Navy Blue Knickers, Gym Slips and School Dinners

Farnworth Grammar School

It’s been a while since I posted a memoir-based blog (apart from last month’s ‘Stranded in New York City’), the last one being ‘Four Schools in One Term’ so I thought it was about time I continued the story with my time at Farnworth Grammar School.

The school itself was situated on the main road between Bolton and Farnworth town centres. A large imposing red brick building, probably mid to late Victorian, it was set back slightly from the main road and bordered by rather grand iron railings. The space between was occupied by netball courts. I soon discovered that these particular courts were the bane of the girls’ lives, being the only ones immediately adjacent to the school. The reason we hated the front netball courts was because we had to play in skimpy pale blue tunics with splits up both sides, revealing navy blue knickers. To our chagrin, men and boys used to stand and watch us from the roadside, peering through the railings, obviously enthralled by the sight of unfettered pubescent bouncing breasts (not mine.) not to mention the occasional glimpse of navy blue as we jumped up to basket a ball.

              In January 1951, it was time to return to school, this time wearing the navy blue uniform of Farnworth Grammar School. Those were the days of the box-pleat gym slip, in this case worn with a green braided sash, white blouse and navy and green striped tie. The blazers were navy edged with green, while the hats were navy blue velour with a green band and the school badge. The hats were anathema to everyone as they came down over our eyes. The only way we could make them wearable was to place a tuck in the back.

              I used to behave decorously within a mile or two of the school in case of being seen by prefects. Like everyone else, once away from its confines, I threw caution and the hated hat to the wind, plucking it off my head and squeezing it into my satchel. One day this backfired on me because I was seen by a prefect who didn’t normally go by that route. I had to stay in a couple of nights to write out a few hundred lines, ‘I must wear my hat at all times, I must wear my hat …, I must …’ It didn’t stop me, or anyone else, I still continued to take my hat off whenever I could.

              The rules also stipulated that girls had to wear short white ankle socks, summer or winter, or thick black stockings, attached to a liberty bodice with rubber suspenders. Since we neither liked liberty bodices nor black stockings, very few of us would do that and consequently suffered badly from chapped legs and chilblains. The boys had to wear short trousers until they were about 14 or 15. Some of them looked absolutely ridiculous. I remember one dark-haired, dark-browed boy called Bill, who must have been shaving by the time he was 13, still being forced to wear short trousers.

              Discipline was strict at the school. There were the usual, ‘arms folded’ or ‘hands on heads’ routines and although we didn’t have to stand up and recite our times tables, we were expected to learn them by rote. For the girls, discipline was enforced by the Senior Mistress, Miss Westwood. She had iron grey hair, steel-rimmed spectacles and wore severe blouses and skirts beneath her academic robe. Every now and then, she would descend on a classroom when the bell rang at the end of a lesson, keep the girls behind and do a spot check of nails, teeth, hair, etc. If we ever gave a hint that we were in a hurry, she would give us a lecture about being ladylike. She did not approve of us showing our legs above those neat white socks and, I believe, would have enforced the rule about black stockings if she could.

That's me, second row third girl from the right

              Being a Victorian building, the school was based on a large assembly hall, with classrooms around the outside on two levels, and some portable classrooms. I was a thin sickly child, always catching cold. One of the worst things was the constant changing of classrooms, particularly from the main building to the annexes especially during the winter. Invariably when we got to the next classroom, one of the masters or mistresses would have opened the windows ‘to get air into our lungs and stimulate our brains’ and the room would be icy cold. One of my most lingering memories throughout my school days was of being cold. That, and milk so cold in winter, it had shards of ice in it, so warm in summer that it had gone off.

              The school worked on the system of having a form master or mistress but with other teachers for different subjects. They all wore academic robes too. Some of them were real characters. One, Mr Taylor, who took us for English one year, was tall, beetle-browed, heavy set, deeply spoken, in all a bit of a mystery figure, whom we called Brutus. Miss Heather taught us history. Everyone liked her including, on one occasion, the window cleaner. Once, as we were all piling into the classroom for a lesson with her, she was already there, half-sitting, half-leaning on the desk. As the window cleaner set his ladder against the window and saw her, he let out a piercing wolf whistle which we all heard. She went a startling shade of red.

              Friendships were still a problem. Boys simply ignored me but the girls had formed themselves into groups. It wasn’t that they were deliberately cruel or set out to tease me, it was just that I was, as they say in Lancashire, ‘a bit slow on the uptake.’ Their quick wit and smart replies confounded me.

              Farnworth Grammar School broadened my education in more ways than one. Being very unworldly, never having had any close friends, I knew almost nothing about life. Mum had, almost hesitatingly, told me about menstruation, because she hadn’t wanted me to find out the hard way as she’d done. She was nearly 17 before she’d had her first period and thought she had injured herself in some way. The girls at school talked about all sorts of things besides periods. Rather than risk their ridicule of my ignorance, I kept my mouth shut and gradually, by listening, I was able to piece together nuggets of information, the rest I filled in by guesswork. It’s a wonder I haven’t ended up with all sorts of hang-ups because, listening to their stories, I was horrified. I remember thinking, with some embarrassment, that my parents couldn’t possibly do things like that, not any more, for surely they were too old.

