A PAINFUL PRACTISE

My parents did not seem to mind or care about which school I was to attend for the next phase of my education. My brother Colin and my elder sister Janet had attended Pear Tree School my other sister Nora went to Homelands Grammar School. I was to go to Allenton Secondary Modern School; fortunately I was going with a few school friends who also had failed the eleven plus exam.
This time around I did not have my brothers cast off clothes, as the school uniform was slightly different. Here they wore black blazers with a yellow stripe around the lapels and blazer cuffs, I put the brand new blazer on with pride over a brand new white shirt, school tie, pullover, with new shoes and socks. I was made up and set off to school, which is a fair walk away from my home; this walk usually took about forty-five minutes, that day I had half ran half walked eager to go into the big school to enter a big boys world, I rushed in to the school yard, horror struck me, every one was in long trousers, immediately I turned on my heels and ran all the way home again cursing my mother for not buying me any long trousers. My mother turned me around, but I refused to go unless I had long trousers, she went up stairs to go through my brother’s clothes returning with a pair.
“ Here try these on,”
They were terrible; I had about a foot spare around my waist and they were far too long. My mother got the scissors cut the bottoms off; she gave me a belt to put on. I felt stupid, but she pushed me out of the door anyway. Slowly I walked back to school then hung until one o clock when they went in for the afternoon’s lessons. I did not know which class I was to be in or where to go. All the lads disappeared into their classrooms I was left standing alone in the corridor, A teacher came past and asked me why I was not in my classroom, I explained I did not know where to go, he asked me who my teacher was I said, “ I duna no know Sir,”
“ What form are you in.”
“ I duna no know Sir.”
“ What’s your name?”
“ Sharp Sir,”
“ You don’t know much do you boy, follow me.”
He went into two or three classrooms to ask if they had anybody missing,
“ Right boy you must be in 1B.”
We walked up to the next classroom,
“ This is yours,” he said as he pushed me in.
The form teacher bellowed from behind his large desk, “ What’s your name boy?”
“ Sharp Sir.”
“ You are not very sharp are you boy,”
The lads laughed.
“ Where were you this morning?”
“ I couldn’t find the school Sir,” the classroom fell about laughing.
The clown had arrived and he was in costume too.
The introduction had started off badly and it continued. The school operated under a strict raceme, corporal pushishment was the norm. Every teacher carried a cane even if they were teaching away from their own classroom. Baxter the English teacher carried his cane around down inside his trouser leg and would pull it out like a duelling sword when some lad was challenged and ready to be punished. In their own classrooms they had an assortment of implements with which to punish you with. The music teacher had a full set of slippers ranging from size six to size twelve, depending on the size of your misdemeanour, depended on what size he would use on you, for laughs he would add a swastika in chalk to the soles which would transfer into print on your backside. The science teacher preferred straps, but the worse offender by far was the art teacher Mr. Green he had a whole cupboard door full of corporal punishment tools hanging on hooks, slippers, straps and canes all hanging on a neat display, he took it one step further, he had names for them all, named after snakes they were labelled on the door next to the hooks. He could bring tears into the hardest of boy’s eyes. Lucky for me I was good at art and only fell under his wrath once, the beating I received from him was nothing to do with discipline.
He started a quiz off in the classroom on football clubs; it came round to my turn to answer a question,
“ What is the team name of Wolverhampton? ”
I hadn’t a clue; I had no interest in football what so ever.
“ I don’t know Sir,”
“ Right,” he shouted, as he stood up, he seemed angry with me for some reason,
“ Go and fetch me the Blackmamber.”
I went to the cupboard to collect the largest of all slippers,
“ Bend down boy,”
He would lift your jacket tail and fold it over to expose your trousers.
With each stroke he beat the name on my buttocks,
“ Wanderers,” he yelled.
Each time the slipper landed it would knock me off balance to send me lunging forward, finally collapsing at the bottom of the wall under the blackboard.
“ Wanderers”
I remembered the information but what use was that to me,
“ Wanderers.”
I pick myself up again for the third time; I squeezed the muscles in my buttocks together as hard as I could to control the pain in them. I walked back to my seat agonizingly slowly holding my breath in a silent classroom that became out of focus as tears flooded my eyes. I possible believe to this day I was beaten either because my artwork was better than his as he never corrected or commented on any of my work or he didn’t want me to feel I was being treated differently to the other lads who had fallen under his wroth or that he just felt like doing it or even worse enjoyed it. He should be nowhere near young people as far as I was concerned; he seemed to relish making boys cry.
Most of our teachers had returned from the war they had been retrained to become teachers, Greeny was no exception, once a year he was taken down with Malaria. He would start to shiver; he would put his ex army grey coat on then sit next to a radiator shaking uncontrollably. I do not think one boy in my class had any sympathy for him.
