I was 12 when we moved to Norfolk, the first time. I couldn't walk to school, like I did in London, as it was 6 miles away in the town of Downham Market. I had to walk about half a mile to catch the bus each morning, and then, once in Downham, about half a mile, again, from the bus station to the school at Ryston End.
As anyone who ever read a girl's school book by Enid Blyton or any of the other writers of schoolgirl stories, back then, knows - there's always a foursome of girls that are friends and doing things together. In my case, my foursome consisted of Alison, Dawn, Lynne and myself.
Alison was a year younger than us, but the smartest kid in the class, and probably the most sensible! She and her sister bussed in from Watlington, their parents both being teachers; Dawn bussed in from RAF Marham, she was tall and always had lots to tell us; Lynne had an infectious giggle, big brown eyes,dark brown hair cut in a pageboy, a budgie named Jolie, and was an avid Spurs fan! Then there was me, the ginger one.
That first year I was there, we were in form 2P. Our teacher was Mr Frost, definitely one of the favourite teachers, he had a good sense of humour and was quite young. Our classroom was the Biology Lab (he was also the Biology teacher) and that year we watched as chickens incubated and hatched (one found a home with me, mice were raised (yes one of those came home too, I named him Ching), stick insects crawled up branches under glass (they gave me the heebie jeebies) and a myriad of other insect and animal related things went on.
There were other memorable teachers too. Miss Johnson, who for some reason was also known as Blossom, or Bloss for short, but never to her face. She was the girls' PE and sports teacher, and every year would take some on a trip to Wimbledon. I hated tennis. Hated playing it and could never understand the flurry of activity, by some, to get their name on the list to go. I lost my love of sports in high school. I remember, while playing hockey, Bloss always yelling at me that my stick mustn't go above my shoulder, "Rosemary, you're not playing GOLF" she'd yell.
For Latin, we had Mr Bibby. Love him, or hate him, he was a character, that's for sure, and memorable. He expected punctuality, and correct verbiage for starters. "Can I ... ?" was always met with "well, of course you can, you're physically capable, but you should be asking 'may I... ?' ". He was tough on everybody, struck fear into some, yet he could also be a funny little man who made rhymes of Latin conjugation to help it sink in.
The best English teacher that I ever had was Mr Howells, who was Welsh, and introduced us to Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood" on a record, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and poetry of the First World War, particularly "Dulce et Decorum Est". When I published my book of poetry, Twilight, in 2000, I made sure he had a copy. He inspired me!
Our Music teacher, Miss Wylie, had married our Physics teacher, Mr Hook, by the time I returned to Downham Grammar in the 4th year, in 4P. The year inbetween, I'd been back living in London and attending Leyton County High again.
The music room was above the lunch room, and was shared with Mr Yule, the Art teacher. I loved drawing fashions but my still life left much to be desired! Now, I see so many runway models wearing clothes very similar to those that I drew back then. Ha! I could have been a famous designer!
The headmaster, Mr Pearson, and his family lived in a lovely old house in the school grounds at Ryston End, which sadly is now a private home. Just alongside the path leading down to the lunch room and where the house was, there was a small rectangular pond where tadpoles and newts flourished, and along the perimeter farther up Ryston end, were conker trees ... a much loved activity back in those days was collecting conkers, and then another was having conker fights.
During this year, I had an incident with the lab assistant who had been friends with us during our year when the Biology Lab was our form room. Coming back to school suddenly grown up and looking more womanly, his attentions to me changed. It was uncomfortable and culminated in him putting his hand up my skirt in the Chemistry Lab one day, whilst in the cupboard in front of my legs. I slapped him, and ran out of the class. Bloss was our form teacher that year, and I'm not sure how, but suddenly she was there in the hallway that I was running down and pulled me into the hall.
Well, I ended up in front of the headmaster, and it was not good at all. he protected his staff member. Told me that I was watching too much television - to which I responded that we did not have a tv. Then said I was listening to too much stuff on the radio, to which I replied that wasn't happening either. Finally he said I was reading too many books, and my response was that I didn't read THOSE kind of books. The end result was the same though, he wasn't going to do anything to the lab assistant, I had ""led him on" and it was "my fault".
I was too embarrassed to tell my mum. Plus I knew she'd be mad. A week or so after it happened, my friend Kay was at my house, and my mum overheard her talking about that day and how what had happened had been the talk of the school. My mum asked what had happened, Kay got tongue-tied and made excuses to go home (can't say I blamed her) and my mum demanded to know what had gone on, so the whole story came out.
The next day, she was at the school and I was sat outside while she ranted at Mr Pearson. I never did find out what had happened (she wouldn't say) but in the raised voice tirade, I had heard her say "you got run out of your last school in London, this WILL stop or you'll be getting run out of here too".
I just avoided both him and the lab assistant after that.
Sadly, the memory has haunted me over the years, even though - technically - nothing really happened other than him trying to cop a feel during the chemistry class. Not sure why. Maybe the dismissal of what transpired as being my fault? Who knows. I am glad that nowadays these things are taken more seriously.
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