Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad

by Phinn, Gervase

  It was a nostalgic journey when I returned to Blackpool after half a century. I was there with my one-man show and performed on the same stage as my heroes of comedy. On the promenade the smell of donkey manure, candyfloss and seaweed had remained and took me back to my youth. I sat for a moment on a bench and recalled a little boy dressed in khaki shorts, white cotton cap and sandals, wearing cheap plastic sunglasses and with his Brownie box camera around his neck on a string, walking hand-in-hand with his father. Before leaving I bought myself a set of false teeth made out of pink and white rock with sugar pink gums.

  32

  At the end of my junior school career, all the children in the fourth year at Broom Valley Juniors sat the Eleven Plus. This examination, born out of the Butler Education Act of 1944, determined whether children would continue their education at the academically selective grammar and high schools, or, in the case of failure, at the technical or secondary modern schools. The whole structure of the Eleven Plus was based on the spurious premise that academic ability was based on a normal curve of distribution, that there are a few people at the top (the bright), a few at the bottom (the least able) and the vast majority in the middle (the average). The problem was that nobody had ever proved that academic ability was distributed in this way. Further problems levelled by the examination's critics were the relatively crude nature of the tests and the inherent unfairness. Which school a child went to in the 1950s depended not merely on academic ability or the performance in the examination, but on whereabouts in the country he or she lived. Nationally less than 20 per cent of the children sitting the Eleven Plus went on to grammar schools, but it could be as high as 40 per cent (as in Westmorland) and as low as 10 per cent (as in Sunderland).

  Most of those in the fourth year at Broom Valley Juniors were resigned to the fact that they would not pass, but I, ever the optimist, thought I was in with a good chance. On the positive side I knew I was good at reading and writing and could cope easily with the questions about language. I could commit information to memory and my general knowledge wasn't too bad. I had a quick wit, a wry sense of humour and had the ability to tell a story. On the negative side I was not good at thinking on my feet, and arithmetic and problem-solving, major parts of the assessment, were not my strong points.

  On the big day the forty-three top juniors of my class trooped silently into the hall as if we were to face an execution squad. We were all equipped with two sharp HB pencils, a clean eraser and a ruler. The desks had been moved out of our classrooms and arranged in serried rows facing the stage. The headmaster, Mr Morgan, clutching a thick wad of papers, explained how important the examination was, how we had to try our best and check through our paper carefully when we had finished. No one would be allowed to leave the hall until the end of the ninety minutes. He told us that there would be no talking, no sniffing and coughing, no getting out of our seats, no going to the toilet and anyone discovered copying would be in serious trouble. Those who had not done as we were told and brought a clean handkerchief were issued with paper tissues.

  I had never seen an Eleven Plus paper before. I knew that some in my class had been practising on old papers in preparation for the test and that Harper's Bookshop in Rotherham sold such papers, but I was unfamiliar with the format when presented with the booklet. My parents were not into the business of cramming and practice papers, private tutors or any kind of hot-housing and there was no stress in the house in the build-up to the examination.

  When I worked for Rotherham Education Authority I managed to acquire a copy of the paper I sat at the age of eleven. There were five sections: arithmetic, general English, comprehension, general knowledge and composition. In the general English section children had to identify parts of speech, punctuate, insert inverted commas, form plurals, change tense, provide synonyms and antonyms and answer a further range of other grammar and punctuation exercises. One wonders how youngsters today would cope with some of the questions in the composition section:

  Write a short account on any four of the following: Everest, Westminster Abbey, The Gothic, William Shakespeare, Queen Salote, The Maoris.

  Write an imaginary talk between an eagle and an owl.

  Write a story ending with the words: '... and that is why the old sailor was allowed to keep his parrot.'

  The adventures of a library book.

  I imagine that I, like many, floundered in the arithmetic part of the test with questions like this:

  A colony contains 30,000 people, made up of English, Dutch and natives, in equal numbers. Each year the English lose one tenth of their numbers and the natives add one tenth to their numbers. The Dutch remain unchanged. What will be the population of the colony at the end of two years?

  It is interesting to note that the person who set the paper needed a few lessons in English grammar himself:

  My best friend is tall and dark. I am nine and he is ten. Read the following sentences and write down my best friend's name.

  Harry is younger than me. He is short and dark. Dick is ten.

  He is a tall boy with fair hair. Tom has dark hair. He is older than me and is a tall boy. Frank is a tall boy with dark hair. He is nine.

  I recall filling in the front page of the paper incorrectly and having to madly rub out my mistakes. Mr Morgan eyed me, shook his head, but said nothing. The test (apart from the arithmetic) was not too onerous and I went home reasonably confident that I would be among those wearing the grammar school blazer with its fancy badge with the Archbishop's mitre on it.

