THE STATIONMASTER'S DAUGHTER

Chapter 12

All too soon, the new school year began and Nigel and I found ourselves waiting nervously at the top of the hill, to the side of the railway bridge, at seven-fifteen in the morning, for the school bus to pick us up and take us to Launceston. The bus arrived; the driver, a huge, fat jovial man by the name of Bumper told us to hop aboard. The bus had wooden seats! so uncomfortable. Nigel had suddenly become quite shy and didn't want to be seen sitting by me, so I sat at the front and he went to the rear.
 
The journey seemed to go on forever. We wandered around the countryside picking up kids from solitary houses, or small villages all the way into Launceston. There were kids from a comprehensive on the bus as well as kids from the two grammar schools. They were a pleasant, happy bunch and there was never any trouble - well, not much!
 
The comprehensive kids were dropped off first at the bottom of the hill in Launceston, then the bus climbed the steep long hill up to firstly the girls' grammar school and then on to the boys' grammar school a little further along the same road. I was the only new girl on the school bus, so Bumper told me that the bus would be outside the gates to pick us up at the end of school. My first day passed in a blur of new teachers, changing classrooms, collecting a satchel full of books and looking around the beautiful old house that was to be my school for the next three years. It really was a lovely building. I tried to imagine what it had been like as a home. There were a couple of classrooms on the ground floor, a large hall used for assembly in the morning, dining room at lunchtime and a gymnasium at other times. Most of the classrooms were on the second floor, along with the Headmistress's room and the staff room. The third floor housed the school library and my favourite room, the art room.
 
It was a typical old house, all the floorboards creaked and the stairs up to the third floor were narrow and rickety.
 
My first experience of assembly was a wonderful, uplifting experience considering how scared I was and not liking school. There must have been no more than two hundred girls altogether. The older girls looked so grown up as they filed in to take their seats at the back of the hall. Miss Greer, the Headmistress, stood at the front, with all the other teachers seated in a horseshoe shape behind her. She welcomed all of us new girls and hoped that we would be very happy. Her door was always open she said if we had any problems. The other teachers then stood in turn, introduced themselves and told us what lessons they taught. I can remember Miss Westmacott, who taught French, Miss Ashby, a very large masculine woman who taught Biology, PE, hockey in the winter and swimming in the summer. We had a male Physics and Chemistry teacher, and a male Art teacher, the only men at the school. We also had history and geography teachers and a dainty little lady - who reminded me of the Queen Mother - who taught Latin. I can't remember any of their names. A well-known traditional Hymn was sung at the beginning and end of assembly; Jerusalem being my absolute favourite and sung on that first morning, which is why I remember it so well. At the end of assembly, we all trouped out in single file; teachers first, then 6th form and so on and so on down to us new kids. That first morning, as I watched the 6th form girls filing past, I was transfixed by so many long ponytails swishing from side to side as the girls walked. My own hair was wavy and curly, and would never hang in a decent ponytail; I was so envious. After that first day, whenever I got the opportunity, I would follow along behind one of them if they were walking down the corridor, just to watch the hair!
 
The first morning passed quickly. At playtime we were able to explore the gardens. At the front of the school next to the large driveway was a small wooded area, which then led onto a spacious lawn surrounded by trees and flowerbeds. To the far side of the building were two netball courts. Steps at the side led down to a semi-covered walkway with a beautiful peach tree growing against the wall. This must have been a south-facing wall. More steps led down to two grass tennis courts and beyond that, more lawns and gardens. It felt as if we were living in a stately home.
 
Back into more lessons until lunchtime. Our classroom was on the first floor overlooking the rear gardens, but the smell of food cooking wafted up the stairs and by the time the bell went, we were all starving. We walked sedately down the wide staircase, with Miss Greer watching us from the top. There was no running up and down the stairs, or anywhere within the school, we had been warned. The assembly hall now transformed into the dining room, with large tables each seating ten pupils on long bench seats. The food was edible, very nice in fact, such a treat after the awful dinners at the school I had just left. There was time for a wander round and for the beginning of friendships to build before we were back in class for the rest of the afternoon. We didn't have to move classrooms a great deal, which most schools seem to, so it was nice to have the teachers come to us, not the other way round.
 
