When I was at primary school in the 1960's, the classes were divided up into what we called "streams". Due to the vast amount of children born in the 1950's and 1960's, we had three very large streams for each year. The top ability children were placed in stream A, the medium ability into stream B and the low ability into stream C.
I was in the A stream class, which had a total of 40 children, 26 of which were boys and 14 of which were girls. From this, you might assume the following:
- many more boys than girls were born in our birth year
- the boys were cleverer than the girls
- ability was measured in a different way back then.
The 14 girls split themselves up into two subgroups. One group consisted of 8 girls and was run by a toughie called Angela. The rest of us called it the Angela Group. There were 6 of us left over so we hung around in a group together to try to give ourselves protection from the Angela Group.
Probably the Angela Group was full of nice, pleasant, gentle, kind, friendly people but once they got together mob mentality took over. En masse, the Angela Group was a ruthless, bullying bunch who took every opportunity to show us weaklings who was boss.
One of their favorite games was to jump on us 6 in the playground, pin us down on a bench and sit on top of us so we couldn't move. There were more of them so this was easier, but it was also like a herd of tigers pouncing on some dreamily grazing sheep, if that could possibly happen. Once the Angela Group had sat on top of us they proceeded to tear our fingernails off.
Yes you read correctly! Second-in-command of the Angela Group was Jennifer Good, who was anything but good. I was her favorite target and I can remember the first day she sat on me and grabbed my hand. One by one, she tore off my fingernails and although I shouted and screamed the teacher on duty was very far away and nobody came.
After that I started to bite my fingernails, partially to try and straighten out the mess but also to give Jennifer Good less to tear off in future. I can remember that my Dad was very upset at the state of my hands and asked me sadly why I had started to bite my nails but I didn't tell him. The 1960's was like that.
It was a dangerous time for us small kids, but mostly because of the other small kids.
My mother worked and when I finished school I had to sit in the public library and wait for her to come and pick me up. She didn't trust me with a key and she was probably correct. So from the age of about 7, when she started to go out to work, I would spend my evenings sitting quietly next to a radiator (summer and winter I expect) in a corner of the children's section of the public library, reading one book after the next.
One evening, Jennifer Good walked in. I don't know what she was doing in the library, she must have been forced to go there by her mother ("Go and read a book!") or possibly she was bored with everything else, anyway she walked in and I nearly peed my pants.
She broke into a large grin when she saw me ("Ah, prey!") and made a beeline over to my radiator.
"What you doing?" she asked.
"Waiting for my mum," I replied.
"Well, I've got a good idea", Jennifer said. "Watch me". And with that she proceeded to demonstrate her good idea, which consisted of taking off her shoes and running up and down the parquet flooring of the library, from one wall-to-wall bookshelf end to the other wall-to-wall bookshelf end, sliding on her socks the last couple of meters before the shelf, and then slamming all the books she could to the back of the shelf. Then back, and the third time from a slightly different starting point to slam in new books.
"Come on", Jennifer commanded. "Now you".
Well I can tell you that I didn't hang around thinking about it or discussing it as I didn't want my toenails or hair ripped out. I simply followed orders. And for the approximately 90 seconds that I joined in, it was actually quite fun.
After about 90 seconds as mentioned, the doors of the children's library burst open and Mr. Johnson the Head Librarian and Mrs. Grimaldi the Assistant Librarian strode in and very deftly and wordlessly picked me and Jennifer Good up by the shirt collars and transported us to the front of the library, from whence they threw us out, followed by my school satchel and words similar to "Never darken our doors again!".
Jennifer Good had disappeared by the time I picked up my bag and gazed around bewilderedly. Well she had never darkened the door before and she was definitely not interested in darkening it again anyway!
But now where was I going to go and wait for my mum after school? And what was my mum going to do? She couldn't afford a babysitter.
My mum turned up about an hour later and she was shocked to find me sitting on a bench outside the library. I can remember even now how terribly worried she was and how she had to sit down and think of a plan. Finally, she took me back inside the library and asked Mr Johnson very politely if she could speak with him.
Mr Johnson didn't want to speak to my mum and I can still remember his red face turning even redder and looking as if he were about to explode. I think my mum must have explained her situation in a very, very sad way and truly begged Mr Johnson to let me back into the library, because he did. I went and sat in that library every evening until I was 12 years old, although in later years I did my homework there with other girls who also had to wait for their mums.
I don't know what happened to Jennifer Good. She went to a different secondary school and I didn't see her again after I was 11 years old, which was a Good Thing.
(All names changed).
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