the joys and woes of childhood

back to the past again,which is a place i love going it is 1970 and i am about to start Woodside juniors in moorland road i was 7 years old and they gave you a choice it was either Oval road school or Woodside ,mummy choose woodside for us we kind of lived in the middle of the distance between both schools ,some kids in our road went to oval Pamela laws went there im glad i went to Woodside i continued to be best friends with Lisa and tracey although i hated my teacher of the first year miss prike a nasty bit of goods if ever there was one she virtually had nothing to do with me most of the time she was a cold sour puss at best of times and the worst was she ripped my work up in front of the whole class and shouted in my face even though i felt id done my best which was a shock to find out she thought it was rubbish.i still remember her .Mr Davis was the headmaster for years he was more of the old school type and every one had respect for him we also had a head mistress miss Barnett and although some people thought her wonderful to me she was like a looming monster that i just wanted to stay away from she pulled me by the hood of my coat once from the cloak room and bellowed at me still don't know what i did wrong i was just an innocent girl back then always did my work i remember working very hard on a tree project drawing and a bird project really studied my projects out got books from Ashburton library i used to copy out the pictures of birds and leafs for my tree project and to this day i still know all about trees and birds i just stuck with my 2 Friends at play times but my nasty teacher had moved me from my friends table to a table of 3 bitchy girls Caren dirken and the worst was Erika Foley and i don't remember the 3rd but they done there best to make my life a hell i told on them as even back then i always done my best to put my life right for myself anyhow i think i was in that class for 2 years and the only consolations was my projects my friends and the tuck shop at break which i loved the type of crisps they sold which were called chip straws i didn't stay for school dinner i went home dinners mummy always took me to school on the back of her bike which squeaked as she rode it i didn't like this but she insisted and you never questioned anything as her word was always law even though i used to die of embarrassment i was 7 and 8 and probably even 9 and still being rode to school i remember once mummy caught my foot in the wheel and even though i was shouting for her to stop she carried on riding and my foot was twisting round in the spokes .i was kind of relived when Laura started school as i was chucked out of the back seat and Laura was rode to school i was told run beside the bike but on the path so every day i was worn out running to school .i remember the first time i stayed to school dinners i didn't know how to use a knife and fork cause we always used our fingers at home no matter what messy dinner it was we was like cave girls or like king Henry the eighths banquet .mummy had saved up and bought some reproduction dark furniture for the living room which was copy's of antiques first the big sideboard with leaded cupboard windows then a long dark brown table with 4 chairs and then a smaller dark matching sideboard this i think was the last straw for my dad as i remember the scene he caused over that sideboard and they was having one of there rows that wernt serious but more funny than anything my mum would get the newspaper out roll it up and start hitting my dad with it i remember her saying how that's it she was sending all the furniture back now but they still have it today some 30 years later we had a big wheel back chair which was mainly daddy's chair as he nearly always sat there as close as he could get to the telly a few years later mummy bought a wheel back rocking chair and another dark wheel back chair by the window we had a long but quite narrow back garden me and Laura were often out there playing in the summer though i suffered terribly with allergies my eyes would be bloated red and sore sneezing beyond it back then there was nothing to help no medicines or tablets no eye drops like i have now it was just grin and bear it.i remember the soaking wet flannels i would hold to my eyes nothing helped i was allergic to grass in flower probably other things too as i really did suffer mummy had optrex eye lotion that was the only thing on the ,market back then and you would often see me with a big blue eye bath on my eye didn't seem to work mummy always took us kids out we went here there and everywhere when we was young we had a car through out our childhood daddy always drove weekends or school holidays we was always out visiting old castles wed been to scotney heaver ,Leeds,Knowles deer park,chart well,the home of Winston Churchill,Charles dickens house to name but a few we also went to the seaside places little Hampton ,camber sands winchelsea mum made our life great i think daddy used to get fed up with it all there was often rows on the way you know in there funny kind of way i was always car sick and Laura was a little too if i took egg sandwiches with me i was OK i would eat them when i started to feel sick Laura hated the smell of the egg sandwiches which actually made her feel sick daddy would never open the windows in case his hair got messed up or he was cold so we was often sick even though mummy was shouting to open the windows for fresh air then i would be sick all in the car and my dad would get the blame i remember once we went to a seaside and someone i think it was Laura decided to bring some seaweed home in the car it was a really hot day and in the heat of the sun the smell was brewing up in the back on the parcel shelf my stomach was churning over i dont know why to this day no one thought to chuck it out the window .nanny would often come to stay shed get the no 60 bus from north London which would take her to south norwood bus station then shed get a 12a or 197 to morland road near our house sometimes my dad would pick her up from south norwood but normally he was at work in the morning when she arrived nanny was a great gossip monger and as soon as she was in the door you'd be hearing about other peoples business in the family shed also be taking note of anything she could gossip about to others about us mummy didn't like this Fiona was my nans favorite who is my cousin she seemed to favour molly and Ronnie who was her son and there kids they lived in tottenham and when we saw them we never spoke there was always just a big silence we didn't know them and we was painfully shy anyway mummy used to say how nanny always bought the front row seats in a show for them and we always was right up in the circle so far back we couldn't see molly was posh though and i expect nanny felt she had to keep in her good books when molly was young she never wore a dress more than once she would just throw it away were we was more rough and ready nanny was disgraced that mummy was wearing a cardigan with a massive hole in the back and sleeves stretched longer than her arms were our dogs had played tug of war with them even though nanny had bought mummy this jumper and it was a lovely jumper when new it was brown and white big squares i see a photo of it new but it was a terrible wreck and mummy still used to wear it in the end nanny bought mummy a new one and this one went the same way.i remember once nanny and daddy were up in arms because mummy had rode her bike in her nightly dressing gown and slippers round to the phone box which was at least 3 roads away i always found these things funny and was proud of my mum for being herself and not caring what any one else thought.