Pie 'n' Mash and Prefabs (16 page)

Although I never saw Mum ill, I realised in later life that she suffered from the most terrible migraines. And I mean migraines, not just bad headaches, but the real thing with flashing lights, dizzy spells, light sensitivity and all the rest. Somehow she still managed to look after me during those bouts, which could last up to a day. It wouldn't have occurred to her not to soldier on.

Going to see the doctor was one thing, but visiting the dentist was another thing altogether. Judging by the number of times my friends and I had to have fillings or extractions, I can only assume dentists were paid by the number of teeth they filled or took out. Given that in general we ate a lot better in the 1950s, there must be some explanation – perhaps we had lots of sweets with our healthy diet.

Our dentist was Mr Thomas, who had his surgery in a very picturesque setting in front of St Augustine's Tower at the end of the Narroway in Mare Street. My memory of those visits is going into a very dark and gloomy waiting room in keeping with the nature of the fate about to befall me. After waiting for a while, I would be ushered upstairs and sat in the large black chair, where wadding would be stuffed into my mouth and a black (why was everything black in the dentist?) mask strapped over my mouth and nose. Laughing gas was then pumped into me to put me to sleep. The name ‘laughing gas' was a misnomer if ever there was one. It was no laughing matter, I can tell you! The next thing I knew was waking up with a numb feeling in my mouth and blood still dribbling out. The nurse would always helpfully suggest that Mum buy me an ice cream to
stop the bleeding and make me feel better. This was all well and good but my mouth was so numb that I couldn't eat it, or anything else come to that, for some time after, by which time the bleeding had long since ceased of its own accord.

The waiting room at the dentist was different to the doctor's in that you didn't have to move round – you just stayed in your seat until you were called. However, on one occasion, to take my mind off the impending doom, I decided that I would move round so that every time someone got up to see the dentist I would move into their seat. After doing so a couple of times, a new patient arrived and sat in the seat I had originally sat in. This wasn't part of the game at all and I was absolutely distraught that someone had sat in ‘my' seat. I burst into floods of tears until Mum explained to the person concerned why I was crying and she very kindly moved.

I also visited another dentist on occasion, actually closer to where we lived in Goulton Road, just off Lower Clapton Road. This was an NHS clinic and was where we were referred if necessary after one of the regular medical checks we received at school. At that time, we had regular visits from a doctor, a dentist and, of course, the dreaded nit nurse, universally known as ‘Nitty Nora', who used to run her special comb soaked in antiseptic through your hair to see if you had nits. Fortunately, I never did and therefore never needed any treatment for the condition. However, the same could not be said for the dentist as, in spite of seemingly having every tooth either extracted or filled by Mr Thomas, the school dentist sometimes found that I was in dire need of yet another extraction or filling. When that was the case, I was taken to the Goulton Road Clinic for
the work to be done. I think this only happened on a couple of occasions but, as bad as Mr Thomas's surgery was, this one was even worse! The main reason was that there was no full anaesthetic, just a cocaine injection to numb the area. On those occasions, I was fully conscious and highly aware of the dentist pulling and tugging at the offending tooth. I can still remember to this day with a shudder of horror the feeling of the tooth being crushed rather than pulled cleanly.

Sometimes a loose tooth fell out naturally, or after help from my parents. My best remembered occasion of such help was when Grandpa rolled up his copy of the
Daily Mirror
and said, ‘Open your mouth,' and then took a jab at my loose tooth. I just flinched back so he never actually touched it. Shortly afterwards, it fell out of its own accord – perhaps in shock.

Of course, when a loose tooth came out, it was left under the pillow at night to await the arrival of the tooth fairy with her sixpenny piece. I'm glad to say she never once failed me.

‘
T
here's a letter for you from Parmiter's,' Mum said, bringing the morning post in about a week after my last day at Rushmore.

I grabbed it and hurriedly tore it open. ‘It's my joining instructions,' I said excitedly.

My first day was to be Tuesday, 9 September but before that I had to get myself kitted out with the school uniform. Unlike Rushmore, wearing school uniform was compulsory and there was only one supplier, Henry Taylor and Sons of Hoe Street, Walthamstow. So one day during the summer holidays, off I went with Mum to get myself sorted out with blazer, trousers, socks, tie and cap, as well as P.E. and sports kit.

Like Rushmore, there were four houses, but this time they were named after former school benefactors. I was to be in
Carter House, whose colour was yellow. There was also Mayhew (white), Lee (green) and Renvoize (blue). I was later given to understand that the reason why there was no red team dated back to the War, when red dye was in short supply and Mayhew was changed to white. During the holiday, I also bought a geometry set and a new satchel ready for the big day.

And so on Tuesday, 9 September, I got up bright and early, put on my brand-new uniform, Brylcreemed my hair and waited for Bob Marriott to call, as we had agreed.

‘You look very smart,' Mum said.

I smiled and felt quite proud but before I could reply there was a knock on the door.

‘How are you feeling?' Bob asked as I opened it.

‘A bit nervous,' I confessed.

Bob nodded. ‘Me too.'

