley was young, pretty and fun. I remember playing with all the other children and the sun streaming in through the windows. I had never had much to do with other children and I was painfully shy. That shyness was to lead to trouble in my junior school, but that is another story.

The following morning my Mother got me up again and told me I was going to school. I was mortified (if such a young child can have those feelings) and promptly burst into tears. “I have been to school Mummy, and it was fun but I do not want to go again, I want to stay here with you.” My first rude awakening to the real world when she replied to the effect that I was going to have to go to school every working day for at least the next ten years. (it turned out to be longer, I was almost seventeen when I left school).  I promptly dissolved into tears and begged and pleaded with her not to make me. I was scared stiff!

However, I soon settled in and can still remember learning arithmetical tables by rote, writing classes and learning to put words together. I think that is where I developed my love of language and literature - listening , spellbound, to a story being  read by a teacher. Of course I was only in the “infants” for a couple of years. Although I wasso very shy, I did mix more easily with boys. Mainly because one of the boys was Colin W and he and his family lived next door to us, our houses literally adjoined as they were terrace properties. At the age of six Colin and I had pledged our undying love and vowed to be married one day. I think we actually believed it. We used to  walk to school together and home again, hand in hand and he used to pick Daisies and Buttercups for me.

The truth of the matter was that when we were eleven and took the Eleven+ examination - I failed ( I think purely because I got so nervous over the exam and all the questions looked like Chinese to me) and he passed. He could now go on to Grammar School. I had to go to a Secondary Modern. He did not speak to me after that, he considered then that he was far superior to me. Years later I found out he had gone to the bad and ended up in prison. Such much for his education!

Anyway, going back to the boys. One of our favourite games was “horses”.

Three or four of us would link hands behind our backs and gallop around like mad. Usually me and three boys, Colin, Clive and Brian. One afternoon during break we were running around in this fashion when I lost my footing fell and somehow got dragged. It all happened so fast. I just remember severe pain, Colin running for help and myself ending up in the nurse’s office. In those days they did not send for your parents if you had an accident, nor did they ship you off to the hospital. You were just supposed to grin and bear it. I had skinned both knees, a large part of my forehead, all of my nose and part of one cheek. I was cleaned up and smothered in iodine. Then told to go back and play!

I remember walking back out into the hot sunshine with my face and legs stinging like mad, a headache and tears pricking my eyes. I wanted to go home. Just then I happened to look up and there, looking through the school railings was my Dad. It was one of his rare days off and he had gone to the Barber. On his way back, seeing children in the playground, he stopped to try and see if he could spot me.

I forgot my painful knees and my sore face and yelled “Daddy, Daddy” at the top of my voice. I will never forget his face when his saw this apparition coming towards him. Torn and dirty dress, blood on my socks, yellow knees and yellow face from the iodine and rapidlycoming up in bruises. He was furious and charged into the school demanding to see the Headmaster. The next thing I remember was him picking me up and swinging me onto his shoulders and carrying me home. I felt so special,I felt like a queen. At that moment I forgot all about my injuries. At that moment it was just me and my beloved Dad.

I had never felt more safe than on that hot and sunny afternoon with my arms firmly around his neck and my face on his shoulder.

I shall write more about my schooling another time.

Oh, the dress I am wearing in the above picture. I even remember the colours. The checks were in orange and brown.  To think I can remember that so very many years later!