Chapter Nineteen

Primary School

I loved my primary school, which was opposite my paternal grandparents house. It was a very old building with concrete stairs and wooden boards on the floor. It was called Bannerman Road Primary School and was built in 1877 for the children of the coal miners, who mined in the local area at that time.

It has to be mentioned here, that as I was not a mixer my mother had difficulty getting me to go to school. (I'm a friendly person now, but still not sociable). I used to make a bit of a fuss about it most days, and start crying at the school gate, but once I was in the school I was fine. I believe it may have been what is now called 'Separation Anxiety.' I was a nervous child with a feisty streak! I have always had a mind of my own and I'm not easily led.

I was five years old when I started school and I was very thin with stick like arms and legs. By the time I left primary school, I was one of the tallest girls in the class, even taller than some of the shorter boys. I was still thin.

Easton, the area where I lived then was very much a concrete jungle. I was not aware of it at the time, but it contrasted very sharply to the suburbs where I lived later on after I married. The school was no different. There were two tarmac playgrounds, one at the back of the building which was large and one at the front of the building which was very small. There was no grass at all and only a small raised bed where flowers and shrubs grew; very unlike the lovely schools attended by my grandchildren, where there is grass, trees and general greenery.

The children at primary school were well behaved. I can't remember any of them bullying the others or saying nasty things, neither did I hear them swear. Perhaps this is incorrect, but that is how I remember it. There was generally a lovely, peaceful atmosphere in the school.

Adjoining the school was the nursery I briefly attended and we could see into it over a very small wall, into part of their area. It was just a small corner area. We used to see small children playing. One child in particular caught my eye as she was very pretty, she was called Faye. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. One of my friends knew who she was and told me she was being fostered. I felt sorry for her circumstances. I loved the name Faye and when I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, aged 29, I just had to call her Faye.

Our toilets were in outside blocks in the large playground at the back. The girls' toilet was near the small wall area where we could look over into the nursery. The boys' toilet was in a block nearer to the school building on the right hand side. Suffice it to say, it was very cold using those toilets in the winter time. It seems very primitive now.

The teachers at my school were very kind and very patient. Mr Parslow was the Head teacher when I joined and then he left and Mr Jay became the Head.  Because I excelled in English (well, it was my best subject so not sure if excelled is the right word here) I went with two other children to spend time in Mr Jay's office writing different things. I'm not sure why. It's just a vague memory, but we had been singled out for some reason. This was nearing the end of my time there.

We had wonderful health care at the time. The NHS had started on 5th July 1948 and health care visitors, probably nurses, came to school once a year to measure our heights and weigh us. Also, we were vaccinated against lots of the diseases which were prevalent in the years before. I can remember a small round, dimpled mark on my arm which was caused by a vaccination, I'm not sure what it was now. It stayed well into my teens or maybe later and then it disappeared.

Because of these vaccinations, we grew up without the fear of getting Polio, Measles, Mumps and (for the girls, Rubella) and possibly other diseases as well, possibly Tuberculosis. We had Polio vaccine on two lumps of sugar, a few months apart.

I am a great believer in vaccinations, I had all the Covid ones and just had one for Shingles which older people can get and it is very painful and hard to get rid of. We had no epidemics at all, of any childhood diseases whilst I was growing up thanks to the vaccinations.

I can remember us having a couple of small animals in cages in one of our classrooms, teaching us how to care for them. Possibly a hamster or a rabbit. We used to cluster around the cages looking. I think this was possibly in the last class at school when we were eleven.

At the age of ten the whole class had to write a story about cocoa and chocolate for a Cadbury's writing competition and we all won a box of Cadbury's chocolate and received a certificate. I kept it for years and years and then thought 'how ridiculous' and I threw it away. I wish I hadn't now.

I still have photographs in black and white of my school classes. I still know lots of the children's names. The two most popular girl's names in the 1950's were Linda and Susan. I had a friend called Linda in my class. Popular boy's names of that time were Michael, Peter, Paul and Andrew, but in my class there were two Richards, a Geoffrey, Rodney, Alan and Steven. Poor Rodney had hands with deformed fingers, it always upset me to see them.

