Sunny Days

Though I didn’t do too badly in the summer exams, sixteenth in the class was disappointing after being eighth at Christmas. The biggest disappointment was my oral mark in Drama. In a sunlit assembly hall, reading from a paperback about the Alamo, I’d been determined to impress Miss Fyshe and become the next Jeremy Brougham. Reciting a passage that began ‘They tossed him on their bayonets, as farmers would toss a bale of hay,’ I gave it the full how now brown cow treatment. Stirring stuff, I thought. Not so Miss Fyshe, who awarded me a measly 60%.

Art was my best subject, as usual. And as usual, I was crap at Science. Music might have been equally as bad if it hadn’t been for the mnemonics FACE and EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FOOTBALL. I didn’t mind Music when Miss Rotherham played an LP like the 1812 Overture, which was quite inspiring, or Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, which we all knew as the theme from Zoo Time on the telly, but other records she played, such as Fingal’s Cave, put me to sleep.

A bright sunny morning… 1A1 were having a maths lesson in our own classroom with Mister Potts, our form teacher. A big chunk of the class were missing – the Wigmore contingent – but at 9:30 there was a knock on the door and Pat Foad, Hilary Austin and the rest trooped in. ‘Sorry we’re late,’ they said. ‘But the school bus didn’t turn up. We’ve had to walk it.’

Mister Potts beamed. ‘You mean you’ve walked all the way here? 

Indeed they had and on seeing Mister Potts’s reaction, they looked very pleased about it.

Mister Potts was clearly impressed. ‘Others might have gone home and taken the day off… but not you… blah blah blah. Well done! I think this deserves a round of applause!’

So we gave them a clap for their stroll in the sunshine. And at the at end of the day, as always, when the pampered gits hopped aboard the special coaches at the school gates for express rides to Wigmore, Hempstead and Rainham, we Twydall kids trudged to the depot to catch a regular service bus.

A sunny lunchtime…

‘Let’s go the shop,’ said Burty.

I declined. Buying crisps and lollies at the shop on York Avenue was part of Upbury life, but a rarity for me, and many of my Twydall friends. Apart from the five bob dinner money we brought to school on Mondays we seldom had a penny more than our bus fare.

‘C’mon, I’ll buy you two ounces of peanuts,’ said Burty.

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. In the course of that first year Burty and I had become good friends. The peanuts were an endorsement of that friendship but until Burty passed them to me, I had no idea how generous two ounces was.

Wow!

(For anyone wondering about Paul's comment (below), it refers to a banner I put on the header on the occasion of his 58th birthday.)