I remember the day that I started going to school, Heyworth County Primary. Going up Heyworth Street in my grey shorts and new brown sandals, holding my gran,s hand. I wasn,t scared like some of the other new starters who were crying and having their tears wiped away by concerned mums. I was looking forward to playing and mixing with new friends. I went into the little hallway which served as an assembly point in the mornings, sitting cross legged listening to Mrs. Fisher, who I first thought was one of the girl,s teachers. We never saw the girls at all during our time at the school as they were segregated from us before, during and after, school.



My teacher at the infants was a Miss Wakeman who I liked. We played with plasticene and sand and had rides on our class rocking horse. In the next class a year later, I remember making a paper mache model of a road system with zebra crossings, lamposts and pavements, and little cars were placed on the roadway, and I played with them all morning. I had my first accident in this class running around in the playground I fell over and broke a bone in my little finger of my left hand. I wore a sling for two weeks after.

The next year I was in Mrs. Fisher,s class. I don,t remember much about her other than she was a bit sharp and we were all wary of her. Then there was Mr. Narva and Mr. Drew who was a bit of a stern bugger who loved using the cane. Then there was Miss Lovat who was a well rounded lady who just loved pulling up one of your trouser legs and slapping you hard on the fleshy thigh. She was well worth avoiding when you did something wrong. And finally came Mr. Jones who was a bit of a dodderer but could get right bad tempered and turn quit nasty. Mr. Masheter was our headmaster at the school and not having had him for any lessons, didn,t know what he was like.

There was a play centre at this school for two hours every night with about four or five teachers on duty overseeing us kids playing games of draughts, chess, snakes and ladders, art, games in the hall underneath the school next to the swimming pool which also was used once or twice a week. These teachers must have been very patient and long suffering to work such hours each week. It was in the pool one time when I thought I,d override my fear of water, and try introducing myself to it. I was walking about dithering and splashing a bit try to get used to the gasping feeling of the water getting higher and higher as I gingerly sidled about, when all of a sudden I was pulled under the water and gasped and splashed about in desperate fear, coming up I started moaning and groaning and made my way to the nearest bar round the pool, which happened to be at the deep end, and franticly hauled myself out, much to the amusement of the other kids. I was told to go and get dressed, and not in a sympathetic tone either. I put my glasses on to see who had done such a callous prank on me, and there laughing his blonde haired fat face at me was that little monster from up the entry in our street, Steven, who years before had whacked me with a muddy rope while I was in my go chair. I wanted far away from him as possible so got dressed and ran home.

Two "accidents" in my trousers I remember while at Heyworth Street School. I was so in pain one day that I put my hand up and asked the teacher if I could go to the toilet and the pain in my face must have been evident as she ushered me on my way with waves of her hand. Running across the yard in the playground where the toilets were I cried and made a mess of myself. So instead of going I ran all the way home and cried in fear and embarassment to my nan. This happened in the first two years in the infant section of my education, while the next "accident" was when I was ten in the juniors. It was Miss. "slappy Lovat,s class. I put up my hand to ask permission to go and she ignored me as she was in full stream of a story about something or other which to her was more important than my tummy pains. I started sqirming and uttering quite noises but she refused say something like that there was only twenty minutes left to go in the lesson, I could surly hang on till then. I hung on as long as I could and then...gush...At the end of the lesson I darted out of the room as fast as I could go and left Miss. Lovat the consequences of her refusal. Nothing was ever said about this incident.

Some of the lads in my class in the junior school were Alan Roberts, Alan Rose, John Beesley, Chris Felton, who I believe last time I heard worked in a solicitor,s office; Norman Holmes?, Dennis Higham and Roy Williams. I have since had a photograph sent to me of a class picture with some of these lads on. Some went onto the senior school with me while the rest went to other various schools in the vicinity. I took two eleven plus exams in two different regions because I had a spell in another school in Huyton when the social services got "the family" together for the first time. More about that later when the social services let me in on my early life that involved them.
The eleven plus exam was a test to see had you any chance of being brainy and could go to college or a better educational unit. Good God if I had have been brainy enough to go to college, my guardian, my nan, would have had a screaming blue fit because she wouldn,t have been able to buy me a uniform or any of the trimmings that would have been needed in a better school than the secondary modern that I was destined to go. Apart from the usual uniform, there would have been sports clothes, shirt, shorts and shoes and stockings each year. Also football or rugby gear as well as a good satchel or schoolbag instead of the dufflebag that I took to Prince Rupert with me.

