If they understood nothing else, children
growing up in England in the fifties learned two
major lessons by the age of eleven:
1. They were being held to ransom by a
class structure that they could only escape by
gaining enough qualifications.
2. They belonged “surprise,
surprise“ to one of two sexes that needed to be
segregated if they weren't to be distracted from
their pursuit of those qualifications.
The dreaded 11+ exams reinforced the class
system, with the intelligent elite going to
grammar school and the less academic attending
secondary modern school. The original philosophy
was to educate children according to their
needs, separating the academic from the
practical before separating the boys from the
girls. But society in general branded the
grammar school children successes and the
secondary modern kids failures.
The so-called failures didn't know how
lucky they were. Those of us who went to grammar
schools had to buy our uniforms from the most
expensive store in town. This put a tremendous
strain on the finances of the less well off. And
although there were Government grants available,
the poorest parents were often too proud to
claim them.
Uniform rules covered the minutest detail,
right down to the number of buttons on a jacket
or panels in a skirt. Girls had to wear two
pairs of underpants, a white lining with dark
blue gym knickers over the top. It seemed an
unnecessary precaution when we were herded into
single sex schools!
However hot the weather, we were only
allowed to wear our summer uniform when the
headmistress gave her permission. Yes, that
domineering old harridan even controlled the
seasons.
My brother, also a grammar school pupil,
was never allowed to remove his blazer in class
and had to wear his cap to and from school.
My own school hat was of a hideous
"pudding basin" design. On my first journey to
my new school, a small boy asked his mother if I
was a cowboy. Bolder, older girls customized
their hats by bashing dents in them and wearing
them at odd angles
Our teachers were mostly whiskery
spinsters, robbed of their men-folk by the
Second World War. Despite this, history lessons
were given a fiercely patriotic bias.
During one history session some girls
sniggered at the mere mention of childbirth. The
teacher rounded on the class saying it was the
most "beautiful and sacred thing that could
happen to a woman". That was when I felt my
first twinge of grown-up compassion, knowing
that this poor woman would remain a virgin until
she died.
English classes were often devoted to
elocution lessons. The way we spoke mattered in
those days. And we were well grounded in
etiquette, being taught who we should introduce
to whom. An educated 14-year-old would be
expected to know how to address a royal
personage or a bishop, whether in a letter or
face-to-face. But as my father was a bus
conductor, the chances of my meeting any of
these people socially was pretty remote.
In fact, when I first started at grammar
school, I had to fill in a questionnaire about
my parent's occupations. I wore the data like a
badge throughout my school career. I often found
myself defending my father's lowly occupation by
saying: "He's a very good bus conductor" How sad
that I needed to!
My most hated lesson was Latin, though it
helped me to spell English words. Too bad those
of us who survived into the twenty-first century
had to unlearn the rules of spelling in order to
learn how to text.
