Schooling!

While Dad was stationed at Scampton, the home of the Dambusters, his crew ‘blew up’ over Cornwall just before Christmas ‘42, while he was hospitalised with ear trouble.  The truth of this accident will never be known, whether the plane was hit by lightening or confused defence ack-ack guns, but what remained of the crew are buried at Helston in Cornwall, which we visited soon after the end of the war.
It must have been after that accident that we went to stay at Saxilby near Lincoln, and here I went to my second school, of which I have no specific memories, so presume it was a very brief stay.  Joining another crew Dad sustained an injury during a bad landing; a Potts fracture to the leg and was out of action for some time.  Soon after, this second crew were shot down too.
While he recovered at The Lees in Hoylake, a boy’s school requisitioned for a RAF convalescent hospital, Mum and I went to stay nearby.  I went to the local school (my third) briefly, which is where I contacted mumps.  When I was sick all over the poor landlady’s settee, because I’d tied myself up in my skipping rope and couldn’t get to the toilet in time, we were asked to go, and moved into a flat over a shop in West Kirby.  One day, on my way to school, I was cornered by a group of strange children, who demanded… ‘Are you Catholic or Proddie?’  At this age, not quite five, I had no idea of religious differences and when I burst into tears they let me go.  (Note that it was quite acceptable to expect a child of that age to walk to and from school alone.) It was Christmas 1943 and Dad had painted and decorated a second hand Doll’s House for me, making tiny furniture out of bits of wood, varnished, which I had for some years.
Recovered from his broken leg, Dad became an instructor and Airfield controller!  It must have been early in 1944 that Dad was at Halfpenny Green to the west of Birmingham when we stayed at the village of Bobbington, because I believe that was where my little sister Diane was conceived, and she was born in November 1944.  Coming to the country from the city, I regaled the local kids with tales of bombing raids and played at being fighter planes, until their parents complained!   This was my fourth school experience and the first at a Church school, where religion went hand in hand with the three R’s. Uphill from the village, this ancient building attached to the even more ancient Church, with its dank musty smell and chalk dust floating in the oblique slant of sunlight through high windows and wooden desks inscribed with the initials of generations of village children, seemed a dark and mysterious place with the chanting of catechisms and hymn singing.  

So now I had a little sister and she came on our last trip in May 1945 up to Northumberland where Dad was stationed at Embleton or Boulmer, near Alnwick in Northumberland.

Dunstanborough Castle in Northumberland

We stayed nearby in a bungalow with a lady whose husband was also away at the war, though the war was ending during this time. My mother considered her a bit flighty because she dolled herself up and went out with other men. I would see her in the bathroom applying makeup to her legs, doing her best to draw a line up the back to look like the seams of stockings, which were unavailable during the war, except from American servicemen!   Maybe she was able to get some after all because sometimes I’d see a USAF serviceman who’d drawl… ‘Wan’ some gum chum?  I’d never had chewing gum before but Mum taught me to accept graciously while being distantly polite.
Grandma came to stay with us for a short while, maybe a week or so, and she’d walk with me down the lane pointing out everything coming to life and bumblebees staggering from flower to flower.  A little later on, the road verges were full of nettles, as I remember well, from falling into them while learning to ride a bike down the lane.

My baby sister was six months old and Mum had more than enough to do with her, so as I was now the advanced age of seven, I was considered responsible enough to walk to the local school (my fifth) in the village of Newton-by-the-sea, a good mile away from where we were staying.  Mum took me to begin with, and then the milkman would occasionally give me a ride.  Every morning I was sent off with a packet of food for the day; home-made scone for morning break and sandwiches for lunch, each wrapped in greased proof paper, and a bottle of diluted orange juice, all in a paper bag.  Small bottles of concentrated orange juice and cod liver oil were provided for every child by the government, to keep the nation’s children healthy and there were small bottles of milk for every school child, although I didn’t like milk and would give mine away when I had a chance.  The toilets were in a separate block, and I was shocked to discover a row of three wooden seats when I first went in, and relieved that I didn’t have to share it with anyone else.  Previous generations obviously had no such qualms about relieving themselves in company!
The school consisted of two rooms; one for the young children and the other, literally up a couple of steps, for the older ones, so the one teacher divided her time between them, giving each class a lesson while the other class carried on an assignment.  I was in the lower class and would diligently practise my letters; we were taught the elegant loops and curves of joined up script, and read whatever text book we had, or draw, which I really enjoyed.  However intelligent I thought I was, this school became a nightmare for me because the other children all spoke a foreign language, (Geordie) and I found it difficult to keep up.  At this crucial point in my childish development, I felt mortified and embarrassed because I couldn’t even understand the teacher’s instructions.  So much so that I burst into tears when everyone started to write something down and I didn’t know what to do.  Whether the other children sniggered and mocked, I have no recollection, although I’d be very surprised if they didn’t, kids being what they are, but I do believe this was the trigger that has caused me to blush with self-consciousness ever since, whenever I’ve felt ‘caught out’..  I don’t remember having any friends, probably because they lived in the village and I lived a mile away.
Most of my spare time was spent drawing fairy castles, writing stories and reading voraciously.  I did however get involved with the local kids in making a den in the woods behind our bungalow, but I don’t recall that much went on there once it was built.  I was probably considered strange, an alien child in their familiar world, and as I was quiet and well behaved, they soon lost interest in me.
Walking home from school down the long straight road, I’d stop and put an ear to the big wooden poles that supported telephone wires strung along one side of the road, listening to the eerie sound of wind echoing through them, imagining I could hear conversations going on through the wires above. This was wild wind-swept country, and although the coast was heavily fortified with concrete and barbed wire so we couldn’t get onto the beach or sea, we did have picnics in the sand dunes in the hot summer sun with Dad when the war seemed far away and one day we went for a beautiful coast walk to the remote ruins of Dunstanborough Castle.  We had trips out and there’s even a snap of us all having a picnic by the river at Alnwick, although the famous castle was closed for the war.  This was recorded in the photo album that Dad kept so meticulously, fixing the small prints into special corners stuck onto the thick black paper leaves of the album and writing the date and place in white ink.  
Many years later I found myself in the same part of the country, and drove down that little road, seemingly unchanged, the telephone wires still humming their messages, to the tiny hamlet, where the school was now a very upmarket private house and the toilet block converted to a garage.
At these village schools we still wrote on slates with a slate pencil, and lessons seemed to be primarily concerned with reading out loud, practising handwriting, learning tables and doing sums; and first thing every morning the drill was to recite one or more Times Tables as a class.  Although I might have been able to say tables in my sleep, I struggled with mental arithmetic for many years, as I needed to see it on paper to work it out.  My Dad had little patience with this block in my perception, which made mathematics an increasingly stressful part of school life.  In spite of this, I did well at all other subjects, especially English, and I enjoyed reading so much I always had my head in a book!
Back home I was now in the junior school and was soon asked to help other children with their reading and writing, restoring my self-esteem and boosting my academic ego.  In my own time I was often engrossed in writing stories and poems that I would be ‘encouraged’ to read out to my adoring family, although I was naturally shy and reluctant to perform.  Being the first and only grandchild for some time, I was expected to show great intelligence and must have lived up to these expectations at the time, because when I was seven, I was picked out of my class to take an IQ test with the ten year olds, in which I apparently scored a high mark of 130 as far as I recall.  Somehow from then on I went downhill academically, only managing to get into the middle stream of Grammar school in the 11-plus exams, this being the seventh and last school I attended.  I have to say that I didn't enjoy school much, apart from English, Art, Geography and History, which were the only exams I passed and which have remained my prime interests in life.