When I was ten I joined the St Benedict Church Choir, not that I felt religious or anything, but it did pay 7/6d about 41p) a month, which was a cool profit for singing like a scalded cat at someones wedding. Needless to say that I only lasted a month, got my 7/6d and left before they found out where the scalded cat was located.

I borrowed Brian Bennett,s bike one night after school rode up our street across the main road into Kepler Street and down over the hump in the road going full throttle at six miles an hour when I found that there was no brakes. I crashed at the bottom of the hill into the raillings next to the Police Station where I was hauled in and had a dressing put on two cuts. One on my split forehead and the other on my right leg. I was whizzed by ambulance with flashing light to the children,s hospital in Myrtle Street where I was more concerned with the little sore on my leg that the dirty big gash that was being stitched on my forehead. I lay there till my Auntie Kitty came to pick me up and take me home. Her being the only one available with any money to get the bus and bring me back on the bus.
I went into assembly late next morning, the day after my accident. Limping down the back steps as the kids were singing a hymn. They all turned to look at me on entering with a bandage round my head and another round my leg. I was the talk of the class all that morning untill they found out how I did it.

Although I was not allowed to leave the street I usually ended up in one of the parks or playground areas within a mile or two of our street. The nearest one was Rupert Lane swing park, which meant crossing Heyworth Main Road which was something really taboo for me. The park in the summer had a punch and judy show in a railled off enclosure which you had to pay 1d (1/2p today) None of us could afford this payment so we stayed outside the raillings and saw and heard it all for nothing. There was also a park attendant here whose job it was to keep the park clean and tidy, and to chase people off the grass. There were signs in all the parks before the 70s to "keep off the grass) We called these attendants "cocky watchmen" after the men who used to look after building sites after the war. The were to make sure nobody pinched the materials and keep playing kids away from the dangerous grounds. Each night they would be found around a roaring fire to keep warm during the colder nights.
When we were in the swing park and swinging high or up the ladder on the slide, we could see into the top storey of the police station of Everton Terrace. We used to pull faces at the policemen working there. The windows looked as bad as my nan,s back ones, could have done with a good clean.

While I was going to Heyworth Street School I remember the death,,already mentioned in my story, of my grandad. He used to come to the house now and again all dirty and whiskers as if he needed a shave. He wore a long dark overcoat that reeked of ciggarette smoke. I,m not sure why he didn,t live at home in the house I was being brought up in as he used to. I think it had something to do with the fact that I saw him kicking my gran and making her legs bleed once. She used to cry in bed of a night when I was sleeping with her. I did too because she was. I remember, Charlie smoked rolled up ciggies and I watched him making them from old stumps he found in the street. Although grandad was absent from the house, when he took ill once, grandma would go to the hospital in the freezing cold and snow blizzards, when she could get the fare to go from somebody. More often than not I would go too as there wasn,t anybody to look after me. It was a long way to Fazackely Hospital and two buses. I wasn,t allowed in the wards in those days being a child. I would sit in a room and read a magazine, well look at the pictures. One night nan came back crying after being away a long time. I asked her what was the matter as I was always upset when grandma cried, I felt afraid and insecure in case I was to go away to someone else to live. "Grandad,s dead." she replied weeping into the grubby piece of rag that once lay on our bed keeping us both warm. On the way home, red eyed, she couldn,t contain herself and must have been thinking of the days together when gran and grandad were happy together. I asked her later how grandad had died and she was quite graphic about it. "He bled from his eyes, his mouth, his ears and his nose, of cancer," she squarked. I was frightened and stayed quiet, thinking my own thoughts, the rest of the way home.