Our English Adventure #6

Things were very different for us when it came to school in Plymouth. First of all, everyone had started a year before us and so we went into classes a year ahead of what we had been doing. Secondly, Alison had not written an 11+ exam because we didn't do them and so could not go to a grammar school. Despite her teachers being adamant that she was wasting her time at the secondary modern and was far too capable for the standards there, nothing could be done to buck the system. However, I doubt whether she was too fussed, as everything was really only temporary in the greater scheme of things.

Gillian and I went to a primary school, Hyde Park, an old building that had been used as a hospital during the war and I recall many lessons taking place in what could only be called a garret under the eaves of the roof. The toilets were outside the main building on the other side of the tarred playground and were literally 'outside' with little protection from the elements. Here we learned English history, sewing and how to sing via radio broadcasts. It was very strange to sit in front of a speaker and hear the man giving singing lessons when he couldn't hear us! We learned old sea shanties and traditional songs, some of which I remember to this day. I still have the sampler I made at the age of 8 and remember how I struggled to do the stitching as a left-hander. There wasn't much sympathy for us in those days! The results were surprisingly neat, considering I had never done any sewing before.

I have to say that I really loathed that school - I found it primitive compared to back home, which was the most puzzling thing. We thought we were heading to the seat of our culture and background, and were sorely disappointed in what we found. I struggled to understand why the children thought my parents must be missionaries or why they kept asking if we had lions in our gardens. Of course there were no computers or cellphones with handy photographs to show people where you came from and what home looked like, and I was far too young to enter into any kind of deep discussion, so I tended not to make friends and was happy to go straight home after school. Home was a place of big sky and beaches and mountains and certainly not rain. So things were a bit tough for an 8-year-old who was missing her old school.

But the exciting things we did on weekends and in holidays more than made up for school, which was, as I say, a temporary thing.