I was at grammar school (in England) 1962-1968. To get there you had to pass your 11 plus exam at junior school. They say this was a terrible ordeal for an 11 year old but I don't remember it bothering me. Come to that the 11 plus is one of the few 'events' in my life that I have no memory of at all. What I do remember is the results arrivingin the post addressed to my parents. I had got an 'interview'. That meant you didn't get a good enough mark to pass straight through but you MIGHT be good enough if they saw you. And so on the appointed day I turned up with lots of other kids to be interviewed at the grammar school we would go to if successful. We had to sit at the desks in a classroom. Old fashioned desks they were, single ones with a sloping lid and an inkwell at the top right hand corner next to a shallow channel where your pen would rest.
Ooh the smell of that classroom. I can smell it now, a mix of blackboard chalk, old wood, dust and chewing gum. I sneaked a look underthe lid of the desk, which was heavily pitted with carved-in names of the "Frid loves Mary" kind, not to mention some very artistic and colourful - and rude - ink blots. Tacked underneath the lid was someone's timetable. Biology, physics, chemistry - I can remember even now how I felt reading those words. I'd heard of them but didn't know what they were. Science I supposed as they were "ologies". Gosh I was impressed. English, French, Russian - Russian? Would I have to learn that? English literature. I so wanted to go to that school. It was probably a good thing they sat us in that room where us nosey 11-year-olds got a sniff of life in Big School because quite honestly I don't think many of us really knew quite why we were there. We were told to go so we went!
I must have come over as an enthusiastic little soul because I got in and a few weeks later my parents got a big fat envelope in the post listing all the clothes and equipment I had to have before term started in September. It was all very specific, even down to the shops (only two I think) who were official stockists. Brown school knickers, divided skirts (for playing hockey in), school socks, regulation Gabardine coat with hood, brown leather shoes, Juliet cap. The list went on for pages and pages. When I think back it must have been scary for my parents because all those things must have cost a fortune and they never had any money. A year later my brother went there too and my sister 2 years after that so it must have been a real struggle for them.
And there was no compromise: it was a brown pleated skirt or a gymslip (sorry America, I can't explain that one. Suffice to say they were itchy, hot, ugly and you looked like a sack of potatoes wearing one!). You couldn't wear a straight or A-line skirt. There were certainly no pants, not under any circumstances. In the freezing cold of winter you had to wear your school coat, school skirt, school socks and shoes, school scarf and you would arrive at school with your poor legs all red and chapped. And THEN if it wasn't actually raining or snowing, you had to wait outside until summoned in by the bell. You couldn't even wear tights until the third year (you would then be 13 or 14) and then only thick woolen fawn ones. The poor boys had to wear short grey trousers until the third year, when they were allowed long trousers so their legs got chapped even worse than ours.
After Easter (and not a minute before) you had to wear your summer uniform. Instead of skirt, blouse and tie you wore a cotton dress with very narrow yellow and white stripes. These were not available to buy in the shop, not even the authorised stockist. You took a pattern home and your mum was expected to make it. As luck would have it my mum was quite handy with the sewing machine but I can't think how the daughters of non-sewers got their frocks made.
To think, I wanted to go to that school. The alternative was "Pram Pushers". At our tender age we didn't quite know why they called it that but we were soon enlightened! It was a Girls' secondary modern school and "you don't want to be mixing with their sort" - and that came from our teachers!! I thank God I never became a snob. Many did.
Having said all that, I was still sorry to see Grammar Schools go when they were done away with. I may never have understood anything about physics or geometry but at least I knew what they were. 'General Science' is what they have now and 'general knowledge' seems to have died out altogether. Maths may have been like the dark side of the moon to me but I can add and subtract without a calculator and I know my times tables.
I know The Lord's Prayer too. They don't even learn that any more.
xxxx