The majority of the teachers had seen the harshness and horrors of the war, even after the punishments that they dished out on us; they had our respect for what they had been through for king and country, and for ourselves, clearly I had no respect or regard for old man Greeny.
Mr. Leaversely, a tall gaunt man with little flesh covering his bones, it was said he had been a prisoner of war in Japan, he had been tortured he had a piece of his tongue missing, if you sat at the front of his Maths class you got sprayed as he talked, he would constantly be wiping his lips with a handkerchief. How could you not respect this man, no one ever made fun out of him, if one did, the rest of us would beat them up. His caning was fair in every instance he was only administered it if school rules were broken and he never hit you too hard. Unfortunately we had many rules that were easily broken, late for school, dirty shoes, noisy in the corridors, swearing, rude to teachers, fighting and bullying. Other teachers made up their own rules, looking out of the window, talking in class, not paying attention or doing your work, running in the corridors, chewing in class and for anything else that up set them.
They use to take us to Reginald Street Swimming Baths once a week, it was old Victorian baths which incorporated slipper baths for those folk who did not have a bath in their homes. It was a place I did not care for much, most of us could not swim properly as our previous school or our parents did not take us swimming too often. In my first year I could not swim very well, in the fifteen minutes free time the teacher left us without supervision, two big older bully lads ducked the smaller kids, I fought them, but they were much stronger, I tried shouting for help under water and blacked out. I think they might have realised what they had done and dragged me out for when I came around I was on the side of the pool. They shipped us there in a double decker bus, after our swim they piled us on to the bus back to school again with no supervision, one lad started to ring the bell on the bus continually, this was reported to the school. The next morning three teachers rounded up the whole bus full of us in the hall then asked who was ringing the bell, our unwritten code of not snitching held good, so the three teachers, each gave the whole lot of us, two stokes each on both hands, by the time they had finished they were pouring with sweat, we all spent the rest off the day trying to hold our pens with swollen throbbing fingers.
Mr Woolly, who had a club foot which we reckoned was trench foot but really did not know his story he may well have had one all his life, he also had his way of keeping your attention in his classroom, he would take the long window pole, a pole with a hook on the end made for opening the high up windows, he would swing this at desk level, if you did not duck below desk level it would crack you on the elbow, the further back you sat in the classroom, the more it hurt, there was always a rush for front and the corner seats in his classroom. His other party piece was when administering punishment was to make us balance a wooden ruler across our closed thumbs, if we could move our hands apart as he picked up one end of the ruler to bring it down again on your thumbs, you had escaped punishment, which very few did, for if he missed your thumbs he would bring it back up again then hit you on the head with it.
One a big lad was brought out in front of the class for talking in the music lesson, he was told to bend over to receive his punishment, he refused, the teacher grabbed hold of his neck and forced him to bend over. He received what I can only describe as a whipping, violence provoked violence so the lad was pulled out of the classroom by his hair and was dragged to the headmasters office, as our classroom was stunned into silence we listened as he received twelve extra cane strokes, the boy did not return to school the following day, I had became to hate the school. I felt the same may happen to me as in this first year as I was getting into great difficulties, the lines had stopped, the cane had taken their place especially in English, I am sure they thought I was playing the fool. It seemed to me some teachers were trying to beat information into me. It also was not just the teachers I was having trouble with, it was my peer group, who had started to make fun of me, I dreaded being called upon to read out loud in the class, the last time I was ever called to read out loud, we were reading the Wooden Horse a great true story of escaping from a prisoner of war camp, the class fell about laughing as I tried to read, the teacher joined in, I expect I had a reading age of six or less, I closed the book, threw it across the classroom, walked out of the classroom and out the school. Then on days when English was on the timetable I never went to school. Punishment was administered on the following days for having no note from home, which was twice a week. I got a friend who went to grammar school to write me a sick note for days I was away stating I had asthma attacks, this worked a treat as it got my out of cross county running and sports as well. The funny thing was, I had started to develop chronic asmere for real. The doctor said it might be brought on by fur and feather, so my mother changed my pillow for a hard flock one and threatened to kill the cat. I put it down to nerves as I had also started wetting the bed, which was clearly embarrassing. The school quickly caught on to the fact my mother had not written the letters so double punishment was administered. As I looked at my bare bottom in a mirror it looked like it had been sown on with red darning wool, so time at school got less and less. I had decided I would only accept one caning a week then later felt they couldn’t caned me if I wasn’t there at all.
