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Doodlebugs and nosegays (2)
posted Tuesday, 28 December 2004
Broadly speaking
Sporadic and variable sum up my education. It was admittedly broad, even extending to deciphering regional voices. These were much heavier and foreign in the forties than the rather bland Coronation Street accents fed to us now by television. I was teased mercilessly by my Essex mates when I said ‘luke’ for ‘look’ and ‘buke’ for ‘book’ on my return from Manchester.
Really bewildering for me was the gap in standards from school to school. My classes were never in sync, always seeming a year ahead or a year behind my previous school’s programme. I despaired at the arithmetic lesson in Crewe when we were set problems which involved placing ‘points’ in numbers. I’d never even heard of decimals before that day.
In Crewe my out of school time was spent hanging out in the cattle market with the local lads. We would herd cattle along main roads and side streets to and from farms, smoke Nosegay gaspers and squeeze a jug of cow’s milk for breakfast straight from the udder.
Survival
Formal education between age four and fifteen may have been ‘different’ then, but surviving day to day through air raids, V1 doodlebugs and V2 rockets did tend to shift learning further down the priority scale than it is today. I vividly recall walking to Clockhouse Lane school one morning and skirting the still-smoking rubble of a pair of houses demolished by a disabled V1. The deep furrow in the garden soil where it had skidded under full power before impact was clearly visible. This very same flying bomb had roared out of control over our hilltop home in Larchwood close, Collier Row during the night, rattling roof tiles as Auntie Doll and I huddled under the Morrison shelter in the tiny living room.
The “Morrison” was a steel table which accommodated a full-size mattress on the floor beneath. This was enclosed with four steel mesh panels, which hopefully would give protection and breathing space in the event of serious bomb damage to the house.
Sporadic and variable sum up my education. It was admittedly broad, even extending to deciphering regional voices. These were much heavier and foreign in the forties than the rather bland Coronation Street accents fed to us now by television. I was teased mercilessly by my Essex mates when I said ‘luke’ for ‘look’ and ‘buke’ for ‘book’ on my return from Manchester.
Really bewildering for me was the gap in standards from school to school. My classes were never in sync, always seeming a year ahead or a year behind my previous school’s programme. I despaired at the arithmetic lesson in Crewe when we were set problems which involved placing ‘points’ in numbers. I’d never even heard of decimals before that day.
In Crewe my out of school time was spent hanging out in the cattle market with the local lads. We would herd cattle along main roads and side streets to and from farms, smoke Nosegay gaspers and squeeze a jug of cow’s milk for breakfast straight from the udder.
On match Saturdays we gathered on the waste ground outside Crewe Alexandra’s football pitch, hoping for a ‘caseball’ - the local name for a soccer ball - to come sailing over the tarred timber fencing. It never did and I’m still not sure whether the plan was to run off with it or try to kick it back.
Survival
Formal education between age four and fifteen may have been ‘different’ then, but surviving day to day through air raids, V1 doodlebugs and V2 rockets did tend to shift learning further down the priority scale than it is today. I vividly recall walking to Clockhouse Lane school one morning and skirting the still-smoking rubble of a pair of houses demolished by a disabled V1. The deep furrow in the garden soil where it had skidded under full power before impact was clearly visible. This very same flying bomb had roared out of control over our hilltop home in Larchwood close, Collier Row during the night, rattling roof tiles as Auntie Doll and I huddled under the Morrison shelter in the tiny living room.
The “Morrison” was a steel table which accommodated a full-size mattress on the floor beneath. This was enclosed with four steel mesh panels, which hopefully would give protection and breathing space in the event of serious bomb damage to the house.
©2004 Al Smith
To be continued . . .
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