Exotic and visionary biblical landscapes of mountains, a huge river, palm trees and bulrushes, and seas that fell back so that the People chosen by God to write the Bible could walk over on dry land, were different to the buildings and houses roundabout. Geography books described by simple word and picture such countries as Holland and Japan, Switzerland and India, pages turned with the firmest of infantile notions that as soon as I was able and old enough nothing would stop me going to such places. To the teacher I was no different from other smelly lumps of putty-flesh in the room, but though the diameter of my intake was little wider than a pinhole, what poured in was the purest gold.
Another moonlight flit landed me in a school opposite the church at Old Radford. The headmaster was a terror, and one day came into the class to find out how far we could count. A boy reached twenty, and a girl stumbled near to forty, but on asking me he had to call a halt when (thanks to my sister) I breached the hundred barrier, hardly knowing how close I was to my limit. He held up a penny for the achievement and, more amazed than pleased, my hand went out for the reward.
For some reason the Ancient Greeks featured prominently on the headmaster’s curriculum, and I relished accounts of the various bloody skirmishes at the Siege of Troy, as well as a coloured illustration of Hector and Achilles fighting outside the tall grim walls, their shields resembling giant carapaces. The ruse of the Wooden Horse was unsubtle enough to be understood and approved of, while the story of Alexander the Great was enjoyed because of the beauty of his horse’s name ‘Bucephalus’, repeated half a dozen times by the headmaster so that we would never forget it. At the same school we were taken by a woman teacher to a green dell by the church and taught to identify leaves and trees.
While about six, or maybe seven, my mother heard of a school for mentally backward children. A neighbour had described the healthiness of the regime, and the feeding that went on there, and by special pleading at the education office in town a place was found for me. The building backed on to a public park called the Arboretum, and I was provided with tokens each day for the two bus rides to get there.
On arrival we received a bowl of rich porridge, and halfway through the morning a beaker of hot milk, whose wholesome and steamy odour I still recall. After a midday meal, safari-like cots were brought out, and we were induced to sleep for an hour. Large spoonsful of cod liver oil were poured into reluctant gullets, and we had tea and sandwiches before going home. No lessons were given, and between bouts of sustenance we were allowed to run free about the playground. For a few months I turned myself into a train engine, puffing and shunting around imaginary marshalling yards, until it was realized I neither lacked intelligence nor was stunted in my growth. My mother was disappointed, but had done her best.
The infants’ and then the junior boys’ school in Radford on Forster Street turned out to be more permanent. It was a mischance indeed if anyone misbehaved under the guardian eye of Miss Chance because, though slight in build and with short fair hair (as I remember), she was a fierce hand with strap, stick, fist or even boot. We understood that her fiancé had been killed in the Great War, common with women teachers of those days. She once came to school with a pot of home-made jam, and gave it to a boy whose father was on the dole. On Armistice Day we were obliged to buy a penny poppy, and stand for two minutes’ silence at eleven o’clock.
Ada Chance taught me the importance of spelling. During the lesson she became the authoritarian little drill sergeant, her system rigid but effective. Beginning with the front of the class, of nearer forty than thirty children, we had to stand up in turn and spell a word which she called out.
‘Beautiful,’ she snapped at me.
‘Beautiful,’ I would repeat loudly. ‘Beautifuclass="underline" B — E — A — U — T — I — F — U — L, beautiful. Beautifuclass="underline" B — E — A — U — T — I — F — U — L Beautiful,’ and then sit down, giving place to the next boy. This went on for an hour every day or so, and by the end of the term, and from then on, I looked at any strange word until the correct spelling went into my brain, or I would reach for the dictionary under my desk if at all unsure.
Mr Smith, the peppery martinet of a headmaster, came into Miss Chance’s classroom to say he would shortly be sending the monitors around to collect money for the annual Christmas party. ‘Put your hands up,’ he said, ‘those who want a party for fourpence, a sum, I might say, which won’t provide anything very lavish.’
A few of us raised our hands. My father was on the dole, and it was doubtful that he would be able to part with even that sum.
‘Hands up,’ Smith went on, ‘those who think that sixpence would give a somewhat better style to the festivities.’ Most hands indicated agreement, though mine stayed down, as it did when he continued: ‘But eightpence would surely give us the best party of all,’ to which, after a while, everyone but me assented.
His eyes glittered with amusement. ‘Hands up, once more, those who can only pay fourpence?’
My single hand would have stayed raised for ever, because I was far more comfortable than I would have been after asking my father to give money which he would have felt tormented at not being able to provide. He and my mother were continually nagged by children who wanted, wanted and wanted but could not be given. What we yearned for was usually no more than what we needed, such as shoes or clothes, extra food or even, in our hopeful daydreams, sweets and toys but, except for a modest treat at Christmas, we couldn’t have those, either. A Christmas party at school was certainly not considered essential for our well-being and, aware of this to my backbone, it wasn’t difficult to hold out against the sarcastic blandishments of Mr Smith who, when he repeated the question, got the same answer.
After he had gone, Miss Chance called me to the front. ‘You did well,’ she said, turning to the rest of the class. ‘If you have something you believe in strongly enough, you must always stick to your guns.’ She gave me her personal prayer book as a memento, which was all she could find in her desk to spare. I lost it soon afterwards, but never discarded her advice, which was already as much in my blood as having been put there by circumstance.
Chapter Four
You moved under cover, tactically alert, because rival gangs might be roaming the fields between the railway and allotment gardens. A straggler was in danger, so you maintained all-round vision, noting the nearest escape route to lane or road. You were grown up, and it was serious, everyone an enemy until proved a friend. Unable to stop and find out, friends were few.
The first indication of peril was a stone colliding with your head, and I would go home with a blood-streaked face to terrify and anger my parents, till a wash under the tap showed only a graze. The game was to flee, and hide, and as often as possible make others do the same, to fight openly only when numbers were on your side. Cunning was the policy, and since this was my world I blended in well. You were a scout on the prowl (not a Boy Scout) going from A to B with a heavy stick in one hand and stones ready warmed in the other.
Sometimes, going through the door with more than a graze, my father would laugh as he dabbed at the blood and say there were worse things at sea, and that no matter how badly off you felt there was always somebody worse, which encouragement to stoicism fitted with the general conditions of life.
We lived on a street with houses behind and fields in front. In the alleys of the urban zone I would lose any pursuer. Fields and woods across the stream formed equally versatile territory, where the art of concealment became a habit, and camouflage was a current word: ‘Get out to that ’edge near the ’lotments, and I’ll stay ’ere on the railway. You’ve got to come to me across the field, and if I see you you’ll get a brick at your ’ead.’ Frank Blower, a few years older, devised tactical games and, holding a dustbin lid and a spear-headed railing high, looked to us like Goliath, with never a David and a bag of pebbles to slay him. We would have made good soldiers in an old-fashioned colonial war, rather than fodder for the trenches.