  Towards the end of the term brown envelopes popped through letterboxes all over the country to tell parents if their son or daughter had been successful or not in passing the Eleven Plus. The night before the announcement of the results I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed, my body twitching and turning, measuring the passage of time by the alarm clock on the bedside table. A mood of doubt settled upon me and was made more intense by the silence. I was down for breakfast early that Saturday morning but couldn't eat a thing. I stood by the window in the front room waiting for the postman. When I saw him trundling up the hill, I ran to the end of the drive and waited at the gate to collect the envelope.

  I recall my mother wiping her hands on the towel in the kitchen, taking the brown envelope into the living room, opening it and reading the contents slowly. 'I'm sorry, love,' she said, 'you didn't get through.'

  Mum and Dad were very philosophical about it, and certainly didn't appear to show any great disappointment at my failure or start with recriminations. Having spent a lifetime in education I have met parents fixated on the educational performance of their children and who pressure them to achieve. Undue pressure, in my experience, very often stifles a child's creativity and undermines his or her confidence, and constant criticism and stress can develop into depression. As I write, there appears in the paper the story of a promising student who took his own life after gaining poor results in his A levels. It is a tragic case of a young man who felt he was a failure and a disappointment to his parents.

  My father's attitude was that the test was but a piece of paper and I should put it behind me. But I felt my lack of success deeply.

  Unlike some other parents on our street, my mother and father had not promised their child anything if he passed. They merely told me to try my best - I could do no other. Some of my friends had been promised a bicycle if they passed, as if this would be a real incentive for them to work that bit harder - something to aim for. I wondered how they felt on failing and not getting the desired reward.

  As I clutched the letter and started crying, my parents explained that all my friends in the street would be going to the secondary modern and that I could do as well there if I worked hard, but their words didn't soften the blow. I felt a failure and I felt indignant and angry too. I had so wanted to go to the grammar school, to walk proudly up Moorgate to the great castle-like edifice with the towers and turrets, attired in my black blazer, grey flannels and cap with the golden badge. At the time I express
ed my annoyance and perceived unfairness by complaining and grumbling, until my parents told me to put it behind me and get on with things. It had happened and that was that. It was sensible advice.

  I recall my sister, Christine, being particularly supportive of me at this time. She put her arm around me and comforted me, telling me it was not the end of the world. But it seemed so for me. Christine had passed her Eleven Plus with flying colours. She was bright and successful, loved school, was popular with her peers and was Deputy Head Girl at Notre Dame. Everyone was sure she would do well in life.

  I learnt a great deal about Notre Dame, for Christine would tell things about the school to my parents over tea. I knew all about how relentlessly competitive and selective the convent high school was, how the girls were streamed into 'A' and 'B' classes, that they studied Latin, Spanish, geology, scripture and all these other strange and exotic-sounding subjects. There was also something called 'deportment', in which they were taught manners and etiquette and 'morals and ethics', the main content of which seemed to be to warn the girls against the dangers of predatory boys. At college I courted a convent girl who informed me that the advice from one nun was: 'Never sit on a boy's knee, girls, unless you have a telephone directory or some other thick book between you both.' I wonder how many convent girls took such a tome to the dance at the village hall. Another story, perhaps another urban myth, was that the convent girls were not allowed to wear patent leather shoes for the Christmas party in case they reflected their knickers.

  I had witnessed how each afternoon Christine would go into the front room after tea and spend most of the evening completing her homework. I looked forward to joining her. My brothers, Michael and Alec, although clever and successful enough at school, were not as industrious as my sister and polished off their homework in record time.

  Christine liked to tell me about Notre Dame. I knew about the long dark corridors at her school down which the nuns glided slowly and silently, the no-talking rule when in school, the many rules to be obeyed, the constant merits and detentions and finally the ultimate terror - to receive a severe talking-to from the headmistress, the formidable Sister Monica. Physical chastisement was unnecessary; one look from Sister Monica was all that was needed.

  My sister had to wear a smart and stylish uniform, only available from the authorized school outfitter: crisp white blouse, green pleated skirt, white ankle socks, a boater in summer and a green beret in winter and the regulation small white gloves. Full uniform had to be worn at all times to and from school and girls caught without it would be in trouble. Each morning the girls would be inspected on their arrival at the school, and should a skirt not be the regulation length or the beret not on straight, the offender would get a demerit. The rules at the school were remorseless.

  Young as I was, I knew there was a certain social cachet attached to the grammar school uniform. The caps and blazers showed the difference between success and failure. It was visible to all. People regarded these young women off to the convent high school on the bus to Sheffield, or boys on their way to the boys' grammar school, or the Rotherham high school girls walking through the town centre, rather differently from other students. Their uniforms, visible to all, showed which school they attended. They looked a cut above and sometimes acted so.

  I imagined that I too would go to such a school as Notre Dame, so strikingly different from the Juniors, where everything was exact and ordered, so my disappointment was great when I discovered I would be attending the ugly red brick building near the town centre which I had passed many times. It was like a featureless factory, high and square, with its row of uniform windows.

