The Final Year Of W.W.11 and Me.

As we got to the last of the war years, it got worse before it got better,with the Germans introducing new weapons, rockets, fired from the French coast. at first came the V.1, which ran out of fuel somewhere near London, and as the "pop, pop, pop," stopped, it gave us time to take cover, and wonder whether it would end up on us!
During this period of time, I took an "11+ exam", and earned a scholarship to a grammar school.I was allowed to make 2 choices, and then go for interviews. I gained entrance to a fine school, called "Godolphin and Latymer ",which was in London, and required me to get there each day on the "tube train" (London Transport subway system ). This school was for girls only, and it's boys' equivelant was Latymer Boys' School, which was rated as an English"public" school, meaning that it was in a special and higher graded level. So at 12 years old I was off on my own in war-time on crowded trains wearing my navy blue uniform, this consisted of a winter tunic or(jumper in U.S.A.) with a blouse and a cardigan, dark stockings and shoes. The outerwear was a navy coat with a navy beret which had a school badge on it. We were severely reprimanded if we got caught shedding any of this uniform on the way home. Some were tempted to take off their beret, and get off the train one station away, to meet up with some of the boys from the Latymer school, but of course I didn't do anything like that!
Like many schools, it was an old building. We had assembly every day in the big hall, which was required for everyone except for Jews. There was a time for announcements, and a scripture reading, and a prayer. It was quite crowded, standing or sitting on the floor, so periodically somebody would faint. I laugh now, as I look back....I used to hope that I would faint, since it looked so dramatic... it didn't happen! Our school had a school song in Latin which we sang from time to time, and a school badge that had an eagle embroidered on it, with an ancient Cornish motto.Note this on my blazer pocket in my photo with my dog Janny, by our living room window.
This hall was also used for gym class, and we would set up horses and mats and balancing beams etc.. Once every term we would have" round the world" for a treat. This was like an obstacle course of gym equipment,which we thought was geat fun. The hall had one more usage, for speech tests. Halfway through the year we had a speech test from the back of our classroom, which included reading an unprepared page of a book, and then our rendering of a prepared poem. This was critiqued by the teacher. I must admit that at this age, I found criticism very painful! No doubt It was because I was overly sensitive and immature. I can't say that I enjoy it now, but it is helpful when a friend tells me the truth in love, so friends and family feel free to do that!
Well getting back to the big hall.. at the end of the year, we had the same kind of speech test, but we had to go up onto the big stage one at a time,to speak loudly and clearly to the teacher who was sitting on a chair halfway back in the hall. It was the kind of experience that tied my tummy in knots. However, since in later life, I have taught approximately 70 women every week for over 20 years, perhaps those harrowing times were worth it, in preparation.
When we started school at 12 years, they streamed us for harded studies, and I was put into the top group for maths, and to do both French and Latin for languages.French was more normal for us, because of England being near to the continent of Europe. We had a maths teacher called Miss Barnard, who was very mean and picked on somebody to direct her criticisms of the day!This might be that her shoes weren't shiny or that her curls were in tight ringlets. However we all had a strategy that we would try to get her to talk about her stocks and shares, because that could take up a whole lesson, and save us working. Amazing that we were devious even so young!
School lunches were something else! We filed passed the table and I asked the lady for a large portion of shepherds pie, from the corner of the pan where it was crispy. We sat in almost silence to eat, whilst a teacher walked up and down the rows. All food was to be finished, and officially we were not allowed to swap food. However, we would wait until the teacher went by, and most days, I would eat my dessert, and quickly swap my empty plate for somebody else's full plate. A favourite kind was syrup pudding.. a hot sponge pudding with hot syrup sauce over it, plus custard sauce. Fortunately I was thin as a rake, and this didn't have any effect on my size.
We did do a few sleep overs with friends, and we would plan to have a midnight picnic in bed,and we took some of the food up to bed with us: I guess food seems to rate pretty highly with me.At home my mother was known by friends as "the hot Mrs. Chips", because she liked hot food on hot plates,and she fried a lot of food like fish, sausages, bacon and chips (french fries), so in my teen years, I had a problem with acne. Funny how there are similar problems throughout the generations, even though the current cultural details vary.