Starting school…

Every issue, Yours writer Marion Clarke will be reliving the best bits of our lives. This fortnight she revisits the trauma of that first day at school

Abumper postbag reveals that I was far from being the only little girl who found her first day at school a terrifying experience. An only child, I was completely unprepared for the shock of a huge classroom full of strange children. I clung tightly to my grandfather’s leg and refused to let him leave. Fortunately for me, the teacher was a kind lady who let him stay, perched awkwardly on the small desk next to mine. Ann Rowe was accompanied to St Mildred’s primary school in Broadstairs by her father: “Lots of the children were crying and my dad said I was very brave because I didn’t cry. It felt like a great adventure. However, at playtime they brought in little bottles of milk for us. “I tried to drink some, but it was warm from being too near the radiators. I didn’t know how to tell them I hated milk so I spilled it all down my dress and then it was my turn to cry!” Instead of bewailing her lot, four-year-old Dr Rhoda Pippen simply voted with her feet: “My first day at school lasted just two hours. The girl sitting behind me annoyed me by tugging my pigtails and it hurt. When we all went into the playground at mid-morning, I decided to go home. When my mother returned from shopping she was shocked to find me sitting on the doorstep as I had walked nearly half a mile and crossed a main road to get there.” Jane Jennings reflects: “We went into full-time school with no preparation and no part-time attendance to ease us in. I thought it was a great adventure, but one boy cried loudly all morning until the teacher sat him on top of a cupboard in exasperation. Can you imagine a teacher getting away with that these days?” Aged just five, Paddy Sansum was taken by her parents to be a boarder at a Catholic convent: “The uniform included terrible grey woollen stockings that were held up by suspenders attached to buttons on my Liberty bodice. The first thing I said to the nuns who greeted us was, ‘I have got Mummy’s suspenders on’. I hated the strict regime and always lived in fear of breaking the rules.” Sue Stevenson went to a convent school, too: “I had never seen a nun before so it was a shock when one pulled me away from my mum and marched me, screaming, down the corridor. When I settled in and met my first teacher, Sister Zena, I really enjoyed school. “All the nuns appeared to be

‘Dad said I was very brave because I didn’t cry’

so big to me then, but ten years later when I left and went to say goodbye, they all seemed quite small!” Mrs McPhee also found her first teacher an intimidating figure: “She had grey hair in a bun, piercing blue eyes and no smile! She handed out pencils, all freshly sharpened,

and I still remember the smell of them. Then she wrote the alphabet on the blackboard and instructed us to copy the letters. The good old days? I think not.” As recently as 1959 when Sylvia Foster started school, children were treated with Victorian severity. “If you were naughty, you were made to stand in the corner with your face to the wall and your hands on your head.” Pat Lowe was punished for the heinous crime of talking in class: “I was a bit of a chatterbox so was given the ruler... hand held out and whacked on the palm by Miss Fairhurst. I’m still a chatterbox!” But Pat has some happier memories too: “In winter the infants’ class had a roaring fire around which bottles of milk were placed ready for our break. After lunch we had a sleep on coloured mats on the floor.” Jenny Carpenter had her little after-lunch nap on a truckle bed that had a blue blanket with a kitten appliquéd on it. “Before we settled down we had a spoonful of orange juice and a spoonful of cod liver oil. As soon as I tasted the cod liver oil, I was sick all

‘After lunch we had a little sleep on coloured mats’

over the teacher’s shoes. I never had cod liver oil after that!” Soon after starting school, Doreen Wyatt had an embarrassing accident during morning prayers. “I needed the loo and put my hand up to be excused. Frowning, the teacher mouthed ‘Not now’. When the teacher did come over to see what I wanted, it was too late and there was a big puddle on the éoor. “She sent for my sister from another classroom, handed her a cloth and told her to mop up the mess!”

More memories of your early school days next issue!

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Marion as a young girl

Catherine Spencer (on the right) was a shy little girl: “On my first day at school a girl called Margaret said to me, ‘Will you be my bestest friend?’ I was so happy I ran home and told my mother I had a best friend. We are friends to this day.”