Weather

 Nearly four years ago I started to knit a temperature scarf and carried on knitting one stripe a day for two years.  I planned it carefully,   I checked temperatures  for the previous two years and bought thirty different colours, one for each degree Celsius up to 30C, a temperature rarely seen here.  There would be so few days over thirty that it wouldn't matter.

Then on 19th July 2022 had its hottest day ever with 40C being recorded here in Lincolnshire.  I had to buy more colours.  I recorded that single day in white.   

Since that day we have had several days over 30C and yesterday, once again, we hit 31C.  Lower temperatures (still hot but below 30C) are predicted over the next few days.

When I look through my wonderful rose coloured spectacles, I remember summer holidays as a child being hot but never so hot that we had to stay indoors.  How will today's children look back on summer in the 2020's??

For the oldies (including me!) (Definitely me!)

Those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, probably shouldn't have survived.

Me - ready for anything!

Our cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paint, the slats were apparently too far apart, and there were no bumper pads.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We sampled cake batter with raw eggs in it, and survived.

We ate cakes, bread and butter, ice cream, and drank pop with sugar in it, but we were not overweight because we were always outside playing.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we had forgotten the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. No mobile phones. Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 TV channels,  personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We played cricket and football and rounders, and sometimes the ball would really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door.

Not everyone was picked for the school football or netball team. Those who weren't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some pupils weren't as bright as others but tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them! Congratulations.

(I've had this on my computer for years and have no idea of the source.)

Holidays

Sandcastle building

The essentials were packed.  I had strange swimsuits of shirred elasticated fabric.  They seemed to attract sand and became very scratchy.  That was better than the knitted garments inflicted on some children.  I loved to go to the sea to swim or paddle.  We would collect shells on the beach and search for treasures in rock pools.  

But buckets and spades were also needed.  Castle building was taken quite seriously and besides, those buckets were useful for keeping a small fish for the afternoon.  

Until I was about eight we would stay at bed and breakfast places, preferably farmhouses.  Some places would offer an evening meal or we had sandwiches or fish and chip.  As the family became better off we started to go to hotels.   When I was nine we went to Guernsey which involved my first ever flight.  That was far better than the car and even more exciting than a train!

To the seaside: the journey

Some time during the school break we would go on holiday to the seaside.  It was never referred to as the coast, always the seaside.  I remember holidays in Sidmouth, Swanage, Whitby, Bridlington, Cromer.  When I was about eight we went to Cornwall, a journey so long that we took two days in the car.  

The roads were far less busy those days.  Some friends would go on holiday by train and how I envied them!  That seemed much more exciting than the car.  

My parents also suffered in the car, probably even more than we did.  The cry "Are we nearly there?" would start within minutes and continue all day.  There were, of course, no entertainments other than those we made for ourselves.  "Green grow the rushes, O" anyone?

I couldn't read in the car without feeling sick so that was banned.  We would look out of the windows to find a black cow or a green gate.  Red Lion and White Hart pubs were sought and points awarded.  No prizes, just the honour of winning.

Our family had a small stove which ran on methylated spirits so we would find somewhere to stop and fry sausages to be eaten in buns. This was to remind Father of his days in the Boy Scouts.   They were a real treat.  The sandwiches which Mother used to take sometimes were very boring in comparison and the stove and sausages had to come out at least once every holiday. Very occasionally we would buy food en route.  Here I am wearing one such purchase to the amusement of my Mother and sister. 

The Cooker

Not Mother's but the same era!

When I was a little girl Mother had a cooker.  A gas cooker.  A pre-war jobby and a bit of a monstrosity by today's standards.  Cleaning just the hob (which had to be totally dismantled for the job) seemed to take forever, as I remember.  

She had a big silver kettle on that cooker so she could make tea as needed.  There was an eye level grill, useful for toast.  But that was it.  Everything was cooked on the cooker.

I have a double oven.  And a hob.  Both easy to clean.  And an electric kettle.  And a toaster, rarely used these days as I rarely eat toast.  But I also have a microwave.  And an air fryer.  There's an Instant Pot too as well as a bread maker and a slow cooker.  

