The teacher on playground duty – Mrs Illingworth (formerly Miss Tapsell) – had
just passed a group of us when an overheard ‘bloody,’ made her stop dead and
spin around.
‘Was that William Hollands I just
heard swearing?’
‘Yes Miss,’ we replied as one, pinning the blame where it belonged as
our panic stricken friend fled around the corner.
Good old Bimbo. He didn’t get in trouble often but he had his moments. Talking
in line had earned him the slipper from Mister Campion, and talking in class
earned him a caning from Mister Turner. Other misdemeanours included flicking salt
in Stephen Fellows’s eye, punching Linda Varnum in the face, and giving Lynne
Hopkins a poke where a girl should not be poked, even in retaliation; not a bad
charge sheet for a policeman’s son.
~
Neither I nor my classmates were particularly fashion conscious. At
sometime or other Paul Parker and Clive Ward wore balaclavas, Kim Erswell a rust
coloured jumper and Kevin a blue anorak. Stephen Browning’s two tone raincoat was
quite impressive but Stephen Fellows was three steps ahead of us all. Not many
eleven year olds wore a pink shirt and Cuban heeled boots but Stephen did and
he carried the look well, as befitting of his advanced development. Nigel
Robinson was another that stood out from the rest. Nigel was worldlier than
most; certainly worldlier than me and I was curious when I spotted the sly V
sign he flicked at someone from under the dinner table.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Oh nothing,’ he said, but a little smirk suggested otherwise.
I didn’t push it any further. If Nigel wasn’t for telling then he wasn’t
for telling. I wasn’t that bothered anyway. Just a bit bemused, as I’d been
when he started romancing third year Glynis McLaren, and Paul Parker started romancing Glynis’s
friend Julia Petch. Nigel had a dalliance with Geraldine Davis too, a girl in our
class, which earned them a dishonourable mention in a naughty rendition of On
Top of Old Smokey.
Nigel was at it again in our final days at Twydall. Everyone was invited
to a mock marriage service between him and Lorna Whitfield which was set to
take place in the bin corner one afternoon. The happy couple were willing
participants in the lark, but when Miss Rusted got wind of it she was not
amused and nipped the idea in the bud.
Another person who took a shine to Lorna was Paul Aitkin, we learned,
from an incident witnessed when leaving school one day. Paul had Lorna pinned
down on the grass and was snogging her in full view of everyone. Lucky for them
Miss Rusted wasn’t around.
I had an encounter with a girl too, on Romany Road during the mass exodus at
home time. How I came to be kicked on the shin by the girl, a third year, I
don’t recall but claiming it ‘didn’t hurt’ and letting her have another go
wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did. And I wasn’t done there. Twice more I denied
the pain and twice more the evil cow kicked me again, as bravado and stupidity conspired
to leave me fighting back tears and hobbling in agony.
~
The last week
Our
class, and probably all the other fourth year classes, were taken out a dozen
at a time in the school’s newly acquired mini bus; so us fourth years could
have a ride before we left, I presume. They needn’t have bothered, as on a
drizzly afternoon at Farthing Corner there was nothing for us to do but get
out, watch the drizzle for a few minutes and then return to school.
Some free standing bookshelves appeared in the corridors of the main school block, displaying projects made by members of 4/1. Paul Wastell’s ‘Forgotten Battles of American History,’ demanded my attention, but a quick browse left me shaking my head. Paul’s work was impressive but if there’d been a prize for the most ridiculous title he’d have won it hands down for a work that included the Alamo and Gettysburg.
~
Some free standing bookshelves appeared in the corridors of the main school block, displaying projects made by members of 4/1. Paul Wastell’s ‘Forgotten Battles of American History,’ demanded my attention, but a quick browse left me shaking my head. Paul’s work was impressive but if there’d been a prize for the most ridiculous title he’d have won it hands down for a work that included the Alamo and Gettysburg.