My grandmother had died; my mother was looking after a tobacconist shop she had owned, so she spent much of her time there. I pretended to go out ready for school then hide and waited just inside the park gate, once she had left for town I sneaked back home. This became very boring so I used to go out for a walk about around the area, I was soon to come across other latch door kids who were also playing truant, we got into mischief and petty thiefing from corner shops then generally became a nuisance to folk. My newfound friends had a friend who use to knock about with us in the evenings, his name was Reg. His parents were very busy people who had their own business making and selling plaster cast figures and wall plaques they used to sell them on Birmingham Smithfield market on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Rex was to have a short life, as he was cycling to school one morning something snapped in the back of his neck, he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. I attended his funeral and was invited back to their home afterwards. Rex had an older brother Alan, he a pretty adopted sister, they fought like cat and dog; I became a friend of Allen and was to spend much of my time at his home. His kindly parents took me under their wings, whether this was anything to do with loosing their loved son or not I do not know, clearly I felt for the family, they always put a good meal on the table for me. They seemed not to want to know or care why I was not at school, life became exciting. They first took me to the Saturday market; the market was a wonderful place for a young lad. I quickly learnt how to become a gofer, go for this and go for that, go for their teas and bacon butty’s, go for change, collect boxes from the van, clean the area up and load up the van after a full days work. I did it with pleasure; I believe Alan was pleased I had taken on his younger brothers role.
“ What’s Tuesday market like?” I enquired.
My mother now had split her time up between home and the shop but spending more time at the shop, we had the added problem in the family; my senile great aunt who had moved in was getting worse. Her husband had died some time ago, she had no children and no relatives to care for her, she had alziaimas decease. She had lived in Bolton all her life; she had started work at the age of nine as a cotton picker in the mills, working on her hands and knees underneath moving loom machinery clearing them of loose cotton, she worked up to running her own loom, she stayed there for fifty-four years, she did not have one day off apart from holidays and did not have a grey hair in her head. I went with my mother to pick her up and clear out her little terraced house in a cobbled street with a looming mill at the end of it. Her husband had been a clock repairer, so the house was full of every type of clock you could think of, these were going to be given the neighbours who had been keeping an eye on her. I took a pillar clock off the mantle piece but could not resist having a look inside, to my surprise I found a roll made up of a ten shilling notes full of sixpenny pieces, the hunt was now on, I recovered two hundred and fifty pounds and one hundred and forty packets of soap hidden all around the house. This was a vast sum of money in those days; my mother must have thought she had won the jackpot. Before we left Bolton my mother steered my aunt down to the Co-Op to collect her divvy money, “ Sign at the bottom, there,” my mother told her three times, over came the money some three hundred pounds or so, I had never seen such large amounts of cash; my aunt had truly lost her marbles. My mum treated me to cream cakes on the way to catch the train home. Once we got her home the family started to disperse, my elder sister Janet and my brother in law Ron had left the house hold, my brother went off to do his national service in the RAF, my farther who could not stand my aunt took to going out more. Which left my sister Nora and I to fend for ourselves. This suited me down to the ground, as nobody knew where I was. So the following week was Saturday market, down to London to pick up some lampshades on Sunday, workshop on Monday, Tuesday market, casting on Wednesday, spray painting on Thursday and Friday off, I was in full time work and had been missing from school for nearly two full terms, I was pleased as it was only two weeks away from the schools summer holidays in case they were looking for me.
One morning as I was about to leave home to go to the workshop, there was only my aunt and I in the house, I saw an official looking man with a brief case coming down the garden path to the front door, I steered my aunt to the front door, ran in the front room, now my aunts room and dived into her bed fully clothed.
The front door knocker rattled, my aunt on cue answered it.
She greeted him, “ Hello Mr. Brown,”
“ My name is Mr. Bradshaw I am from the School Board.”
“ Come in, would you like a cup of tea.”
“ No thank you, I have come about Roger, he has not been in school for some time.”
“ I’ll get the rent money,” she said.
I shouted from the front room in a croaky voice, “ Who is it Aunty.”
They both entered the front room, “ What’s wrong with you,” the inspector asked,
“ I don’t really know but they wont let me climb the stairs.”
“ Oh, dear,” he remarked,
My aunt leaned over to collect her handbag off her bedside cabinet, took her purse out, counted out five pounds and offered this to the inspector, she asked him how Mrs. Brown was. He waved a hand at me and asked her how long had I had I been in bed.
She looked down at me, “ I think twelve years.” She replied, at that he left.
When I thought the coast was clear, I jumped out of bed, and said to my Aunt,
“ Oh. Dear he forgot t’ take the rent money,” I took it out of her hand,
“ I’ll go un catch him up and give it t’ him.”
During my time off school I had learnt a lot, how to make moulds, how to mix casting material, how to cast, how to spray paint, how to buy and sell to a make profit, as well as how to lie, steal, smoke, gamble and drink beer. The bed-wetting had stopped but the asthma lingered on.