And of course I have a fridge, a freezer, food processor, electric whisk, blitzer.  And a dishwasher.  

How on earth did Mother manage?

(I don't know.  But I do know that she bought me my first dishwasher and my first freezer as she was determined that I wouldn't have to do the same as her!)

Keeping Sunday special

 It was when I was writing about harvesting going on into the evening until there was no more light that I remembered that Grandad never allowed harvesting on a Sunday.  No matter how things were going, Sunday was a day of rest, at least from arable work.  The animals still had to be fed, milked and cared for, of course.

On Sunday the focus was on the home.  Sunday dinner (lunch) was the culinary highlight of the week.  It was usually roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with vegetables from the garden.  Grandma made the best gravy I have ever tasted.  Even the horseradish sauce was homemade for horseradish was a rather vigorous weed.  

It would be followed by a fruit pie, apple, rhubarb or plum.  These were the fruits grown in the garden so those were the fruits we ate.  It was served with cream from the farm cows.  

For my grandparents tinned food was a rarity and grandma would open a small tin of salmon and make sandwiches for Sunday tea.  There would be home made plum bread (a Lincolnshire fruit loaf), cakes, pastries and a purchased Swiss roll, again a special pleasure for grandad.

After tea we would go to the little chapel in the village.  My grandparents were Methodists.  It was a bit of an ordeal for me as any children present were expected to sing a hymn to be listened to by the adults and I never knew the hymns chosen for us.

I was happy to go to chapel though, as I knew that after chapel we would go to Cleethorpes for a walk along the front and a local ice cream.   

Summer Holidays

 I've been thinking about those week long holidays spent at my grandparents' farm.  I know I'm looking though rose coloured spectacles but they are the only ones I've got!

Very similar to "our" farm

I used to stay with them most school holidays but summer holidays were the best.  It was extra good if I could go towards the end of the holiday when harvest would have started.

The farm was "mixed" as most were in Lincolnshire in those days.  There were cattle being fattened as beef, sheep, a few pigs and a lot of arable fields.  They grew wheat and barley as well as crops used for winter cattle fodder like mangold wurzels.  It's the wheat and the barley I remember most.

Barley is harvested before wheat and back in the fifties it was a much more labour intensive business than it is today.  My grandfather was in partnership with his brother, and their sons and grown-up grandsons (as well as the regular labourers) would do their best to be there to help get the harvest home.  I can remember the harvesting machines making sheaves which were stacked into stooks to finish drying before being taken down to the yard for threshing.  The terriers resident on the farm had a great time killing the rats which had been hiding in the crops.

Building stooks

Harvesting would go on until the light was too poor so, although the men came to the yard for lunch, a picnic tea of sandwiches, cold tea and cake had to be taken to the fields.  That was my favourite bit of the harvest!  In retrospect I think grandad probably enjoyed this break with us (one of my cousins would also be there with his dad) and our chatter was a welcome diversion.  I hope so.

When tea was finished we were allowed to cadge a lift on the next tractor going back to the yard, having had a lovely afternoon in the fields.

Being with Grandma

Summer holidays for me always included a week at my grandparents' farmhouse.  This is an update of a post I wrote in 2015.

My grandparents' farmhouse

I knew my grandparents’ house throughout my childhood until they moved when I was thirteen.  From the outside it looks a gloriously elegant dwelling.

 The interior would not strike anyone as elegant!  One came out of the yard into the back kitchen where there was a big scrubbed pine table in the middle of the room.  That was the main place for food preparation as there was a Calor gas stove for cooking and a big old fashioned Belfast sink.   Water was piped into the house when I was about eight but before that it had to be fetched from the outside scullery.   On that table grandma did her baking, prepared vegetables and once a week churned butter in the old wooden churn.  I loved helping with butter making.  My grandmother had her own unique pattern which she would stamp into each block of butter and I was usually allowed to make one pat myself with a very different pattern on it.  Making butter was physically hard work as water had to be boiled to “scald” the churn and actually standing and turning the churn handle for quite a long time certainly made one’s arms ache.