  In Rotherham, with its large population of 'baby-boomers', the number of children going on to the one boys' grammar and one girls' high school was relatively low. Those who are great champions of the selection of children at the age of eleven perhaps do not really appreciate that the secondary modern school never came close to achieving the parity of esteem with the grammar in any way. In many secondary modern schools the expectation of the students was low. I have met so many 'Eleven Plus failures' who believed themselves, on the strength of a test taken when they were eleven, to be on the educational scrapheap destined for the menial jobs in society, or at best going into apprenticeships. Certainly higher education was not considered an option for them.

  The curriculum at the secondary modern was significantly different from that in the grammar schools. It was unashamedly non-academic. Of course there were exceptions, but in general there would be no academic rigour, the emphasis being on practical subjects like cookery, housecraft, metalwork, woodwork, rural studies and technical drawing. No modern language was on offer, and the students would not sit the school certificate at the end of their school careers and would leave for work at the age of fifteen.

  Secondary moderns had few of the facilities of the grammar schools. I used to walk up Moorgate to Boston Park, past Rotherham Grammar School, and marvel at the great ornate gothic-style building set in well-tended lawns, with its great curving drive leading to the impressive entrance. The cricket square was as smooth and green as a billiard table, the rugby and football pitches were free of mud patches and skid marks, the touchlines freshly marked, clean and straight. It looked to me like a stately home. How different it was from the school I would attend.

  Looking back, I don't harbour any bitterness or indignation over failing the Eleven Plus. I don't wear my lack of success at eleven on my sleeve like some people I have met, who feel angry to have been labelled less able at such a young age. The fact is that at that time, under those circumstances, there were children who were cleverer and who performed better in the test than I. That is a fact of life. I was a perfectly average boy in possession of a perfectly average intelligence. Having brooded for a week after the results, moping about the house and looking miserable, I was taken aside by my father, who told me to put it behind me and get on with my life. He knew I was bright enough and had the potential to do well at the secondary modern and I should show everyone I could succeed. And so I learnt early on that failure is a part of growing up, and if, as I was encouraged to by my parents, a person has a healthy attitude towards failure and uncertainty, he or she can create, innovate and strive to achieve.

  33

  Thinking over what gave me the most pleasure in my childhood, I should place first and foremost reading. My mother, a natural storyteller, taught me the nursery rhymes and read to me from picture books. I knew all the old favourites - Chicken Licken, The Gingerbread Man, The Giant Turnip, Rumplestiltskin, The Magic Porridge Pot - and many more before I started school. Most evenings, before I went to bed, she would read aloud with me snuggled up next to her. I loved listening to the story, following the words on the page as she read and feeling that special physical closeness. Sometimes she would change a word, take a bit out or add something, and I could tell and told her so. I might not be able to read those black marks on the page but I knew the stories so well. Later, when the story was told and the light turned off, I would close my eyes and dream of a world peopled with the magical characters I had encountered in the book.

  One of my very first memories was hearing one of Enid Blyton's Bedtime Stories from the Bible. I can still picture this large red book with shiny pages and garish illustrations, and clearly recall the images of a gentle-faced Jesus with his carefully trimmed beard, snow white cloak and sandals, telling his stories to a group of avid listeners crowded around him. Then came the Noddy books. Even now, sixty or so years later, I still have my collection of Enid Blyton's stories on my bookshelf. I recall the very first Noddy book I read myself - Hurrah for Little Noddy, the second volume in the twenty-four-book canon. It was a crime story for little ones, in which innocent little Noddy discovers a car heist at Mr Golly's garage and sets off in hot pursuit of the thieves, only to end up in a head-on collision with a tree. Poor Noddy is blamed for the theft and P.C. Plod takes him to gaol. Predictably it all ends happily, with Noddy vindicated and
the villains locked up. There has been much criticism of Enid Blyton, and many educationalists believe children deserve better reading material, but for me, as for many children, her stories had the power to keep me captivated throughout. Everything was there - characters, suspense, pace and action.

  The Noddy books led inexorably on to my reading of Enid Blyton's other adventures, and I rattled through them at great speed and was quite happy to suspend my disbelief. Of course, the children in the Secret Seven and the Famous Five series were a world away from my own life. For a start they talked differently. You would never catch George and her friends dropping their aitches or speaking in anything other than sentences. They lived in the middle of the country in rambling old houses and thatched cottages, with babbling streams at the bottom of the garden and long lawns and perfectly tended flowerbeds. Their parents were happy, smiling, easy-going folk who never shouted or told them to finish their homework or do any chores. The children had spiffing adventures, discovered treasure, foiled villains and saved lives and then ran home for their lunch. They always seemed to be tucking in.

  They were all very hungry at lunchtime. They went back up the cliff path hoping there would be lots to eat - and there was! Cold meat and salad, plum pie and custard, and cheese afterwards. How the children tucked in!

  'What are you going to do this afternoon?' asked George's mother.

  'George is taking us out in a boat to see the wreck on the other side of the island,' said Anne.

  - Enid Blyton, Five on a Treasure Island (1942)