In
four years I never once set foot in the garden in the quadrangle. Half the time
we wouldn’t have known it was there as the condensation in the corridors was so
bad that for months on end all we saw was steamed up windows.
~
Clive
Ward might have been worldlier than me too. The punch line to a joke about a
farmer gifting a son some land was ‘here’s two acres to begin with,’ upon which
Clive backhanded me between the legs. The ache part of the joke was instantly
clear but the significance of the two
escaped me.
When Clive told us he was playing for a team called The Greenfliers in a seven a side
football final, I was surprised and disappointed. My interest in football had
grown with the World Cup and I’d have loved to have been involved. But Clive’s event
had passed me by, and most of my classmates, it seemed, as Clive was the only 4/2
participant in a game dominated by the boys of 4/1. Finding out Clive was
playing in goal was another surprise. Clive was one of the smaller boys in our
year and nobody’s idea of a goalkeeper, which backed up a sneaky suspicion that
they’d bunged him in goal as a last resort. Whatever, when goal posts appeared
on the field that afternoon a few of us stayed on after school to give Clive
our support. Alas, in a closely fought match of short duration the
Greenfliers lost 1-0 to a long range shot that sailed over Clive’s outstretched
arms.
‘Gerard has a flair for this subject’ Miss Rusted wrote in my school
report. Getting an A in Art wasn’t out of the ordinary but a flair, whatever it
was, was something new. How proud I was when my mother explained.
The last day
Everyone signed each others autograph books, most of them being the little
sixpenny ones with the pastel coloured pages bought from Woolworth’s. Then the
race was on to collect as many teachers’ autographs as we could, starting with
Miss Rusted.
What did the S stand for we wondered?
For 4/2, much of the day was spent playing games in our classroom. Chinese
Whispers was a game I didn’t understand, at first, but once we’d lined up and a
whispered message had been passed down the line it was fun to hear the how the
original message finished up. Another game required us to push the desks and
tables back to leave a big space in the middle of the classroom. Then Miss
Rusted gave each of us the name of a place in Kent.
‘Sheerness!’ she then shouted, as she spun a plate on the floor.
Whoever Sheerness was had to spring forward and grab the plate before it
stopped spinning. Then spin the plate for the next person as Miss Rusted called
out another random name.
Great fun but as the minutes ticked by, the game became increasingly frustrating
for the likes me, who had yet to be involved while others were getting chosen
for a second time.
‘I’ve not had a turn yet… I’m Queenborough,’ I lamented to the kid next
to me, in a voice loud enough for our teacher to hear.
‘Queenborough!’
Whoosh! Good old
Miss Rusted!
I don’t recall if there was a morning assembly on our last day, but I
know we fourth years attended a special assembly in the afternoon, as we lined
up near the front of the hall instead of our customary position at the back, under
the watchful eye of Her Majesty. With the sun streaming through the windows we
sang Lord Dismiss us with Thy Blessing for the last time, after which I shared
a moment of reflection with Miss Rusted.
‘It’s funny; it’s taken us four years to be the big kids here. And now…’
‘Yes, you’ll be starting all over again.’
Class 4/2
1965-1966
Akehurst, Andrew
Anderton, Peter
Bateman, Linda
Barnes, Linda
Browning, Stephen
Clifford, Colin
Cross, Ronald
Croxon, Elaine
Davis, Geraldine
Deaville, Graham
Erswell, Kim
Fellows, Stephen
Field, Marion
Gardner, Anthony
Garlick, Kevin
Golding, Gillian
Greenland, John
Heath, Lavinia
Hollands, William
Hopkins, Lynne
Kilpatrick, Anne
MacGregor, Janice
Nunn, Graham
Oakenfull, Diane
Parker, Paul
Redgrave, Lorraine
Robinson, Nigel
Slociak, Angela
Stageman, Graeme
Stammer, Brian
Stephens, Peter
Varnum, Linda
Ward, Clive
Webb, Linda
Whitfield, Lorna
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