My grandparents

Above the table there were all sorts of things hanging from the beams but the thing I remember most clearly was the basket used for collecting eggs.  My grandmother had a couple of dozen hens which scratted in the yard.  They were her hens and the egg money, such as it was, was hers too.  She used to rear a few chicks which always included a few cockerels which were for the pot.

Every day the post woman, Mrs Stevenson as I remember, would cycle from the village and was a valued link with the outside world.  The farm had no telephone when I was a child so all communication was by letter.  Mrs Stevenson had to wait a while in case my grandmother wanted to write any urgent replies.  She would have a cuppa and there would be a news swap.

It’s about sixty years since our family gave up that farm and my grandparents were very old fashioned even for the fifties and sixties.  I think I am very privileged to have experienced that lifestyle.  

 

More school photographs

 I had another search around and found a few more group photographs from school.

This was two years later.  I'm sixth from the right on the second to back row (with my eyes closed.  Class sizes had started to increase so Miss Rains had a class of forty.  

This gem was a year later when I was Princess April in the class play.  I'm the long haired girl almost in the centre behind Jack Frost.  My (then) best friend Kathryn was the witch next to me.  

This was the fifth form at Grammar School.  After this I went to sixth form college.  There are only twenty two of us here but I know there were a couple of absentees.

I still meet regularly with the girl on the extreme right of the front row.  She's also on the extreme right of the school play photo. (I still say girl but we are both in our seventies!)

An old photograph

 

Writing about end of term yesterday inspired me to look for my old school photographs and this was the first one I ever had.  I was in Miss Higgins class at Priory Lane Infants School and I think this would have been 1956  I'm fifth from the left on the middle row.  

School was the first time I had mixed with such a wide variety of children from such diverse backgrounds.  The children I knew pre-school were my parents' friends' children.  (This was in the days before playgroups and nursery schools for all.)  The school drew its pupils from a wide variety of economic backgrounds and, although the picture shows bright smiling faces, I can remember several children with only vague notions of hygiene!

I was very proud of the dress I was wearing on this occasion.  My father had recently been on a business trip to America and while there he had bought outfits from Macy's for my sister and I.  In 1956 Britain was still in the grip of post-war austerity and that dress was truly a wonder.  

This time of the year

 

This week is the end of the school year around here and it's a time I remember fondly from when I was a child.

I don't remember sports days and swimming galas very fondly as I was rubbish at anything sporty, even the egg and spoon sort of race.  The best bit was the ice cream van which parked near the school gates and did very nicely.

I have always enjoyed swimming but not competing.  I'm happy just to swim lengths and maybe to increase my distance but being told to go faster just took the pleasure out of the activity for me.

There would be end of term plays and concerts (at least at Primary School) which were a lot more to my taste.

At Primary School there would be the school day trip.  I remember going to York and to Knaresborough on coaches and taking my packed lunch with me.  

The thing I remember most was autograph books.  I had a new one each year.  Everyone (or maybe it was just the girls) would tote their autograph books to every adult in the school from the headmaster to the dinner ladies.  They'd also get signatures from others in their own class.  I have no idea what happened to those books: I suspect they were in the bin before next term started. 

And on the last day there was the school report for our parents to read.  I think some children dreaded that but I was a smug little Good-Two-Shoes.  

And so home for six weeks summer holiday.  

R is for Remember when

I love to remember when I was a girl.

Sometimes my remembering makes me want those times back, but often I feel glad that things have changed.

 Do you remember waking up in a cold bedroom with ice on the inside of windows?  And a weekly bath and daily all over washes with a rough flannel?

 

Do you remember there being milk delivered to the doorstep before you were even up?

 Do you remember walking to school with your friends and skipping or playing hopscotch on the way?

Do you remember cycling to school and maybe propping your bike against the kerb on the way?   I don't know when I last saw a bike leaning on a kerb.

 Do you remember getting a third of a pint of slightly warm milk (with a straw) to drink at mid-morning?

Do you remember school dinners with liver or a sausage or anonymous meat with cabbage or carrots and mashed potato, followed by rice pudding?

 Do you remember the excitement of school radio programmes?

 Do you remember bread and jam for tea, followed by home-made cake?

 Do you remember going to bed cuddling a hot water bottle (mine was stone!) with all sorts of things piled on the bed just to keep you warm?

