30 The Third Year

Life was good at Twydall Juniors. Happy in Miss Rusted’s third year class, I was at ease in the playground too. Though it paid to be respectful of the fourth years, there were fewer older kids to worry about so the chances of being picked on or being knocked over by boisterous big kids was much reduced. Just as well, as like most boys under 11, my friends and I were still in short pants and not immune to scraped knees and iodine.

Conkers, ever popular in the autumn, was a game I could finally participate in when Dad came home from work with a handful he’d gathered from somewhere. Dreams of having a champion conker soon fizzled out however, when I got to school and saw one after another get smashed to smithereens. A cracked three-er was as good as it got, but a cracked three-er was no match for a super duper, cheese edged, oven baked and soaked in vinegar 112-er, of the type claimed by experts such as Alan Stewart, who always had a good one. 

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How I laughed when William ‘Bimbo’ Hollands strode into school wearing a big grin and a brand new pair of spectacles one morning. I’d soon get used to it, but that first sighting of my speccy four eyed friend’s new look was hilarious.

William ‘Bimbo’ Hollands: “We were in Miss Rusted’s class. I had trouble seeing the blackboard from the back of the hut. When I first got them I kept touching them because they felt strange. I remember Miss Rusted saying ‘be careful or you may break them’ or words to that effect.”

Bimbo had something to laugh at too, when I showed him My Beautiful Bird Book. Something I’d lashed up at home with paper and sellotape, it opened to reveal newspaper cuttings of pin up girls.

We boys of 3/2 now did PE with the boys of Mister Turner’s 3/1 class. Though it helped that Leonard Jarrett, David Popplestone, John Parker, Ian Newman and John Conway had all started out in our class, I was a little in awe of what I saw as the collective superiority of Ronald Smith, Leslie Gowers, Martin Went, Peter Bursey, Peter Day, Graham Hubbard, Keith Larkins, Ronald Low, Stephen Lumley, Stephen Parrett, Keith Payne, Robin Peters, Paul Wastell and Graham Wilson. We joined them for craft lessons too, in their classroom hut. At the same time the 3/1 girls – Diane Clarke, Susan Johnson, Karen Swandale and Lesley Day amongst them – joined our girls for PE and some kind of girly lesson with Miss Rusted and our girls in the 3/2 hut. 

Mister Turner was a stocky, well respected teacher... and a former Japanese prisoner of war, I learned years later. He was also someone to be wary of, being stricter than most and as sharp as a sniper. Indeed, his ability to keep a beady eye on us over the rim of his specs, whilst appearing to reading at his desk, caught out many a miscreant. Bimbo Hollands was one such miscreant. Another was John Conway. Both were caned for talking in class.

It looked like I was in for a caning too, on the day I almost sent the Queen’s portrait crashing to the floor in a PE lesson. High on the wall above the doors at the back of the hall, her majesty looked on as below, I struggled with the task of placing a bean bag on my foot with the intention of hooking it to a partner opposite me. Easy enough, I’d thought, when my partner successfully launched the bean bag to me but try as I might, I couldn’t return it. Each time I swung my leg, the bean bag just slid off my foot. In the end I got so fed up with it that I plonked it on my foot and held it in place as I swung my leg. Awkward, yes, but successful, only the rotten bean bag shot straight up in the air and scored a direct hit on Queen’s portrait which, for a few heart stopping seconds, wobbled precariously.

‘Get back to the classroom and wait at my desk!’ barked Mister Turner who, of course, had seen her wobbling majesty and nothing else.

For what seemed an age I waited… and waited. Never had life seemed so unfair. In a state of trembling misery by the time the lads returned to the classroom, the last thing I needed from them were caning gestures, of which their were plenty. Then at last Mister Turner came in. Execution time surely.

‘Go and sit down,’ was all he said. Perhaps, given time to reflect, he’d realised there’d been no intent and granted me the benefit of the doubt. Whatever, it was with great relief that I meekly obeyed, happy and grateful on the outside, yet well and truly shaken inside. 

A trip to the pictures with Kevin and his mum to see Cheyenne Autumn was a huge disappointment. Instead of an epic battle we got a long drawn out saga about the plight of a vanquished tribe trudging back to their homeland from the reservation. No good at all to two nine year olds, who regularly saw more action in half an hour of The Lone Ranger.

Another film I saw was The Waltz King, with my Mam and my brothers, which was every bit as boring as I expected it to be. If Mam thought she could pass on her appreciation of classical music to her sons through this Disney production, she thought wrong.