Mum's War Memories 10

Dear Reader

It's been a while since I blogged any of my mum's war memories. I mentioned them yesterday when I was at my brother's partner, Jo's, for her birthday party and it got me round to thinking that I should do some more. I am getting fairly near the end of them and have enjoyed them all. It helps obviously to know the people - or at least to have heard family stories of them over the years - but nevertheless from people's comments I think others have found them entertaining. So if you read this mum how about some more memories?!

1943

In 1943 I was eleven years old and one day in Spring we were all given a 'test' to do on a printed paper. We were told it was a Preliminary Exam for a scholarship to go to Wintringham Grammar School, the only grammar school in the town. Most children there were paid for and had been at the school since they were seven years old.

A few months later about a third of us were taken to Wintringham School in Eleanor Street to take the Scholarship exam. I did this and it was forgotten about until the beginning of July when Miss Ely, our form teacher, said "The following girls stand up and my name was called out, there were 5 or 6 of us. She said "You girls have passed the scholarship and you can go to Wintringham in September.

I ran home and told my mother, I thought she would be pleased but she looked sad and said "I can't possibly afford the Wintringham School uniform. Those gold embossed badges cost a fortune." I don't think this worried me, I thought 'well I can go to Welholme Road Secondary School with my friends'. Anyway later that day my mother told my grandfather and he said "Of course she must go, don't worry I will help with the uniform." My mother was still not convinced. She said, "You don't realise Dad it's a different way of life, she will need a tennis racket and goodness knows what else, they go on trips from Wintringham, the children are mostly from wealthy families, we'll never manage it!" Things like tennis rackets were much more expensived then in real terms, roughly half a weekly wage. My grandfather was adamant that I should go so I started Wintringham in the September. My grandfather bought me a bicycle that had to last me until I was 16, it was far too big for me so he put wooden blocks on the pedals so I could reach them. I was bought a satchel to put on my back for homework books and off I went. I had to cycle to HIghfield House (near Barretts).

What a shock the first day was. I remember the first lesson was French. French - I had never heard of it but most of the class had been learning it for a few years. In fact most of the subjects - Algebra, Geometry for two - were totally foreign to me. I felt like a fish out of water and miserable. I didn't like to say so at home because of all the expense to get me there. I was even more miserable because when I got home from school that first week, I would quickly get changed and hurry out to meet my friends but now they didn't want to know me so at last I gave up playing on the street. I belonged nowhere and was really miserablke and wished I had never gone to Wint.

A few weeks later I noticed a girl who was in my class cycling past my house in a morning. Her name was Jean Haigh, she lived in Wellington Street (I don't know which school she had been to before Wint). We started to cycle to school together and quickly became friends. We were the best of friends all through school. Her father was a Captain of a minesweeper in the North Sea. His boat was sunk and he lost three fingers and had other injuries. Whilst he was recuperating he took his wife, Jean and myself to the Yorkshire Moors for a week and we went to Blackpool for a day. I remember we spent a lot of time pushing the car! Jean Haigh became Jean Potterton when she married and had a nursery selling Alpine plants at Nettleton, she won a Gold at Chelsea Flower Show. It now seems strange she finished up selling plants at Garden Shows and I finished up selling antiques at Antique Fairs.

Well back to the 40's. Her and I propped each other up and soon we were doing well with our studies and we were both chosen for the hockey, rounders and tennis teams so we both began to enjoy school life. One year in the summer holidays we got a job at Bradley Village bottling plums for Ticklers Jam Factory. It was piece work and we earned good money. We were 12 or 13. I remember I bought my own hockey stick which I was very proud of. After the war when I was 15 I went on a school trip to Switzerland to a place called Engelberg and this opened my eyes to foreign travel. I remember us both crying on the last day at school; we were so sad to be leaving.