Although we were both apprehensive about what lay in store for us as we made our way to the bus stop in Lower Clapton Road to catch either the 557 or the 653 trolleybus to school, we nevertheless felt very grown up, going off on our own on the bus to grammar school: we weren't juniors any more, we were big boys. What a shock when we reached the school, though! We went into the playground and there were boys there anything up to six feet tall with whiskers and very deep voices and suddenly we felt really small again. How we longed to be safely back in our Junior School, where we ourselves had been the big boys. We really hadn't expected this at all. It came as a big shock but at least we weren't alone. We could see huddled in one corner of the playground a group of small boys obviously feeling as inferior as we did, so we went
over and joined them. I think there was a feeling of safety in numbers.

When the bell went to summon us for our first lesson, we had to line up in the classes given us in the joining letter. Several teachers emerged from the school building, all wearing their university gowns, to greet the first years. Our teacher led us off up the stairs to our classroom. Mr Blake was our form teacher. He had a strange gait, leaning forward as he walked. We learnt later that this was due to an unfortunate wartime injury, or as one of the older boys at the school, Chris Turner, so delicately put it when he overhead some of us talking about it in the playground, ‘Blakey? The way 'e walks. Oh yeah, only 'ad a bayonet shoved up his fuckin' arse by the bleedin' Jerries, didn't he!' We all shuddered – it sounded like an excruciatingly painful experience.

When we'd all settled down in the classroom, Mr Blake gave us an introduction to life at Parmiter's. He was very pleasant and reassuring and we thought that perhaps things wouldn't be too bad after all. Sadly, that impression was soon to be completely shattered.

When he finished, he went off to teach another class because, unlike Junior School, we had a different teacher for each subject. As he left, another teacher swept in through the door like a Force 8 gale, his gown billowing out behind him. When he reached the front of the class, he proceeded to harangue us all in French. Oh dear, this was something completely alien to us! It was obvious we had done something wrong but no one knew what it could be. Mr Moore might have had his off-days but I'd far rather the comfort and security of his class than this any day.
Eventually, this human tornado calmed down and explained to us that we had to stand up whenever a teacher came into the room. Of course, he knew that we wouldn't have known this and his angry outburst was all done for effect but I never trusted Mr Engledow from that day until I left school, eight years later.

The rest of that first day passed in something of a blur as we were taken from classroom to classroom and introduced to a number of teachers and many new subjects. At lunchtime, we all made our way down to the dining room to sample school dinners. Sadly, they were no better than those experienced at Rushmore and, indeed, consisted of much the same ‘muck', as we liked to call it. That first day, it was the familiar mushy mince. It looked so unappetising that I really couldn't face eating it and just pushed it around my plate, mixing it up with the mashed potato. Roger Gooding, the boy sitting next to me, took one look at the mess I'd created and said, ‘That looks like a plate of diarrhoea.'

Well, if I didn't fancy it before, I certainly didn't now, so I just pushed it to one side. And it didn't get any better; for afters we had semolina. Yuck!

What was different about this dining hall, though, was the sheer size of it and the number of boys staying to dinner. At Rushmore, there were only about thirty or forty, certainly no more than fifty. Here, practically the whole school of several hundred stayed to school dinners. Hardly anyone went home as most homes were too far away for a lunchtime return. There was an option to take sandwiches but most parents saw school dinners as a chance to get some wholesome hot food inside their children.

Also different was the fact that the teachers joined us for dinner. They sat together on the ‘top table', apart from the teacher on duty, who prowled round the dining hall to make sure we weren't misbehaving. As if we would! Well, at least only when his back was turned. Flicking mash at the boys on the next table with a spoon was always good for a laugh and this would result in a full-scale food fight while the teacher was not looking. Occasionally, someone would be caught at it and ordered out of his seat to stand in full view of everyone in the corner of the room for the rest of dinnertime. Depending on the teacher, he might receive some extra punishment in the form of lines or detention, or even a smack round the head.

Some teachers were harder than others and we quickly learnt who we could chance our arm with and who we couldn't. Of course, corporal punishment was still part and parcel of a teacher's armoury at this time and could range from just a quick clip round the ear, through a sharp tap with a ruler across the knuckles, a smack across the legs or bottom to a formal caning by the Headmaster, with your name written in the punishment book and your crime recorded for all time. Fortunately, although I suffered a few whacks of various kinds during my years at Parmiter's, I am not recorded in the punishment book.

At the end of the day, somewhat dazed, bewildered and confused, Bob and I made our way to the bus stop to catch the trolleybus back home. Naturally, along with a number of other boys, we went upstairs so we could get a good view and play around out of sight of the conductor. The drawback with upstairs was that in those days smoking was allowed on the upper deck of London buses, so there was generally a bit of
a blue haze and a smell of tobacco smoke, accompanied by much spluttering and coughing. The pungent aroma of smoke was somewhat ameliorated along Cambridge Heath Road by the very pleasant scent that emanated from a perfume factory close by. Strangely, we only ever smelled it in the afternoons; I can't remember ever smelling it in the morning. But once into Mare Street it was back to tobacco. Still we felt it was worth it to be out of the conductor's gaze. Every now and then, he would venture up to cry out, ‘Any more fares, please?' but we could always hear him coming up the stairs, so it gave us plenty of time to sit down like little angels before resuming whatever it was we were doing as soon as we heard his footsteps going back down.