              Academically, I was with children much brighter than myself who were not given so much to day-dreaming. My school report shows that I started off willingly enough, averaging about mid-way through a class of 30 (except maths where I was always in the bottom three). After 1952, it takes a definite downward slide from which I only occasionally arose. Part of the reason for this was because during my second year, I became very ill with pneumonia brought on by the very damp conditions of the house in Farnworth and I was off school for weeks.

              I can’t recall much about actually being ill, apart from the fact that my bed was brought downstairs, in order for me to be kept warm. I remember staring at the fire for hours, comforted by the dull glow from it being banked up at night. I suppose I must have read books by the score and listened to the radio but it is the fire and the persistent cough that seemed to dominate that time. A major piece of history occurred while I was ill. I was lying in bed in the kitchen-cum-sitting room, listening to the radio, when the broadcast was interrupted by the news that King George VI had died that morning. With little better to do, I followed the royal events as they unfolded, feeling very much a part of it.

              Along with the young queen, my own life was about to change dramatically. Mum and Dad had had their name down for a council place in Horwich, where I’d been born, for some time. Now, because I had been so ill, they stepped up the pressure, with visits to the Housing Office and pleading letters. Sometime after my illness, word came through that we’d been allocated a two-bedroomed flat in Horwich. Our very own home! It meant that Dad could still carry on with his bus driving, while Mum would try and get a job in Horwich, perhaps back in the mill where she’d once worked as a towel weaver. I was to continue at Farnworth Grammar School, even though it meant a two-bus ride from Farnworth to Bolton then on to Horwich. And that’s what I did for the next two years, in all kinds of weather, all the time wearing those silly ankle socks. I don’t remember schools ever closing because of snow in those days.

              The worst thing about travelling to and from Horwich every day was that I had to go back to school dinners. How I hated them. Thick lumpy gravy which congealed on your plate, mashed potatoes that still had hard lumps in, vegetables boiled so much all the goodness had gone out of them, nameless blobs, more fat and gristle than meat that you didn’t know about till you got them in your mouth, then you didn’t know what to do with them, followed by thick, lumpy and invariably burnt custard or, worse still, milk puddings. The mere thought of them makes me feel sick and they’re all the things I can’t eat even now. As soon as I could persuade Mum, I started taking a packed lunch. This meant that I had to sit apart from the others taking school dinners, isolating me even further. I didn’t care. Anything was better than the nameless horrors being presented under the guise of school dinners!

Stranded in New York City

Have you ever been stuck in some way that you feel you can’t escape from, whether it’s a situation, a relationship, a job, or just circumstances? In Rhoda Baxter’s new novel ‘Please Release Me’ myBook.to/PleaseReleaseMe, the three leading characters are all stuck in a difficult situation from which there seems to escape. She’s asked me to blog my own experiences of being stuck and I’m happy to do that since it fits in with my memoir-themed blog.

The best example I can think of is when I was stranded in New York City in the early 1960s. At that time, I was working as a mother’s helper in Princeton, New Jersey in the United States and, on one of my days off, went to New York to meet a friend. At the last moment, another English girl working in Princeton, decided to come with me to meet a friend of her own. I didn’t mind as Linda and I were good friends anyway.

              All went well until the time came to meet her as arranged at Port Authority Bus Terminal ten minutes before the last bus was due to leave for Princeton. The seconds ticked away, but she didn’t arrive. Knowing I couldn’t leave her stranded in New York alone, I watched the Princeton bus depart. Five minutes later, she arrived, flushed and breathless. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, Anne. Would you believe, the cabbie lost his way? Still, we can catch a later bus, can’t we?’

              ‘Sorry, Linda, no bus now until morning.’

              She was appalled. What on earth are we going to do?’

              ‘I was just wondering that myself.’

              ‘Why don’t we try the waiting room? Perhaps we can kip down there,’ she suggested. As we walked towards the waiting room, we noticed that with the last of the buses, the character of the bus station had changed. Gone was the bustling urgency of people with a destination, instead there was the apathy of people with nowhere to go, ambling individuals, obviously trying to weigh up what two attractive young women were doing on their own in a bus station that had all but closed for the night.

              The waiting room, never a salubrious place, had been taken over by the drunks and down-and-outs, stretched here and there on the uncomfortable benches. Linda and I looked at each other and with one accord, walked out again. ‘So much for that idea,’ she sighed. ‘What do we do now?’

              ‘How much money do you have?’ I asked.

              ‘A little change and my pay cheque. Coming at the last minute, I didn’t have time to cash it.’

              ‘And I only have a few dollars. Why don’t we try the YWCA?’ I’d stayed at the YWCA hostel several times before.

              I phoned the night clerk at the YWCA hostel, explaining that we were two British girls stranded in New York who needed somewhere to stay. ‘Sure, no problem,’ he said. ‘Come on over, you can have a room.’ The amount he quoted was in excess of the cash we had, plus we’d need money for the cab fare to the hostel. I explained that we didn’t have that much cash but that Linda did have her pay cheque.

