Pretty much like any other on-line home, really. Lots of stuff lying around, and joyously none of it laundry.
(or 'How The English Language Was 'Written Off By Me')
Just when you think things can't get any verse...
South Gloucester Ford Capri Owners club, the story of The Flying Tiger, and other tales for those with an interest in what's left of her 1,886,646 sisters.
If A Picture Can Paint A Thousand Words...
...you'd think they could redecorate my kitchen too. Various snaps of me and mine
A useful and/or interesting assortment of sites that were just lying around...
School Daze - Girlie Learning
"Guess what?" whispered one of my friends conspiratorially as half-a-dozen or so of us huddled together in the playground "I know how you make babies!" I must have been about five at the time, and considered myself a woman of the world, having had a fella since meeting him in nursery school at the age of four (hell, I'd even kissed him once!), but I was horrified when she told us what she'd learned from her older sister over the weekend. "My mum and dad would never do that", I said indignantly "and three times, too!" This tragic display of naivety is probably one of my earliest memories of school.
By the age of seven, I could still barely read a word, until somewhere in my brain, one day the lights must have flicked on. Within a matter of two weeks or so, I'd read almost every book in the school library, and had a reading age of fifteen. Of course, if such a miracle was possible for my reading, then my mathematical progress could just as easily follow a similar path (or at least leave me capable of adding two figures together without coming up with something less than either of them). Almost thirty years later, I'm still waiting…
It was around this time that my youngest sister was old enough for full-time school, and my mum decided to earn some pennies by joining us as a dinner lady. "I'm not sure I'd fancy having my mum as a dinner lady", a friend of mine said. I knew the limits of my mum's culinary expertise, and anything that stopped her attempting to join as a cook instead was fine by me.
Incredibly, it was still considered permissible for teachers to hit kids even as recently as the early seventies. The preferred method in our school was a ruler a couple of times across the back of the legs. I can only recall getting it once, when I'd sneaked back into class with three other girls during the lunch hour, because it was so cold outside. Our classroom was right next to the hall where the second sitters were still eating, so we were very careful to be quiet, but the vibrations caused by our silent rioting were enough to bring the clock in the hall crashing to the stage below. I suppose getting the ruler must have hurt, to be honest I can't remember. I only know that if my kids were treated the same way today, I'd do my very best to see that the teacher ended up swallowing the ruler sideways.
When I was nine, the school was knocked down to make way for the M32, and we were relocated to a newly built one close by. We marked the demise of the ninety year-old building with a play in which we were all dressed in Victorian costume, and one of the lads was supposed to be cricketer W. G. Grace, rising from the dead in a large plastic box normally used for P.E. My rendition of 'My old man said "Follow the van"' will be remembered forever for the disgusted cry that came mid-verse from beyond the curtain behind me - "Urghh - someone's pissed in me coffin!"
The new school was typical of architecture at the time, cold, boxy, and had no charm whatsoever, but entertainment value was provided when a new female member joined the teaching staff. She immediately caught the roving eye of one of our other teachers, who'd always regarded himself as God's gift to women. His funniest attempts to get her attention came when he'd strip to the waist on the sports field, revealing what he obviously imagined to be a physique no woman could resist. This was even more amusing when the rain was hammering down, or snow lay thick on the ground.
The final year at the school saw us crammed onto a coach to spend a week at camp in Batcombe, Somerset, accompanied by God's Gift and the object of his desires. We slept on thin foam mattresses in a draughty church hall next to a graveyard, and spent our nights alternately terrifying each other with ghost stories that were supposed to account for the odd strange noises coming from outside, and gleefully inventing sordid tales describing the events that were producing the distinctly un-ghostly knockings and wailings that were coming from the staff rooms next door…
With the high spot of the week's itinerary being a visit to a cheese factory, our days were deadly dull, until one of the girls decided that as I was the only one with long hair, they'd all have a go at styling it. With nothing better to do, I set off with one of my friends to buy a packet of elastic bands at the village shop. After almost getting ourselves flattened by an articulated lorry in the 'quiet, peaceful countryside' on the way back, we decided to take a short cut and got hopelessly lost. Around every fence, hedge and corner seemed to be another field exactly the same as the last one. This could only have gone on for about an hour, but felt like an eternity for us.
Suddenly there was a glint of metal in the far distance, as the late afternoon sun bounced off the medallion that permanently adorned the chest of God's Gift. He hadn't even noticed that we were missing. "We may as well walk back with you, Sir" we said casually, but after that our voices were conspicuous by their absence whenever the rest of the group complained that camp was boring!
I wouldn't have been to sorry to leave that school, had it not been for the fact that my parents chose a different secondary school for me than the one everyone else went on to. Sometimes I do wonder what happened to them all, though for a while one of my best friends chose a career that was followed by the local paper, at least as far as the 'In the Courts' section, where she regularly appeared having been prosecuted for soliciting. Remembering how we'd shared the same reaction to the 'making babies' revelation I often think how easily my life could have gone that way too. Perhaps my next school could take a little credit for the fact that it didn't, but I have my doubts...
School
Daze - Girlie Learning
School Daze - Hardley Comprehensive, Part 1
School Daze - Hardley Comprehensive, Part 2