A uniquely portable magic

Wednesday 19 March 2014


My first school in 1911. 
Not much different 60 years later.


When I started school, I could already read.  Apparently I rustled at the Northern Socialist's Guardian clamouring to know 'what is the letter shaped like a hammer?' and so, for the sake of peace, there began one of the enduring passions of my life.

My first school was in a lofty Victorian building; chilly echoing cloakrooms with ineffectually scalding clanging radiators, wire baskets for outdoor shoes and pitted wooden benches that squeaked alarmingly on bare thighs. The blackboards pulled down from an iron rod and emitted great chalky sighs as they fell.

I was taken to meet the Headmistress.  Her office was up narrow echoing stairs and it took forever to climb up there.  She was absolutely tiny, like me, her legs dangled from her chair. Of all the odd things to happen, we had exactly the same name.  She had a wooden plaque on the desk which had our name on it.  I read it, picked it up and showed my parents, gleefully, that she had made me a block with my name on it. Excellent; I loved presents.

She barked at me to put it down.  I remember her being very angry.  It transpired that she was a big pusher of the loony 1960s ITA 'reading' scheme which consisted of teaching children how to be utterly shit at reading by telling them 'foks' meant 'fox.'  So my being able to read already put rather a spoke in her plans. My teacher used to smuggle proper books in for me that I would hide in corners and devour. While she was mangling the brains of my poor classmates, I travelled far, adventuring in the company of fantastic new friends.

Outside daily assembly, I only met the Headmistress alone again once. I was sent to her because I had come in very late from break and, unrepentant, insisted that I had been playing a game with some other children.  She told me she had been watching from her lofty window, that the playground had been empty and I was a wanton liar. In retrospect, I think we were probably both right.


13 comments:

  1. Thank you for the daily laugh: "in retrospect...we were probably both right".

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    1. We were. And I'm having the last laugh...

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  2. I adore your stories about your childhood. They remind me of Narnia, and the Five Children and It.

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    1. You are, as always, very gracious. It feels more like one of Borrowers books at times...

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  3. great story with 3 favorite words: gleefully, unrepentant, wanton. Thank you!

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    1. Dear Linda, what serendipity! That's one of mine. How are you? X

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  4. Oh my goodness, your school sounded exactly like mine! I'm sure you even remember the scratchy tracing paper-like little squares that were shockingly fobbed off as toilet paper!

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  5. Yes that smelled of disinfectant. And all the teachers had winged specs and polo necks and never smiled unless they were berating one...

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    1. You have just described Miss Bottle, my English Lit teacher, to a tee!

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  6. yikes. I hope you didn't have to stay at that school for too long. But it obviously did nothing to diminish your literary skill

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  7. My elder brother and I both had to suffer the ITA scheme. I managed to adjust quite quickly after the first year but my brother found it very hard because he had been at another school previously which didn't use ITA - he was so confused.

    I have just hunted out my old exercise books -here's an example to remind you. The story of the Town Mouse and the Country mouse became, in my ITA trained hand, aged 5, hilariously, 'Won dae the toun mous went tw see hiz frend the cuntry mous"
    This was declared 'a luvly story, gwd wurk' by the teacher!

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  8. Ridiklus, wuznt it? Sprizd we can reed at all frnklee.

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  9. I could read when I started school too. I remember vividly my teacher's surprise at discovering not only that I could read but that I could read upside down as well as the right way round! I was lucky. The response seems to have been to let me loose on the small and rather tatty but to me totally wonderful school library.

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Please leave a comment if you can be remotely bothered - anything you have to say is valuable and I absolutely love hearing from you all. Elizabeth