Me in 1962

              ‘Is it on a New York bank?’ he asked.

              I checked with Linda. ‘No, a Princeton bank.’

              ‘Then I can’t help you,’ he said.

              ‘But we’ve nowhere to go!’

              ‘Sorry, lady, no cash, no room.’

              Then I remembered that my employer’s cousin lived in New York, he might be listed in the phone book, perhaps he could help. He was and he could, though he wasn’t pleased to be woken at that time of night by someone he scarcely knew. Finally, he came up with the answer. We were to take a cab to his club, ask for Joe (it really was Joe!), the night clerk at the club, who would give us enough money to get us a room at the YWCA for what remained of the night. While we caught a cab to the club, he would phone Joe and arrange for the money to be available.

              We got a cab, the money and a twin-bedded room at the YWCA and one might think our immediate problems were over. Not so.

              Linda, who’d had a heavy cold, coughed all night so that neither of us got much sleep. The night seemed endless and I was glad when it was time to get up. There was no time even for a coffee, we’d missed the early bus because we’d both dozed off just before dawn. The bus station had an early morning bustle that was in stark contrast to the night before and there was a queue for the bus even before it arrived. Linda wasn’t coughing now but clung to me for support. Of a sudden she turned to me and in a low voice, said, ‘Anne, I do feel ill,’ and collapsed at my feet.

              We’d heard stories about the callousness of New Yorkers but in our case it was different. A young soldier picked the unconscious Linda up and laid her on a bench while other people clustered round, offering suggestions. A cop, drawn to the commotion, came and took charge of the situation, suggesting that I take a cab and get her to hospital. Embarrassed, I explained that we had no money to pay for medical treatment and he told me that there was a charity hospital not far away. He got the cab and the soldier lifted her inside, by which time she had come round, while the cop gave the cabbie instructions.

              I don’t know which hospital we went to, although I remember that it was dim, quiet, drab and there were a lot of nuns around. We’d to wait a long time and the doctor, when he came, was tired and rumpled. Tests and x-rays followed before we were told that Linda had pneumonia. He explained that they had no admission facilities for out of town patients and that I should get her back to Princeton as quickly as possible.

              Both exhausted from lack of sleep and the emotion-packed events, the journey home was a nightmare. We had to take yet another cab to Port Authority, then wait for the next bus, while all the time Linda was on the point of slipping back into unconsciousness. On the bus, the passengers were kindness itself and the bus driver uncomplaining when he had to pull over a couple of times to enable Linda to clamber out into the fresh air which revived her enough to continue the journey.

Linda’s employer whisked her to the hospital, then to some friends to recuperate, and from thence shipped her back to the UK while I ended up repaying all the money we’d had to borrow.

‘Please Release Me’ sounds a fascinating book and I’m looking forward to reading it. Here’s a taster of what it’s about.

What if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you?

Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up.

That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question.

In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate.

But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after …..

Here’s the link again if you’re interested. myBook.to/PleaseReleaseMe

My First Author Talk

Selling books with long-time friend Vera

My first official author talk! I’ve done a couple before to small groups mostly made up of people I know but this was something completely different. For a start it was in a large hall, attended by about 40 people and I actually had a microphone!

I’d actually been quite nervous beforehand, knowing that I would be facing a larger crowd than normal, and I must confess I’d been honing and refining my talk for a couple of weeks beforehand. I hoped I’d set the right tone.

Let me set the scene. My novel A Suitable Young Man is set in the very real town of Horwich in Lancashire (mentioned before in one of my blogs Eulogy To my Home Town) in the 1950s when it was a bustling thriving town, quite heavily industrialised, the main source of employment for men being the Locomotive Works. When this closed down in 1983, the town was devastated. To hopefully give people more pride in their town, the organisation Horwich Heritage was founded. Thirty years on, it’s still thriving with an active membership. Even though I no longer live in Horwich, it still holds a very special place in my heart and I am a long-distance member.

Some months ago, it was arranged that I should give this author talk on the evening of Tuesday, 11^th August. I had been advised by a writer friend not just to talk about my writing and my book but to give lots of background information to my life. As many of you know, I spent quite a lot of my childhood years with my parents in domestic service so that was something I could describe. When I was 13, we moved back to Horwich. It’s been said that the person you are is synonymous with the place where you grew up and I think this is particularly true of me and the influence Horwich has had on me.

In my talk, I incorporated many memories of people and places eventually leading on to how and why I became a writer, finishing with a couple of readings from my book. Talking of my own experiences seemed to resonate with many attendees because, of course, the memories were theirs too. Despite my nervousness, I think the talk went down well, certainly people said they’d enjoyed it. My long-time friend Vera was helping me with selling books afterwards and I was delighted when a couple of women came up to me and said they’d already read my book!

The chairman, Stuart Whittle, suggested afterwards that I get in touch with a couple of free local papers and once back home this is what I did. To my delight, the editor contacted me for more details and has promised to plug my book in this weeks’ edition. And she’s promised to do a review of it.

Very happy with the way things have worked out!