That afternoon was our first encounter with the school ghost - yes, that's right, a ghost! It was a warm day, with no wind, so one of the large sash windows was open. Suddenly, without warning, the window dropped with a loud crash! And then the classroom door opened with a creak. Many girls let out screams. I was never a screamer, but sat with my mouth open wondering what on earth was happening; especially as my desk was situated at the back and nearest the door. Miss Westmacott, who happened to be taking us for French at the time, just burst out laughing.
 
'Well girls meet Whittaker, the school ghost.' She looked round at us all and still smiling said, 'He's harmless and friendly, he won't hurt you. You'll soon get used to him.' Whittaker only appeared on the first and second floors and we did get used to him, and it was always a great source of amusement, with windows closing and doors opening and closing. Of course, we never really knew whether he was a genuine ghost or just the strange happenings of an old house. I like to think he was real!
 
The first day came to an end; that wasn't so bad after all, I thought as I walked up the drive to the road to look for the bus home. I could see Bumper sitting in the driver's seat of the bus on the other side of the road ran across and got on. I said hello, but he was reading a newspaper and didn't notice me. More kids got on, who I didn't recognise, but then I couldn't be expected to recognise a bus full of kids could I? A few minutes later, Bumper put away his paper and we headed off towards the boys' school. It was then that he spotted me in the mirror and shouted that I was on the wrong bus headed in the wrong direction; I would have to get off the bus at the boys' school and catch the one going in the other direction.
 
With a bright red face, I got off the bus, crossed the road and waited at the end of a queue of boys waiting for the right bus. I could see Nigel sniggering and my face felt as if it was on fire. The bus turned up, this time a newer one with upholstered seats and a younger man driving. He was Jack, Bumper's son. The journey home was uneventful and eventually I arrived home at five-thirty, An hour and three quarters since leaving the school. The direct route from Otterham Station to Launceston was only fifteen miles, but because of where all the kids lived who needed to be picked up and dropped off, the journey was many miles longer. That first night, I was tired and hungry and all my mother wanted to know was what I had eaten for dinner. I couldn't remember.
 
A very tall, gangly lad got on the bus a couple of miles down the road from me and he said hello to me when he got on, then within a couple of weeks he decided that he would sit by me. I didn't want him to, I was embarrassed; all the other kids would laugh. I would try to sit on the outside of the seat, but he would push me over so he could sit down. Or I would get someone else to sit by me, but they were always unceremoniously yanked out of the seat and told to sit elsewhere. He would then sit by me all the way to the comprehensive, which he attended, holding my hand for the whole of the journey. However hard I tried to remove my hand, or not let him get hold of it in the first place, he always won. On the homeward journeys, there he would be, looking to see where I was sitting and the whole rigmarole would start again. The other kids on the bus soon lost interest in the pair of us. His name was John, that's all I knew about him. He never asked anything about me, in fact, he never wanted to talk, he just sat and held my hand. I missed him terribly when he left school the following year.
 
So began two and a half years of catching that bus, with butterflies in my stomach the whole time. Had I done my homework? Had I brought all the right exercise books with me? Had I remembered my gym bag? Was it a day for hockey or swimming? I hated both with a passion.
 
As I said, I can't ever remember a school day without butterflies. School days were supposed to be the happiest days of your life, there were some good days at Horwell, but the rest of my schooldays, definitely not in my case!
 
I was introduced to gymnastics in my first term, and for once I was happy, and in my element. It was something I was good at. The assembly/lunch/gym hall had wall bars all round the room, which we clambered up and down on. There was the usual gym equipment, such as the horse and the box. Our favourite game, played at the end of every gym session was 'Shipwreck.' Don't ask me why it was called that, but involved one girl being 'It' and the rest of us leaping about on the equipment, trying to avoid being caught and also not letting our feet touch the ground, or we would be out. It was such a great game and burned off a lot of excess energy at the same time.
 
At some point during my first year, I was selected for the gymnastic team, who were asked to perform at the Town Hall in Launceston in front of an audience. Both of my parents actually came to watch; a rare occurrence.
 
One thing we all noticed and complained about was the fact that the school caretaker would always be hanging around outside our changing room whenever we had PE. We never wore shorts for PE, just t-shirt and the big green regulation school knickers. We thought he was a horrible little man, but nothing was ever done about him. He reminded me of Mr Beer in the grain store. There was something unpleasant about both of them!
 
