School Days

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I first started school around 1946, when I was about 4 or 5, can‘t remember exactly but I do remember walking to school, even at that age. Even in the rain I was kitted out with a bright yellow Sou’wester, and I can remember being teased about it.

“Only girls wear rain hats” they jeered. I was too young to retaliate with a reference to our brave Lifeboat crews.

Later on, I moved to ‘big’ school and even though it was a mile away, my brothers and I still walked. There was a bus service however and on wet days mother would put pennies down inside our gloves for the bus fare. In those days there were 240 pennies in a Pound. That is one ‘hell of a lotta‘ bus rides.

All children walked or went on the bus ……. and nearly all went unaccompanied.

How things have changed.

This ‘big’ school was the one I wrote about here, where I worked my way up to the top class in the top of the tower.

That would have been 1952 and I would have been ten and getting in some practice for that fearful thing called the 11+.

I do remember we were given practice tests, pages and pages of groups of shapes and asked to ‘ring’ the odd one out. And rows of words with one spelt incorrectly…..a series of numbers and asked to name the next in the series. The one's I did best at were those with gear wheels and levers. In a group of five or six gears - if the first went anti-clockwise, which way did number six go?

Well this practice all paid off and I got a place at Grammar School.

There seemed plenty of schools around in those days. No-one had to travel very far. You could always walk to school, or if you were one of the lucky ones, with a bike, cycle. The Kings Norton Grammar was actually nearer to home than the junior school, but by then, I had a bike so unless the chain broke I never had to walk.

I preferred the bike - as after school you could ‘bomb’ off for miles instead of going straight home.

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The only picture I could find of me on my bike was in fact, of me on my first tricycle way back in the forties. (That spot was not on my nose, but on the camera lens)

I was trying to remember what music was popular when I was eleven and managed to find a “Top Twelve” listing for the UK on 14 Nov 1952.

I found quite a few copies in my collection but there are several in the list I have never heard of.

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How many of you can remember any of these?

1 Here in my Heart - Al Martino

2 You Belong to Me - Jo Stafford

3 Somewhere Along the Way - Nat ‘king’ Cole

4 Isle of Innisfree - Bing Crosby

5 Feet up - Guy Mitchell

6 Half as Much - Rosemary Clooney

7 Forget Me Not - Vera Lynn

7 High Noon - Frankie Laine

8 Sugarbush - Doris Day & Frankie Laine

8 Blue Tango - Ray Martin

9 Homing Waltz - Vera Lynn

10 Auf Wiederseh’n - Vera Llynn

11 Because Your Mine - Mario Lanza

11 Cowpuncher’s Cantata - Max Bygraves

12 Walking my Baby Back Home - Jonnie Ray

Number 4 interested me as I had never heard of the Isle of Innisfree, in fact it looked misspelled. I checked it out and you can find out about the song here.

And for those who are wondering how the day went on Saturday.......

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It went with a Bang!!

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(PS Foody, the Mighty Munches were not eaten....they wanted Pizza's)

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