We used to have a break mid morning and we could buy drinks, biscuits and snacks. There were chocolate wafers, vanilla wafers, Jammie Dodgers (biscuits with cream filling and jam in the middle) and also potato puffs and crisps. I loved all of it. It was the highlight of my day! If they sold fruit I can't remember and I wouldn't have been interested anyway. I think they did sell apples sometimes.

The teachers' names I remember are Miss Parrot, Mrs Shirley, Mr Lansdown and Mr Jay who was the Head Teacher for some of the time. Mrs Shirley and Mr Lansdown were my favourites, but Mr Jay was very nice as well.

Most of the children were well dressed and clean, but there was one family who were very poor and the children looked grubby and ragged. It seemed very sad to me. I can still remember their surname. I do hope the years have been kind to them all.

My closest friend at school was Geraldine. The others were called Linda, Ann, Stella and Kay. I lost touch with all of them when I left primary school, except for Linda who came to Redfield school with me. Geraldine passed her 11+ exam, I think and went on to another school, possibly Rose Green which was also a school for girls only, I believe.

I can remember when I was in the last year at school, two of us girls were allowed to go into the very basic, concrete looking kitchen to boil milk on the gas stove and make milky coffee for two or three of the teachers. We used the liquid CAMP coffee which I think you may still be able to buy. I liked it. I can imagine teachers having a melt down today thinking about how unsafe it was, having girls use a gas stove. However, we were very sensible and never had any accidents. I think there was a teacher there one time, showing us how to light the gas with a gas lighter. It used to click the flame on, somehow. It seems incredibly dangerous now! I wonder if my mother ever knew about this? I don't think it would have pleased her.

I never stayed for school dinners. I tried it once, but didn't like it so I always came home for lunch, my mother coming to collect me and walk me home when I was small. When I went to the senior school I still went home for lunch as it was only a 15 minutes walk each way, so I had half an hour to eat, before I went back to school. To me it was a little Oasis of quiet in the middle of the day.

I didn't know it then, but I really do have a writer's temperament. I am happy to be by myself, don't like the limelight and like to beaver away on my own. I think most writer's are the same. Not that knowing this will do me any good now.

I can remember my class sitting on the floor, with our legs crossed, in the assembly hall with our hands on our heads.  I can remember the teacher being very cross.  Well, someone had done something wrong (I suppose) and no one had owned up, so we were all punished. Oh boy, how it makes your arms ache if teachers make you do that. I have never liked unfairness and I would have thought (as I do now) how unfair that we had to suffer for the wrongdoing of a guilty party.

The assembly hall was used every morning as we used to go there for hymns and prayers. I always enjoyed this part of the day. We were always made to sit with our legs crossed on the floor, but stand to sing.

The assembly hall was also used for Musical Movement, when we dressed in our PE kit and black daps moving around to music. We also did PE, when forms were placed around the hall and we ran along them and jumped about. I loved PE in my little school, but grew to hate it when I was older. I could run very fast as a child and always loved the sports day. Unfortunately, as we didn't have a grass playing field, being an old inner city school, we had to run up and down a small tarmac playground at the front of the school and there wasn't much room. 

I remember music lessons when they used to play 'Peter and The Wolf.' I've just listened to it now and it has made me feel emotional, silly woman that I am!  We used to sing too. I can remember a few of the songs. On the whole, my school days in the primary school were a happy time for me.

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At the age of eleven we had to sit an exam called the 11+ to decide how clever we were! I failed the 11+ probably due to my bad Maths. I was never good at it and I believe now I have dyscalculia, which is like dyslexia, but with numbers instead of words. If I had passed I would have been able to go to a grammar school whereas I went to a secondary modern.

After leaving the primary school, I attended Redfield Girls' School and was there for two years. I loved it there. It was a modern building, quite bright and clean.  Linda came with me to Redfield School, but no one else from the primary school.

