Happy School Days.

 

The English primary school that I attended in the 1950s and 1960s, was very good. We learned to read phonetically and learned our twelve times table by rote - habitual repetition. The school had a small library and I was taught how to play chess. We were also shown the process of photography and the school set up a dark room. We were also taught how to bake cakes. I was also introduced to origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.

Sometimes there were school trips and during the summer, we had cricket matches. We were also introduced to acting and drama by a female teacher. Many of these school activities were not part of any curriculum but we're done on the initiative of the teacher.

I never sat an 11+ examination because I think it might have been suspended and it was never clear to me, who decided which child went to the grammar school or which child went to the secondary school. A lad who I know, who went to the same primary same school as me, was of the opinion that if your father wore overalls, you weren't going anywhere. I think he was probably right, but many kids who went Grammar school, from working-class backgrounds in the 1960s, never went on to university.

The secondary school that I attended in the mid-1960s, was vastly different. It was like being in Borstal. Many of the teachers taught you nothing and we're a waste of taxpayers' money. Many were ex-national servicemen and sadistic brutes. We were constantly told, "Right you lot! Copy what's written on that blackboard and don't interrupt me for the next hour." Talk about getting money under false pretences.

I've often found many school teachers slightly odd if not psychologically disturbed. The head teacher Mr Gryce, in the 1969 film Kes, is fairly typical of the state secondary school teachers of that era. He's severe and abusive and displays signs of deep-rooted psychological damage. They basically treated working-class lads as imbeciles and factory fodder.

What secondary school really knocked into me, was intense dislike of school teachers and an intense dislike of authority. I've been a recusant for most of my adult life. Poor Billy Casper was destined for the coal pit, just like his bother Jud.