Wednesday, 29th September 1976
(Winder House, Sedbergh School. Age 15).
My fifteenth birthday spilled out across a few days. Two days after turning fifteen, I received two parcels from my Aunty Kate and Uncle Bob (godparents) : How Things Work II and a scarf. I had been given How Things Work I the previous Christmas. They were very much the sort of books people thought suitable for me: practical, masculine and feeding the curious mind, especially for a boy who had acquired a reputation when younger for pulling things apart to see how they worked.
The scarf was a ‘Doctor Who scarf’ — made famous by Tom Baker. It was enormously long, with lots of variegated colours.
I also got a Snoopy towel and fudge from Granny V, which I ate that day. I couldn’t help myself when it came to sugar. You couldn’t really go wrong with Snoopy and Charlie Brown either. Snoopy – sardonic and worldly-wise, and I already had Snoopy things around me at Winder.
There were cards from both my grandmothers: Granny V and Granny W. They represented two rather different women. Granny V was the retired independent businesswoman; Granny W was a wife who had also worked, in a world where middle class wives and mothers were expected to be at home raising their families.
My brother gave me 50p.
That was worth about five cans of Coca-Cola, or a pint of beer if somebody would sell me one.
Lessons were ‘good’:
Geography
Biology
French
Break
P.E.
Chemistry
Lunch
Rigby
Cadet Force
Double Projects
Supper
Prep
Band Practice
PE: with Kenny West and was much easier than his previous session. We went on the foam mattresses, doing something along the lines of tumbling and exercises rather than anything particularly punishing.
Rugger: for half an hour because there was no referee, so there was no game. We just warmed up and did some drills.
I should have gone swimming afterwards. We got so little actual swimming training that missing any of it counted. Instead, I sat at my desk in Winder and wrote five letters. Three were thank-you letters. I had been brought up to write back straight away when somebody sent me a present, so with the birthday still arriving through the post there were letters to be done.
I also wrote to Julie-Anne, thanking her for her birthday card, and to Sephy. Julie-Anne was my girlfriend back home. Sephy was different: we had met on the SS Nevasa and had gone on exchanging letters rather like penpals.
Five letters absorbed most of the time I had.
I didn’t finish my English prep before I had to go off to brass band practice. I played the flute in what was essentially a brass band — something like a miners’ brass band, except that we were posh boys at Sedbergh.
The music was fast, but fun.
It was something rather like Boléro adapted for a brass band: easy enough to play, but getting faster and faster.
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