I really liked being in a girls only school. They had a room of type writers which I hoped to use as I wanted to learn to type. I began to learn French and I liked it so much. There was also a pottery kiln and art room which was of great interest to me. There was a sewing room, full of sewing machines. I used one to make a dark blue, floral nightdress. The Science Lab was lovely and there was even a few rooms, made to look like a small apartment, where girls learned how to make a bed, cups of tea, how to do the washing up and homely things like that. For a secondary modern school it was so well equipped.

My sister was at this school for a few months whilst I was there, but she left soon afterwards.

At age 13 some of us were singled out to go to St George grammar school with boys from a local school to be the first of the Comprehensive (mixed) system. I had to decide whether to stay at Redfield or go on to the grammar school. I have always thought I made the wrong choice, but it is hard to say now.  Linda was not singled out and she stayed at Redfield School.

St George grammar school was very old fashioned and the only well equipped room was the Science room, there were no type writers, no sewing machines, no pottery kiln and nothing of any interest to me. I deeply regretted going there. I found the boys very course and crude. They were always swearing, something I have never liked much. People sometimes take it far too far. I hated the school and the boys. I hated the Cookery teacher and the PE teacher, but most of the teachers were okay. We still sang hymns and said prayers at this school every morning, but it did nothing for many of the children there! 

I had a couple of friends there, Sandra and Caroline.  Caroline did not come until after the first year at St George, when she moved into the area, but we have remained friends ever since.  We have been friends for fifty seven years.  We worked out that we were both in Southmead Hospital at the same time when we were born.  I am five days older.  Caroline loved art too and she has continued to paint since she left school.

Caroline always went to dance classes, danced from an early age and when she was teenage she danced in a couple of professional Pantomimes. I have a picture of her in a lovely pantomime costume with her dance friends which she gave to me at the time. Last year, aged 71, Caroline won a Dance Competition in the category of Best All Round Dancer! I am so proud of her!

Before one of the maths lessons, we were in our form room waiting for the maths teacher, Miss Brown to come in. I had the lid of my desk up with my hands in the desk when a boy slammed the lid down. It hurt my fingers and he didn't even apologise. Some of the girls said, 'Pat had her hands there.' 'Uh, I didn't know.' he replied. I expect tears came to my eyes, but I was never one to make a fuss. The boy was never punished as no teacher knew about it. I should have made a big fuss and gone home. I could have killed two birds with one stone. Got the boy into trouble and got out of the awful maths lesson, but no point in thinking about it now. It was a wonder he didn't break my fingers!

I was very keen on Art, but the teacher was hopeless and always spent the lesson messing about with the boys and taught us absolutely nothing. Because of her attitude, I only passed a Grade Two. How I had wanted a Grade One! I resent her even now for not teaching certain techniques which would have helped me to pass. (If this is what is called bearing a grudge, then I think I do. Ha,ha.) I still have an art book from school with some pencil drawings in and they are good. I used to love drawing animals.

We took GCSE exams and Grade One was equivalent to an 'O' level. Ordinary level. I took seven GCSE's getting one Grade One, in English, two Grade Two's for Art and History and four grade Three's. Science, Geography, Home Economics and Religious Education.

I did not take the Maths exam as I only got 10% in the mock exam. I don't even know why I got that much! Ha, ha. I used to cry over my Maths homework as I couldn't understand it and was so pleased to get out of doing the exam.

Although I hated it so much, I stayed on until I was 17, going into the Sixth Form and got myself two more 'O' levels, English Literature and History. I liked the Sixth Form better. It is safe to say, I am not at all academic. I am more a creative, artist type of person.

I was so relieved when I got my first job. For a long time (many years) I used to dream I had to go back to school and when I woke up was so relieved to find that it was just a bad dream. That will tell you how much I disliked it.

A friend of mine, whom I met when I started my first job, had taken about nine 'O' level exams and passed them all. I was not that clever, I would have found it hard to concentrate on all of those subjects, but at least I did get something.

I can honestly say it was really lovely writing about the primary school and really horrible writing about St George grammar school. I wish I could wipe those memories away! Although I have to say I was never bullied. I just felt like a round peg in a square hole. A feeling I felt in one of my jobs! But that's another story.