 

If you do, I think you (like me) are very lucky.

Coronation 1953

No, I'm not on this one!

 To be honest, I don't remember it!  I was less than two years old but I was Miss Coronation Queen for our street.  

I lived on a quiet street and there would  not have been many cars around.  Residents just decided anong themselves to have a street party - there was no need to ask anyone's permission in those days!  Dressing up costumes were all home made.

We lived about half way along the street so my parents and our neighbours took their dining tables outside and all the children had a feast - quite an event in those years of post war austerity!  I am the little tot at the far end of the table.

All schoolchildren received a commemorative mug from the Local Education Authority.  I was far too young to be at school so my parents bought me my commemorative gift themselves, this replica of the anointing spoon.

It's good to talk!

Ever since the first lockdown started I've had a monthly zoom with a couple of friends, Sandie and Jan. (Before that we used to meet for pub lunches.)   They are sisters and I can't remember not knowing them.  We are "Coffee Kids", still kids despite our ages ranging from 69 to 77!

Back in 1954 a group of eight women decided to meet each Tuesday and they continued to meet every week for over fifty years.  At first it was a cup of Nescafe, a real treat in those years of post war austerity.  (Anybody else remember those tiny tins of coffee powder? )  They were The Coffee Girls.  It's hard to think of a similar group today as most women go out to work but I suspect that in those days some sort of a meet-up was an important defence against being driven crazy by the endless round of caring for husband and children alone at home.

As well as the weekly Coffee Morning they had days out together, they had parties, when one couple bought a narrow boat they had day trips on the canals.  Those women and their husbands were all Aunties and Uncles to me.  

The last four Coffee Girls in 2002

As years went by inevitably those Aunties and Uncles died.  Around twenty years ago I had a party for the four remaining ladies at that time and as many Coffee Kids as I could trace.  It was good to catch up with everyone.

So, once a month, Sandie, Jan and I, each in our own homes, make a cup of coffee and settle down for a chat to celebrate a friendship of 67 years.  

It's good to talk.

Old friends

 There's an extra person in my bedroom these days and she's called Alexa.  Each morning she says, "Good Morning!" and gives me a special fact for the day.  This morning she told me that it's Donald Duck's birthday.  He's 87, in case you wondered.  

I've never been a Donald Duck fan but there were other special people who lived in my childhood books.  I loved Milly Molly Mandy, (or Millicent Margaret Amanda if you're feeling formal) who did nice ordinary things.  I remember especially that she liked to take a hard boiled egg if she was going on a picnic.  She had a dog, Toby, and a cat, Topsy.   The stories were safe, maybe even dull by today's standards, but I loved them.

Like so many others my childhood was enriched by Alison Uttley and her Little Grey Rabbit stories.  I don't think I knew about Beatrix Potter but Little Grey Rabbit and her washday quietened many a bedtime.  

My all-time favourite though was Winnie the Pooh with the wonderful E H Shepard illustrations.  And when I say "all-time" I really mean it.  I have "Winnie The Pooh" and "The House at Pooh Corner" as audiobooks, both read by the wonderful Alan Bennet with the help of Alexa.  I doubt if I will ever be grown-up enough to leave Pooh Bear behind.  

Christmas memories 12. So that was Christmas

By 27th December my Father was back at work.  He was a manager on our local steelworks and steelmaking can't have a temporary stop or the furnaces would be damaged.  Sometimes he even went in for a few hours on Christmas Day but his assistant manager was a bachelor and generously allowed Daddy to have the lion's share of time off during the two day break.  It wasn't until 1974 that New Year's Day became a holiday in England with the modern "tradition" of a break from around 23rd December until 2nd January.  Steelworks still don't stop but as many workers as possible get as many days off as possible.  

The Christmas tree also stayed up until 5th January and we didn't go back to school until the new year either so Christmas was still with us.  There was never the excessive waste of food which there is today and the post-Christmas leftovers were particularly delicious.  