On arrival home, Mum said, ‘How was your first day, then?'

I replied simply, ‘I'm not sure,' before adding, ‘but I will go back again tomorrow.' Not that I had a choice but it sounded brave.

In fact, it had all been overwhelming. Meeting new classmates, being overawed by much older boys, new teachers, a new geography in a much bigger school to get to know my way round, the fact we were all called by our surname instead of our Christian name, the bus journeys. It was all so different to the cosy familiar little world of Rushmore but I said I would go back again the next day and back I went.

Gradually, however, things began to fall into place. I made some new friends, particularly Murray Glickman and John Hill. I sat next to Murray in our own form classroom. He was a Jewish lad so to some extent I related easily to him. I also discovered after a week or so that he actually knew how
to play clobby. Amazing! One thing I didn't quite understand, however, was that, whereas I went into the normal morning assembly with all the other boys, Murray attended a special one for Jewish boys, of whom there were only about a dozen or so in the whole school. This didn't bother me too much, but when he took some days off for what he called Jewish holidays with strange-sounding names like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I needed some answers as I thought surely I must be entitled to these too.

So, one night I said to Dad, ‘My friend Murray is off school tomorrow for a Jewish holiday. Shouldn't I be on holiday as well?'

He laughed and said, ‘You can't have Jewish holidays because you're not Jewish.'

Dad explained that this was because Jewish descent is through the mother, and Mum was actually brought up as a Catholic. He went on to say that, although he and his family upheld some Jewish traditions, they were not in the main religious and that he personally didn't believe in God anyway. But he said that he wouldn't force his views on me and that when I was old enough I should make up my own mind. As far as he was concerned, I started with a blank canvas and I could become anything I wanted – Jewish, Christian, atheist, it was entirely up to me. I have always been grateful for this and for the fact that nothing was forced on me at an early age. However, at the time I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't have a couple of days off for Rosh Hashanah, like Murray.

John Hill resembled my friend Andy, in that he was a bit corpulent and loved all sport, so we hit it off there straight away.
As time went on, we were to become very good friends, later sharing many interests, including Gilbert and Sullivan and folk music as well as sport.

Meeting lots of new teachers was a completely different experience and they came in all shapes and sizes, with their own individual and sometimes eccentric personalities. The only subject our form master, Mr Blake, took us for was Maths. English was taught by Mr Deeble, who rejoiced in the nickname ‘Daphne'. He was a decent enough sort, not taken to doling out corporal punishment. What Murray, John and I really liked about him was that once a month or so he would suspend the English lesson and hold a general knowledge quiz. As he came into the room, he would say, ‘Quiz positions,' and we all had to move round as the way he organised the quiz was to ask the first question of the boy in the back left-hand corner and work his way down until someone could answer the question correctly. That boy would then move to the back left, while everyone else moved down a place. This continued with boys moving up and down, according to your answer. By the end of a lesson, Murray, John and I would invariably hold the top three places – although sometimes Pete Smith managed to sneak in! So, when Mr Deeble came in and said, ‘Quiz positions,' we had to assume the place we were in at the end of the last quiz. On one occasion, he said he was going to start at the other end so that we were actually in the bottom three positions. Everyone else in the class thought this was very funny and had a good laugh at our expense. By the end of the lesson, we were the top three again.

Of course, French was taken by Mr Engledow – the teacher
who had shouted at us in French on the first day. I never did like him and he could be very cutting and sarcastic at times. I was reasonably good at French and eventually took it at A-level, but I never looked forward to his lessons. Though here again, about once or twice a term, he would suspend the lesson and tell us a story about an English family travelling to France, trying to teach us something about the geography and customs of the country. Those fairly rare breaks from language lessons were very welcome.

Mr Simms, our History teacher, was a great character. He had actually written the textbooks we used throughout our first four years up to O-level standard. Between September and May, he was rarely in on a Monday morning as he was a Chelsea F.C. shareholder and would either have spent the weekend celebrating or drowning his sorrows. I think the only times he came in was when Chelsea drew! He was also a great follower of the gee-gees and there was one memorable occasion when he was describing the Battle of Agincourt to us. He was explaining how the French cavalry charged at the English archers and said, ‘So the horses were all lined up, waiting for the signal to charge… which reminds me, I haven't put my bet on today.' At which point he opened up his briefcase, took out a copy of the
Racing Post
and said, ‘Open your books to page one hundred and read up about it.' He then slouched back in his chair, with his feet up on the table, looking through his paper. In spite of this somewhat wayward behaviour, he was an excellent teacher and really brought history alive.

Geography was taught by Mr Hume. I say taught, but really he did very little teaching; he was dire. He came into the class
every lesson with his blue attaché case from which he proceeded to take out reams of duplicated notes and distribute them round the class. Our job was to read the papers and try to commit what was written to memory while he sat at his desk, marking papers from other classes.