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Sunday 4 September 2016

Willingly to school (1)

I loved school!  I started sixty years ago this week and can still remember how excited I was.

I went to Priory Lane Infants School which was about half a mile from where I lived.  I can't remember what I wore that first day but I can remember that I couldn't get there fast enough.  We had been to put my name down a few weeks earlier and I had had a tantalising glimpse of children doing wonderful things and now I was going to be one of those privileged children.

I was in Miss Higgins class.  As we walked through the door Miss Higgins was marking registers and giving out name badges with one hand and hanging on to a screaming child with the other.  I couldn't wait to get rid of Mummy's hand and start playing with all those wonderful toys and couldn't really work out why anyone didn't want to be there.

Then half way through the morning I was given a bottle of milk and a straw.  I'd never drunk milk from a bottle before so this was another wonder of my new life.

As twelve o'clock drew near Miss Higgins and her helpers divided the children into two groups, putting one group into coats ready to go home for lunch while the rest were shepherded to the dining room for school dinner.  I was assigned to the first group and off I went. 

Mummy was very surprised to see me.  She'd ordered and paid for school dinners for me.  So together we walked back to school.  There was a bit of a flap on when we got there as somebody had done a head count and realised that they were one head short.

Can you imagine the hullabaloo there would be today if a four year old child nipped off home unnoticed?

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