Memories - Schooldays pt1 - Infants and Juniors

I think that now I have started to delve into the long hidden recesses of my brain, it's a bit like emptying the Hoover bag, all sorts of little gems/memories/thoughts are being unearthed.

As you can see, on the whole I have a very happy, colourful brain. Just a bit muddled and confused. It's like your favourite cupboard or drawer where you keep all your 'useful bits'. You know its in there somewhere, it just takes a bit of digging to find it!

Also it's maybe a good thing to put this down on paper, while my grey matter is still willing to part with it. My grandchildren may even read it one day or use it as part of their homework.

 Welcome To My Brain!

We all have vague memories of our first few days at infant school, although nowadays most children tend to go to pre-school, so it is not such a shock for them as it was for the children of the 1960s! Back then there was only one intake a year and that was the September after your 5th birthday. As a mid-August baby, this meant I was always one of the youngest in the class. My brother who was a mid-September baby was one of the oldest.

My school life as an Infant and a Junior began with one year at St Pauls in Addlestone, followed by 4yrs at St Marys in Twickenham(see my original school badge on the left), and then a year at Heatherside Junior School in Fleet, Hampshire.

There were no state pre-schools or nurseries, so for most children who had turned 5, their first day at school was the first time they had been on their own, and away from home.. Most mothers did not work outside the home, so for many children this was also the first time they had been apart from their mothers. 

School life, as today, had a fairly predictable routine. School milk was part of this. Crates of milk in little glass bottles with foil tops and paper straws to drink with, which always went soggy. I ask you, can you imagine giving a class of small children glass bottles? But amazingly I don't recall any breakages. 

In the winter months, it was a common to see the small crates of milk with the bottle tops standing proud above the bottles on a column of frozen milk. Of course, the only way to defrost the milk was to place it by the radiator, and then we were forced to consume watery, lukewarm milk.  “Milk is good for you child, you WILL drink it all up!”

In fact, milk drinking was the cause of my first ever telling off at 5yrs old.  I used to blow bubbles in my milk through my straw, very gently. A boy I disliked, asked me how to do it it. I said 'Blow down your straw VERY hard'. He did, and he and the table were covered in milk. Amidst his tears he told the teacher what I'd said and I was sent to sit at the front of the class. To make matters worse, I tucked my feet behind the bar that went between the legs at the front of the chair and they got stuck! Then through the glass in the classroom door I saw the head-mistress approaching. We were all supposed to stand when she came in. Well, you've guessed, that wasn't going to happen without embarrassment! I had to throw myself forwards in order to extricate my legs. Lots of sniggers and giggles from classmates, stern faces from my teacher and the head. I didn't learn though. That was just the first of many misdemeanours. I didn't mean to be naughty. It was usually because I thought it was funny, or occasionally for revenge. I find forgiveness doesn't come naturally to me. 

Every day would start with Assembly, which would comprise of a hymn, a Bible reading, a talk from the headmistress, prayers and another Hymn. All of the school would gather in the hall, and sit cross-legged on the floor except for hymns and prayers. The teachers would sit down each side on chairs. 

Rainy days meant going to school in welly boots. We had a wooden clothes peg with our name on and the boots would be clipped together and put in the cloakroom under our peg and we would wear our black plimsolls for the rest of the day.

In my first year I remember losing a tooth at play time. It just fell out of my mouth, and no amount of searching would unearth my precious gem of enamel. The afternoon was spent worrying about the missed visit from the tooth fairy. Such misery! I explained to my mum, who assured me that all fairies had magic powers and the tooth fairy would find it after the children had all gone home and it was dark. If it was a beautiful tooth, I would receive my reward. Of the amount, I have no memory, it could have been a copper penny or a silver sixpence. I suspect the latter maybe.

A new booklet would be given out each term

‘Music and Movement’ was a radio programme played all over the country in school halls, we would leap and stretch to the commands from the radio. ‘Now children we are going to sway like trees in the wind’ would be the instruction, and we would begin to sway with our arms in the air. There was no P.E kit in infant schools so we just removed their outer clothes and did P.E. in our vests, and knickers, with either bare feet or black plimsolls. Although girls did tend to have thick school knickers that echoed the colour of the uniform. This was royal blue in my early years. 