Several people have mentioned how sociable Christmas was and they are right but Mother would never neglect an opportunity to teach us how to behave.  The dreaded task to be done before New Year was writing thank you letters and it was best to get them out of the way as quickly as possible if only to get Mummy off my back.  There were toys to be played with  but not while there were letters to be written.  Christmas was a time of learning how to behave, whether it was sitting quietly whilst elderly people were visited, giving a farewell kiss to all and sundry, or handing around nuts or fruit before being allowed to take anything.  

Compared to the excesses of today the fifties were austere but they were still magical.  Just a few years earlier Britain had been at war and life had been very hard and people had learnt to make the best of everything, a skill which mothers continued to use. I hope that in fifty or sixty years time today's children will also be able to put on their rose coloured spectacles and tell their stories.

Christmas Memories 11. Boxing Day

Although Christmas wasn't the long period from about 23rd December to 3rd January which it is today, Boxing Day was important when I was a child.  Christmas Day was for family - Mother's family at lunchtime, Father's for tea - but Boxing Day was for visiting their friends.

It was the custom when I was a child to address our parents close friends as Auntie or Uncle.  My Mother was a member of a group called The Coffee Girls or simply, Les Girls.  She was a Coffee Girl until she died aged 89.  This group of about eight  women and their husbands formed the basis of their social life and one of them, my Auntie Marnie, had a lunchtime party every Boxing Day.  She invited all Les Girls and their families and it was a wonderful party.  It was an excuse for wearing newly acquired clothes but for me it was also an opportunity to top up my piggy bank.  I had quite a sweet voice when I was little and I was always invited to sing a couple of carols for which I would be richly paid.

After we left this party we would visit various elderly friends, most of whom had no younger family to visit them.  It is only as an adult that I have understood that we brought our childhood excitement with us and were probably a Christmas highlight for them.  Even now I am planning my visits to a few older friends for later this week and as I write this I have realised that I am carrying on that childhood tradition and honouring my parents understanding that there are those for whom visits by others are one of the most important Christmas gifts they receive.

Then we would be off home to start writing thank you letters.  

Christmas Memories 10. The Great Day

We always woke early on Christmas Day and checked if Santa had been.  We would have left a pillowcase outside our bedroom doors and, being a tidy chap, Santa would have left our presents in there.

We always got a main present from our parents.  My earliest recollection is of a till and toy money but I had a train set one year and Bayko set another year.  Bayko would give elfin safety an enormous headache these days as it involved pushing steel rods into a bakelite base and then sliding bricks on to the rods.  Looking back, those rods could have been lethal!  There were other smaller presents as well from family and friends but the the phrase "stocking filler" had still to enter our language.

During the morning we would play with our new toys until our maternal grandparents arrived.  One year though we had a truly white Christmas, with snow falling on Christmas Eve and I preferred to play outside.  A bit of on-line checking suggests that this may have been 1956 when I would have been five.  My grandparents would arrive with my aunt and, after she married, my aunt's family and there would be another round of gift swapping.  Lunch (for ten people) was always delicious and always turkey.  The selection of vegetables was much smaller than today but no-one would go hungry.  Mother would then bring in the home-made pudding, always exciting as she would flame it with brandy.  

After the washing up had been done we would wait for a telephone call from my Mother's younger brother who lived some distance away and was the only one of their children my grandparents would not see at Christmas.  My grandparents didn't have a phone so this call from Uncle Eric was very important to them.  After that we settled down to watch The Queen's Speech and then my grandparents would be off to their elder son and my parents would have a much needed snooze.

At about five o'clock the door bell would sound and that meant that my father's brothers and sisters had arrived with their families and my paternal grandparents.  Tea would be served.  I think there would have been about fifteen for tea and the noise was immense as my cousins and I updated each other about our new treasures.  

My recollection is that alcohol flowed pretty freely all day (these is pre drink driving laws) and so the family would eventually settle down to play Newmarket, a card game which involved some mild gambling so it was great fun.  Mother kept a penny jar and she supplied penny stakes all round.  My grandmother seemed very jolly to us children but considering the amount of cherry brandy she would have consumed that wasn't surprising.  

Christmas Day was a day for families and fun.  We had plenty of both.

Christmas Memories 9. Just one more sleep

Christmas Eve was a time of frantic activity in our house.  It had to be - food shopping and preparation had to be done as close to The Day as possible when few households had a fridge.

