January 1967

In the news… Alf Ramsey got a knighthood. The papers started calling him Sir Alf.

In the news… Donald Campbell pushed his luck too far. He died trying to break his own water speed record.

Upbury news… my mate John Greenland joined Andrew Warner and Mark Honey in being demoted to 1A2. I was sorry to see them go. John’s demotion left me as the only Twydall boy in 1A1, but with plenty of new friends and a full term behind me, I was ready to take 1967 in my stride.

The year got off to a good start when Miss Lake commended the effort I’d put into a homework assignment over the holiday. Rewriting the Incredible Journey in our own words was always going to be a slog, but praise was praise and a fair return for sixty pages of scribble. I liked Miss Lake, who introduced us to good books like The Yearling and The Railway Children. The Incredible Journey would have been all right too if we hadn’t flogged it to death in group reading sessions. I found Richard Pascall’s continuous mispronunciation of Luath (as Luaz) irritating, but Richard was one of ours star readers and nobody, not even Miss Lake, corrected him.

I saw a sign promoting a Beetle Drive on the notice board under the main staircase. Identical signs were posted all around the school and it wasn’t the first time I’d seen them. I got the impression that pupils and parents attended these strange after school events. Teachers too, presumably, yet it all seemed rather odd. I couldn’t imagine adults getting excited about throwing a dice and assembling a plastic beetle. Who’d buy a ticket for that? Not me for a start.

Mam and Dad had no time for parent/teacher stuff. Notes I took home for school trips to Europe went straight in the bin and no wonder, when Mam couldn’t afford to keep our school photos. Not that I cared. I didn’t want to go to France or Belgium anyway. Football though, was another matter and my eyes lit up when a notice went up for an England schools international at Wembley Stadium, in April. Those interested were to see Mister Fisk, it said. A sudden rush of excitement was only tempered by the cost, 12s/6d. I’d just have to ask Mam. At the right time. Very nicely.

Mam said yes! And she stumped up half a crown as a deposit.

Fiona West was just another girl in the class. A chatty type with light wavy hair, she’d hobbled around school with a leg in plaster from the day we started at Upbury. Other than that I knew little about her. At a time when girls were only tolerated out of necessity, I was happy to keep it that way,

Fiona didn’t return for the new term. Mister Potts said she might be off school for some time and suggested we all write a letter to her, to cheer her up. Along with everybody else I composed a nice grown up and sensible letter, only I couldn’t think of a grown up and sensible way to sign off. Yours Sincerely didn’t sound right and nor did anything else I could think of. After chewing it over for a minute or two, I wrote ‘Love Gerard.’ That wasn’t ideal either but never mind, it got the job done and I thought no more about it when Mister Potts collected it with the rest.

It never occurred to me that Fiona might have retained contact with someone in the class, and that she’d blab, in a not very grown up and sensible way, so that the whole rotten class heard about it. But that’s exactly what she did, the cow, and when confronted about it I didn’t know where to put my face.