January 1968

In the news…

The ‘I’m backing Britain campaign’ was launched, an initiative meant to increase productivity and get Britain back on its feet. The slogan was seen and heard everywhere; shops; telly; mini skirts; carrier bags; badges: Everywhere.

Big news at school… 

Headmaster Mister Mcvie had been awarded the OBE in the New Year Honour’s list. Everyone gave him a round of applause when it was announced in assembly.

Wow! What’s an OBE?

Something caught my eye on the notice board. A trip to Twickenham for a schoolboy international had some appeal and I put my name forward, but something was missing. The thrill I experienced when signing up for the Wembley trip the previous year just wasn’t there.

‘Janvier, mille neuf cents soixante-huit,’ said Miss Lake, in our first French lesson of the year. 

There were some new faces in the 2A1classroom – a couple of familiar ones who’d moved up from 2A2 and a new boy called Clive Perry. A smart kid with a short back and sides, Clive had been sitting quietly, as new kids do in new surroundings, when Miss Lake asked him a question.

‘Yes Ma’am,’ he replied.

Responses to further questions came back as ‘yes Ma’am’ or ‘no Ma’am,’ attracting bemused looks from everyone. Even Miss Lake looked taken aback. What a strange kid, I thought.

January 27^th: Manchester United drew 2-2 with Spurs in the FA cup, with the replay scheduled to take place at White Hart Lane four days later. Before then I reached one of life’s great milestones, only my thirteenth birthday wasn’t a day for celebration. It was a day for keeping my eyes open and looking anxiously over my shoulder. I survived the morning and got through dinner time, but my luck ran out in the craft block that afternoon, when the boys of 2A1 and 2A2 ambushed me. Three to a limb they gave me the bumps, hurling me up and down under the skylight. If having my arms nearly wrenched from their sockets wasn’t bad enough, some rotten sod (Parker!) decided to haul me up by the fruit and veg. I was not happy. Nor was I happy two days later when I tuned in for second half commentary of the cup replay. Spurs beat United 1-0.

In 1968 school metalwork classes were still making a significant contribution to the nation’s wealth of ashtrays, toasting forks and pokers.

A lot of lads made toasting forks. After heating the middle of a brass rod, they clamped it in a vice and turned it a few times to put some fancy twists in it. All right for some, perhaps, but a toasting fork wasn’t for me. Not when I could make one of these…

…a sword poker with a hand guard like a cutlass. Much better than poofy toasting fork, I thought. Very satisfying it was too, to brandish the finished article, even though the wooden handle spun freely on the steel rod.

Woodwork had its dangers, but Metalwork was by far the most hazardous lesson on the timetable. All the heating was done in a purpose built bay, facing a breeze block wall. Turning a little lever on a gas fuelled gun transformed a dancing flame into a blow torch. When the metal was red hot it was carried with a pair of tongs to a vice or cooling tank. As the procedure required great concentration, I was oblivious to anything else on the day I stooped to lower my red hot poker in the cooling tank.

‘Argh!’

I let out a yell when I felt a sudden, searing pain in the undercarriage. I spun around as I leapt in the air, and saw Brian Lack grinning all over his face. In his hand was a glowing poker. For a moment I was in shock, unable to believe what he’d done, until the urgency of the situation sent me fleeing to the toilets to inspect the damage.

I feared the worst as I dropped my pants. The tip of the poker had burnt a half inch diameter hole through my trousers. My underpants had suffered similarly. As for physical damage, I had a lovely blister right in the middle of no-mans land.

Brian must have caught me with the deftest of flicks. Damaging as it was, it could have been much much worse. To add insult to injury I got a bollocking from an unsympathetic Mister Twyman on my return to the classroom, as Brian had got in first with a cock and bull tale that somehow dumped the blame on me, the rotten sod.

 

Elsewhere in the school our girls were doing Needlecraft and daydreaming about The Monkees. Yes, Monkee-mania had hit the 2A1 classroom.