Fifty Years Ago: Wednesday, 30th June 1976
The heatwave continues. By now it is becoming normal to have English outside – in the shade on the grassy bank behind the cricket pavilion, beneath a stand of mature trees. We sit on the grass reading The Tolpuddle Martyrs.
I can’t remember whether it was Skull taking us or Hodge. If it was History or English? Or English History that I was taking. Skull, the Deputy Head, Mr Weir, had a bit of a Christopher Lee look about him, tall, charismatic, but with less hair. Hodge was Mr Hodgson. Either way, we worked steadily through the book. We read a chapter a week between lessons and prep, and were expected to know the facts, the names and the dates. There was no mystery about what was required. Learn it and remember it. Then a weekly test and an end of year exam.
French: ‘going over work’.
Maths: ‘going over work’.
Scintillating stuff. Had there been anything memorable to note I’d have noted it.
Break: ‘the usual’.
Latin: ‘going over work’.
Music in the Music School with Mugs, May who had taken to climbing out of one ground floor sitting room window and coming back in through another. Round and round they went, the class of thirteen or sk having to shuffle around to make space for them. They set off every time the teacher turned his back on us. He was at the piano. He was taking us through The Pirates of Penzance. He could not have had a less interested class.
Unfortunately I found it so funny I ended up getting three maps the standard punishment. It was Time-consuming punishment. You had to draw and colour in a map of a country of your choice. One map was bad enough. Three represented a significant investment of time and coloured pencils. I chose Japan, ant of us did. Occasionally, teachers would make it extra hard by specifying the countries required. Each map had to have something like six named cities, six named rivers and six named mountain ranges.
After lunch I rang Mum to tell her I was going to Corps Camp. I asked her to bring some things up, though I can’t now remember what. Presumably there were items we needed that the school didn’t provide, but the details have disappeared. I personal items that I wanted.
There was a test on the Tolpuddle Martyrs. I knew the material well enough. We had spent weeks learning the people, places and dates until they had become familiar.
Room 14 was very hot. The heatwave was becoming difficult to ignore with every passing day. Some rooms were more unbarravle than others.
Later I had the 200 metres heats.
Afterwards I went down to the Rawthey. By this stage of the summer it was hardly swimming. More often it was splashing about, cooling off and wasting time with friends in and around the water. The river was low and slower than usual after weeks without rain.
The day finished with the freestyle relay, a house competition.
We won.
That mattered to me. Swimming was my sport. I wasn’t much interested in games played with bats, sticks or balls, but in the water I felt at home. Freestyle was my best stroke and I liked to think I was unbeatable. Whether I actually was is another matter, but I had a natural feel for the water and a technique that was already better than many boys my age.
Winning the relay was a good way to end the day.
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