The most important shop to go to was the butcher and here we had to queue.    Our butcher would have the whole order ready and there was a fast track for mums who had been prudent enough to order the turkey, ham, sausages and bacon in advance so that he could prepare the order but it was still a queue.  Then off to the baker to collect bread.  Mother usually made her own but at Christmas time  became more precious and this cheat was considered acceptable. 

Vegetables would be fetched in from the garden where possible.  Father grew Brussels sprouts, carrots and parsnips but chestnuts would have been bought a few day earlier so they could be cooked and skinned on Christmas Eve ready to have with the sprouts.

This Christmas Eve shopping would be done by Father as Mother was busy in the kitchen.  She would be baking mince pies, cakes, and cheese straws and, once the sausage-meat arrived from the butcher, she could make sausage rolls.  The Christmas pudding would be brought down from the top shelf ready for the morrow and the precious new jars of chutneys and pickles brought in from the store.  Milk would be infused and breadcrumbs prepared for bread sauce and once the turkey (complete with giblets) arrived, she would make giblet stock ready for the gravy.  The potatoes would be peeled ready and best crockery sorted so the dinner table could be laid easily after Christmas Day breakfast.

We didn't help much in the kitchen so Father's job was to keep us busy.  Shopping was a good activity and the decorations could be tweaked.  We also had parcels to wrap but I doubt if our the things we gave were much of a surprise as we were much too excited to keep secrets.  Pillow cases were sorted for Santa to leave parcels in and frantic final letters to the great man were written.  

There was always some sort of a service for children on Christmas Eve afternoon.  Few adults came and it was regarded as a method for getting children out of the way.  Meals were a little basic (beans on toast, sandwiches) as cooking efforts were being concentrated on the meals for Christmas Day.  

My sister was nine years older than me and she was allowed to have a party for her friends before they all went off to Midnight Mass.  I think my parents must have been near-saints to have allowed this!  However, each year when I found my filled pillowcase near my bed it always had a note from Santa pinned to it.  Santa had writing very much like my sister's boyfriend.

Christmas memories 8. Infant school Christmas party

None of us can truly remember our childish wonder at Christmas but  we can look back through adult eyes with enormous gratitude for the little things which grown-ups did to give us wonderful memories.

For me the infant school party was truly magical.  We each took in a cake or something similar which was whisked away from us as soon as we arrived at school in the morning.  The morning of the school party was a time of barely controlled excitement.  Each classroom had been decorated using the craft creations of the children.  One year we made snowflakes to stick on the window, another year was cotton wool snowmen and yet another a host of angels.  Crepe paper streamers would be high on the ceiling in a way which I am told would make any fire officer these days need more than an angel to soothe him.  Each classroom had a tree usually hung with toilet roll lanterns and there would be a huge banner wishing everyone Merry Christmas.

Lunch was usually a little early and then we were shooed out into the playground so that teachers, school staff and a bevy of parents could set to work.  The dinner ladies must have had a hard time with us that day!

Eventually we were allowed back into school for The Party.  Games took place in our classrooms and always included Pass the Parcel, Musical Statues and whatever else the teacher could think of.

And finally, the party tea.  This was always laid out on long tables in the dining room by the kitchen staff and those wonderful parents.  It was less than two hours since lunch but I don't remember being even slightly inhibited when it came to eating my share.  Sandwiches, jelly, cakes went down in rapid succession.

At last there would be a lull in the noise and then there would be a huge BANG!  Santa and his sleigh had arrived on the school roof!  All eyes went up to the high windows around the hall to watch Santa striding along the roof of the adjacent corridor on his way down to an ecstatic band of children.

Soon he came into the hall carrying a huge sack.  Had we been good?  Of course, Santa, we were always good.  He asked his question of the whole school as he arrived and then of each class before he handed out presents.  He checked with the teachers that we had indeed been good and we looked anxiously at Miss Higgins and Miss Gulliver as they gave their reports.

All too soon, Santa left and we had a final story before we too were sent home to tell our parents what a wonderful time we had had.

All this took place early in the final week of term.  It had to be so that there would be time to eat the rest of the huge cakes our mums had sent for the party.