Childhood

Many of us have fond memories of our childhood and school days, and in this post the Glenmoor residents look back at some of theirs, reminiscing about friends, games and chocolate...

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At the beginning of the war I was in Walthamstow. The school was only there in the afternoon because we shared the school premises, and every other Saturday. We had two evacuees in our house. Peter Watts, and someone Noble. After the war we had a reunion, in Wood Green in North London. Then we met at Aunt Elsie’s funeral in London. We stayed in touch.

-ALAN

I had the cane for dictation. I always failed.

-KITTY

I got the strap at school for talking going up the stairs. I left school at 15 and went to work in a dry cleaner’s, cleaning overalls. Then I left to work for the admiralty, and later at the munitions sorting out guns.

-HILDA

I had a friend whatever school I went to. We read books under the trees. They were lovely summers. Then when the sirens went off we ran towards the shelters, and all fell over each other. We played old fashioned games, skipping ropes and things. It was a little school but my God they taught you. I left at 14 and stayed at home till I was 18. I loved school. I moaned about leaving, why couldn’t I stay? My brother stayed on but he didn’t like school. He took days off. He’d rather be off driving somebody’s tractor. When the officer checked the registrar he couldn’t answer where he’d been.

I remember the time when me and my friend Christine got an old fashioned wheelchair, a basket chair with one handle, and we went down the hill, next to the church, between two fields with sheep in. We had hilarious fun with that old chair. Christine was in it, she was as light as a feather, and I was pushing it down the hill, going faster and faster, and she was laughing so much she fell out and wet herself! I laughed all the way home but she was cursing me!

Then there was a young chap who was staying at the farm, learning about the dairy. He got a pain in his stomach, appendicitis, poor Ted. He was only eighteen but he looked like a man to me, at that time.

“I’ve got a box of chocolates I’ve finished,” he said. He was getting his pyjamas ready for the ambulance and he was going to throw the empty box on the woodpile, but he thought I might like it. “It’s ever such a pretty box. Do you want it?” Me being a little girl, I loved ribbons and bows so I took it. When I opened it to take the paper out I found there was still a layer of chocolates underneath. I was astonished. I shouted up to his window and told him. “Bring it back then,” he said, but I never did. I ate them myself. He went off to the hospital anyway.

The first bag of crisps I ever had, I remember that. The salt fell on the carpet because I tore the sachet in the wrong place. Mum sent me to the pub to get them. She was pleased I got in the door before the bomb dropped. It would have sent us sky high.

(JANET)