Another such programme was ‘Singing Together’ where we would gather to sing traditional folk songs and sea shanties such as ‘Oh soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me’, ‘A-Roving’, ‘Michael Finnegan’, ‘The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies’ and ‘Oh No John’. We would have little booklets to learn the songs from. However, when as an adult you examine the content and meaning of some of these old folk songs, whether they were indeed suitable for the under 11s is another question! I think I was completely oblivious to any possible under current of bad taste, and simply sung with gusto.

School dinners were very British. Nothing remotely spicy or 'foreign' tasting. I loved my food, still do, so didn't have a problem with most of the meals. Meals would be meat pies served from a large tray, mince, pink spam fritters, fish on fridays, vegetables and potatoes. I think there might have been chips with the fish, but I'm not sure. 

Puddings were usually a tray baked sponge. Chocolate or plain, sometimes with coconut sprinkled on the top, and custard, pink, yellow or chocolate. There might be rice pudding with a dollop of jam in the centre, or the dreaded tapioca pudding (also called fish eggs) I remember at St. Marys the mashed potatoes were always lumpy which used to make me gag. On one occasion I told the dinner lady that I didn't want any, but she went to put a scoop on my plate, I moved it and it landed on the floor. Boy, did I get told off. I didn't understand why as I had said 'no, thank you'. 

Coconut sponge with custard

We weren't allowed to leave anything. Dinner ladies would patrol the tables telling you to eat up, so we would frequently do surreptitious swaps for things we liked, and swallowed the things we hated with copious amounts of water. We always had a metal jug of water on the tables and thick glasses with the word 'Duralex' and a number printed on the bottom. I've since discovered these were a French design and was supposed to be the glass that could bounce! I sure they were tested to the max. I can't recall there being packed lunches but some children would go home for lunch, not many, and mainly those who lived close by.

There would be visits from the school nurse. The nit nurse (or Nitty Nora) used to make regular visits to check for head-lice and all the children in each class would line up to be examined in turn, their hair being combed carefully with a nit comb to see if there was any infestation. There were also routine eye and hearing tests, and visits from the school dentist.

There was the polio vaccine, given at school to every child on a sugar lump. Measles, German Measles and Mumps were not vaccinated against at this time; most children contracted these diseases in childhood.

The pen was filled using the lever the pen which
would draw the ink up into a rubber bladder inside.
Most children would have blue ink stains on their fingers.

Class sizes were large compared to now, often over 30 children to a class. There were no classroom assistants, just the teacher and discipline was strict. It was quite common for a disruptive child to be rapped over the knuckles, on the buttocks or on the palm of the hand with a ruler. There were individual desks to keep books and belongings. Naughty ones at the front. If you were allowed to sit at the back, you could obviously behave. No chatting, just listen to the teacher and do as you were told. The 60s  was very much ‘a talk and chalk’ education, with the teacher at the front of the class and the children sitting at desks facing the board. Reading, writing and arithmetic (the Three ‘R’s) were very important, as was learning by rote. Times tables were learnt by chanting aloud in class. Neat hand writing was seen as very important and practiced daily. We had proper ink pens when we had progressed beyond pencils, and would have special italic nibs and were taught 'proper joined up writing'. You'l find that you can almost tell when children went to school by the style in which they wrote. Nature study was popular and often the only science taught at primary school, was children being asked to bring in things such as leaves and seeds for the teacher to identify and then to use later in art and craft work. Disobedience, usually meant having to stand on your chair, The modern day equivalent of the 'naughty step' I suppose. To be sent to the headmistresses office, meant you had really gone to far. As I managed to avoid that particular punishment, I can't expand on what horrors awaited behind that door, but I do remember Mr Shepherd (who looked like Clint Eastwood *swoon*) in my junior school, smacking a particularly unruly boy on the back of the legs in front of the whole class. Now there's a good deterrent.

In the playground, we would play chase, skipping, hopscotch, 'peep behind the curtain'. The girls would tuck there skirts or dresses in their knicker legs and do handstands against the wall. In the autumn the boys would play conkers. There were frequent cuts, scrapes and bruises, but that was just part of growing up, and the idea of an 'accident book' didn't exist. The injury would probably not even be discovered until bath or bed-time. 

The toilet block was in the playground a cold and spidery place. 

I remember being told off at St. Marys, and being laughed at by the class. 
I asked to go to the loo. 

Locked the door, stood on the toilet roll holder and climbed over the divide. 

I did this in each toilet, locking the doors as I went until

..... there was only one loo left with a door that would open! 

Quite why I felt the need to do this I have no idea. 

Probably to make them all queue for one loo. 

Like I said before, it's a revenge thing! 

I didn't even get found out!