|
|
It
was different in my day Frank Grimshaw |
|||
| Book
Page
Chapter 10 Chapter 11
|
CHAPTER 11, page 1 Now this had nothing to do with puberty! My most awaited moment in ‘Big’ school happened in 1940. After successful completion of my first year in 2.4, I entered Form 4.8 (significantly missing out the ‘Third’ Form). I ‘dropped’. Indeed, not to be underestimated, it was a definitive occasion of contemporary male life! Until then we’d all worn conformist grey flannel shorts, whether at school or play. But how could fourteen-going-on-fifteen-year-old Elementary School leavers be expected to go to work in short trousers. In supposed parity, at the same age we at Grammar school were allowed the same privilege to ‘drop’ into ‘long’ trousers. My early educational development had achieved recognition by my allocation to the ‘Express Form’ and I gained that enviable concession at thirteen! I can still feel the strange sensation of protective cloth over my knees, and, as it was autumn, how welcome not to have them blue-cold and chapped after a wet day. After a life so far in shorts – an identifiable juvenile form of dress – wearing long trousers was the most visible sign of my increasing maturity! But it also meant riding a bike needed a change. Flapping, wide, long-trouser legs were easily caught in a bike chain bringing painful disastrous consequences to trouser, contents and bike. Almost worse, they brought risk of retribution from Mums who had to remove ‘swarf’ (filthy ground-metal particles in oil) from trouser bottoms caught in a bike chain! Banned from entering school with trousers tucked in socks – as bad as a Golf Club! – springy metal semi-circular bike clips became essential to slip round, and keep in check, folded trousers bottoms when in use, and easily clip over the crossbar when not. Are they still used? We were only allowed to ride to school when ‘certified’ – after we’d passed our school Bike Test carried out in the playground under supervision to establish we had the required rudiments of control. Having passed still didn’t stop us being daft! Inspect the bottom edge of the rear panel of any bright red Trent Bus of the day and note the multitude of black rubber burn-marks – each just the width of a tyre. To the enthusiastic encouragement of the back seat audience, the height of juvenile masculine achievement was to sneak into the helpful drag of the bus’s slipstream as it started its 3-mile journey to school. No mean feat in itself when weighed down by a leather satchel strapped on your back full of last night's homework and books on a bike that had but a single gear! If able to match the acceleration to top speed between stops inevitably came the time when, if bus speed slowed unexpectedly, front tyre rubbed against back of bus creating a dangerous situation for the unwary, as well as leaving the tell-tale tyre-burn. If only by the commotion of encouragement of our admiring public on the back seat, Bus Conductors were well aware that ‘a stupid lad’ was ‘at it again’. If conveniently ahead of the sacred timetable schedule, at one of stops, tipping the wink to their driver but unseen by us, he would appear unexpectedly behind the bus. Total embarrassment to a heroic cyclist inwardly recovering his breath whilst calmly grinning up at the gaze of back seat enthusiasts – who suddenly became invisible! “And what’s your name, son” preceded a familiar lecture on the danger we’d incurred, not only to ourselves but to the other travelling public. A subsequent letter from the Bus Company to Head MacFarlane identified the miscreant. It preceded an inevitable visit to his Office, and consequent Detention the next week – solely in mind to reinforce the lesson of personal safety, of course! |
Many of us rode to school, particularly in good weather, making bike-sheds a universal necessity. Bemrose had roofed open-sided sheds with a double row of stands for each Year. Each stand was a steel trough the critical width of a bike tyre and just deep enough to ensure the bike remained upright when you steered in your bike wheels. Troughs were alternately high and low, so handlebars and pedals didn’t clash and more bikes could be accommodated within a given length. Proverbially, the bike-sheds were the least supervised place in any school, and from constant references elsewhere, happenings ‘in or behind the bike-sheds’ had always occurred and would continue so. It was here that our own nefarious activities took place. If we wanted a surreptitious ‘fag’, here it was we came. I hear so much of the current ‘drug problem’ but undoubtedly, nicotine was our ‘drug’, and for many would remain so for much of their lives. Starting as a 9-year-old, I eventually managed to stop at 55! Fortunately for us, with Wills Woodbines (even known then as coffin nails!) in a little green paper open-topped packet at 5 for 2d, or, like Gallachers Park Drive, in a cardboard pack at 10 for 4d, or the larger Players Medium, Senior Service or Gold Flake at 10 for 6d, just a few errands run soon got us enough to buy some. So unlike today's poor sufferers, we'd no need to adopt a life of crime to pay for the habit. Here too I experienced my first fist-fight. Strictly forbidden by the School, in playground or playing field soon broken up by Duty Teachers who ensured the protagonists earned Detention on the next Thursday. For a reason that escapes me, and would also probably escape John Smith, my erstwhile ‘come-home-for-tea’ friend but now adversary, we’d had a serious disagreement – no doubt over something extremely trivial and certainly un-remembered by me and probably him too! Neither of us being a natural fighter, we’d just kept niggling at each other for days to the annoyance of our classmates – who eventually decided we must clear the air... for them, if not us... with a fist-fight! So with extreme mutual reluctance, but unable with honour to flee, we were both coerced into meeting at 4.15 – in the bike-sheds! Adrenalin pumping, inexpertly we both aimed a blow at each other’s nose at the same moment – how do you look at your target to hit, and yet at the same time watch out for an approaching blow? Simultaneously and unexpectedly we both connected perfectly, each equally suffering a bleeding nose. Extremely unhappy, and finding it uncommonly painful, we immediately agreed honour had been satisfied and shook hands, our fight over and we were friends again. The ‘mob’, collectively considering they’d received less entertainment than they were due, urged us to continue. To no avail... cowards are easily hurt and instantly prepared to conciliate. Since then, fortunately, and ever cowardly, I’ve never personally been hit by, nor intentionally hit, anyone else ...except perhaps naughty children at home – at least until I feared they were big enough to hit me back! Seniority now clearly identified by long trousers, we were considered sufficiently responsible to be allowed out of school during dinner break for an hour and a quarter. School dinners hadn’t improved, and we discerning ones, dissatisfied with a lunchtime diet of sandwiches, frequented |
||
