Fleeting Memories of Early School Life
NextBackOnly fleeting images of school remain during that late wartime period, I can conjure up a dusty smelling classroom, graffiti carved desks covered in black ink stains and the uncomfortable gritty feeling of chalk dust after cleaning the blackboard. In the play ground we boys played conkers and marbles and the girls skipped and played Hop-Scotch. I remember the antiseptic smells of carbolic soap and Jeyes fluid in the toilets and on an even less pleasant note, the humiliating pain of pulsating fingers after a caning. We were never given 'six of the best', this was grammar school stuff endured by our 'boys annual' heroes, Billy Bunter and 'Just William'. The principal hardly looked at the offender as he screamed, 'Hand out' and with eyes closed we proffered a trembling hand, his single forearm smash transformed five small pink digits into throbbing Cumberland sausages.
