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Growing Up In Feltwell in the 1950s & 60s – Part 4. Junior School
Mr Charlesworth was headmaster throughout my time at school. A strict disciplinarian, he caned boys frequently. Some even regularly. He caned on the hand and prefaced such acts if in front of the class with: “this hurts me more than it will hurt you!” No-one believed him. If he walked with our “croc” from the new to the old school we would look to see if he bent his arms: if he kept one straight we knew there was a cane hidden in his coat sleeve and that he would use it. He rarely caned girls; but instead put his hand up inside their dress to deliver a smack. He did cane Theresa for drawing a line using a finger instead of the regulation “ruler” - though as she denied the offence at first, he might have claimed it was for lying. He caned boys who did poorly in a test, who whispered “pass the salt please” during lunch after he had ordered silence, who rode on the crossbar of someone’s cycle even if the offence occurred out of school at a weekend. One teacher made boys who would now be considered dyslexic or having severe learning problems, stand on desks for the class to laugh at before the inevitable physical punishment was administered. (And Mr Charlesworth would severely admonish any boy who kept his hands in his pockets in the presence of ladies or girls. It was years later before I realised why.)
I was not a confident child and had a “lisp” whereby I pronounced an “L” as an “R” so that a lollipop was a rorrypop! It did not seem to bother friends but my sisters teased me relentlessly. Mr Charlesworth coached me to pronounce the dreaded “L” correctly and by the time I left primary school I was almost speech perfect, for which I was ever grateful. I was not a good scholar and won the Merit Shield for good performance and behaviour each week, just once. My sister won it 10 times and was allowed to keep it: I think she still has it. I still have the photograph Mr Charlesworth took of me holding it. He was a keen amateur photographer and I think he had a darkroom in his study for he photographed everyone who won it. My family did not possess a camera; few did.
On Monday mornings we would sit cross-legged in the hall for the BBC’s broadcast of “Singing Together”: we sang along to folk songs like Men of Harlech, High Germany, Oh Shenandoah and the beautiful A Shepherd’s Girl’s Sunday. Others would now be considered downright racist. Times change. But these tunes did help instil in me a love of English folk music and by extension, the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Miss Addison would often “conduct” us from the hall stage and once she bent forward so far she toppled onto the floor. Mr Feltwell who was standing to the side watching out for any disruptive behaviour, could not stop himself from laughing and had to hide his face behind his song booklet. The elderly, but slim and nimble Miss Addison picked herself up in a trice, just a little flustered.
Mr Tricky, a student teacher, came for a single term when we were in Junior 3 and was more than a little crazy. He taught us to chew paper pellets to make them go further when pinged at others from an elastic band between thumb and first finger (like a catapult) and demonstrated how to fire the same from a bicycle pump. Amazed that we had never done this before, one lunch-time he organised a class battle with at least 6 bicycle pumps firing in all directions. They made a satisfying “splut” sound. The classroom door was open and the straight laced Miss Addison came wandering down the corridor exclaiming: “There’s a lot of noise down this end of the corridor.” Mr Tricky just closed our door and we carried on. Later, while perusing our stamp collections, he mentioned that he had a large collection himself. Wendy asked if he could send her a few of his spares as she had just started collecting. A little later after he had left, he sent her a huge collection of British and Colonial stamps which included a page of Victorian “penny reds” and several “two-penny blues”.
There were the usual school plays and performances to which parents were invited. In one “Safety First” I played a knight required to slay a wicked dragon. Fortunately I was to be protected by a huge pair of magic wellingtons – actually my father’s – which I had to jump into from a high chair. This I managed just before Lorna entered holding all that remained of the castle’s cook: a single shoe. Most years there would be a school outing: Stratford upon Avon, London Zoo or a visit to the Royal Tournament at Earls Court. Though expensive they were very memorable. We would practise beforehand our speeches in case we got lost or separated in London: “My name is ….and I am on a school outing from Norfolk and my train leaves Liverpool St station at ...pm”. Once we had a very rushed dinner on the train journey back: they started at the Norwich School end of the train and got to us just as we were approaching Ely and almost home.
In preparation of our 11-plus exam we had to undertake “Intelligence Tests”. One question was: “How many balls of string would it take to reach the moon?” I don’t recall anyone getting the “correct” answer: “One – if it was long enough!” By the time we took the 11 plus we had done basic geometry – as well as mastering adding up sums like £10 12s 9½d + £13 17s 6¾d (To be clear, farthings were still legal tender in 1960 but no longer in use and worth just one quarter of an old penny ie. slightly more than one tenth of a current penny “p”!). And of course we had to calculate distances in chains (22 yards) and furlongs (8 chains) and even in rods, poles or perches. I have no memory whatsoever of taking the exam but I do recall singing out loud all the way to school that morning, Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now of Never...” I failed, but by a small enough margin to be allowed a retake. This I passed and from September 1961, attended Thetford Grammar School, like my father and 4 siblings before me.
This coincided with my family moving from Munson’s Place to Cambridge House in the High Street. Towlers of Brandon ran the free school bus service which I then caught from the nearby Elm tree corner along with several others from the RAF camp. I was still a poor scholar and would need yet another retake in 1969 to gain sufficient A levels to study surveying at Nottingham which I absolutely loved. That same year my father died. Fortunately my headmaster was a very patient man and a lovely human being. I owe him so much.
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