I liked Miss Ashby when she took us for gym class, but not when it came to hockey, the other sport we had to partake in during the winter terms. What an awful game. We always seemed to play in the rain or freezing cold. The hockey field was about half a mile away, almost opposite the boys' school. We would troop up there in our kit of t-shirt, short pleated skirt and more often than not, our raincoats, our hockey boots clunking on the pavement, and carrying our sticks. I never could understand the rules of hockey and was always offside or in the wrong position. I remember once being picked as a substitute for an away game. I tried hard to get out of going to school that day, but Mum obviously wasn't obliging that time for some reason, so I ended up hiding in the toilets of the other school we visited, praying that they didn't need a substitute. My prayers were answered thankfully.
 
I disliked Miss Ashby even more when it came to the summer term. The tennis and netball were enjoyable but the swimming lessons - absolutely horrendous! I had never been to a swimming pool before. My only experience of water was paddling in the sea. This pool was an outdoor one, a lido, I suppose, about half a mile away in the local park behind the boys' school. Every day we had swimming it was cold and wet. We were not allowed to enter the pool by the shallow end and gradually acclimatise ourselves to the freezing temperature, oh no! that cruel woman would make us jump in where the water reached up to our armpits, and then she would give us swimming lessons, barking orders from the side of the pool. At the end of the lesson, we would climb out, try to get dry and dressed in the cubicles around the pool, with the wind blowing under the doors, then walk back to school in the cold and wet again - I hated it with a vengeance. An item of gossip, which would crop up at regular intervals was the fact that Miss Ashby and the Latin teacher lived together! We could never understand what those two women had in common and it was an often-discussed topic. Now of course it's pretty obvious!
 
At the age of eleven, I was given a 'grown up' bike as a reward for passing the 11 plus; this time it was a brand new shiny red one. But there's always a downside isn't there! My parents were both C of E, but never went to church. Both Neil and I were christened, which made us C of E as well, and so they decided that I should go to church every Sunday morning. Now I had my new bike it would be easy to cycle the two and a half miles to Otterham village where the church was. It made no difference that I didn't want to go, I didn't see why I had to go on my own, both of them had bikes, they could go instead. All my arguments fell on deaf ears. Luckily, for me, I discovered that one of my friends at school, Margaret, who lived the other side of Otterham, also went to church, so we agreed to meet up every Sunday morning and go to church together. I have never liked Christianity forced on me, but I did quite enjoy our Sunday mornings together. We even got to ring the church bell a few times. That was definitely fun - both of us hanging onto the rope for dear life and being hoisted up into the air as the large bell peeled.
 
Sometimes, I would go back to Margaret's house afterwards for some lunch. Her home was actually a prefab and what a brilliant little place it was. They had electricity AND a television! What luxury. There was also a fitted kitchen and a proper bathroom with a toilet, bath and washbasin. I couldn't believe it, that tiny place had all mod cons, whilst our big house had nothing.
 
Within a few months of us attending church, there was great excitement; a radio programme was to be broadcast from another church in the diocese, near Davidstow. Because the congregation wouldn't be large enough in that church, congregations from all the other churches were asked to join in. Margaret and I were thrilled. It meant cycling to this other church for rehearsals on a Sunday, which took about six weeks altogether. It was a long way for Margaret to cycle, but she managed it. There was an added bonus too! Two boys with bikes from another village were also attending rehearsals and made friends with us. After rehearsals finished they would cycle part the way home with us. Finally, the broadcast was to take place. We arrived at the church early to find radio vans parked outside. Inside there were cables running everywhere and microphones hanging from wires above where the congregation would sit. We took our places, the two boys waving and winking at us from across the pews. We sat giggling until a frown and a loud tut emanating from a large woman to our left shut us up. It was a live broadcast, so there was no room for error and as far as I can remember, everything went smoothly. Mum said it sounded good on the radio. I think that was my fifteen minutes of fame!
 
Things reverted to normal after that momentous Sunday and we never saw the two boys again. Margaret and I continued to go to Sunday service and I ended up taking the children's Sunday school class at the back of the church, whilst the adults took part in the service at the front. I had about six or seven little kids in the class; I would read them a story from the Bible and then hand out paper and crayons for them to draw a picture about the story. I carried on with this class until we moved house again.
 
I had quite a small group of friends whilst at Horwell Grammar School, Margaret of course, Freda, Carol, June and Paulette. Paulette kept spiders in jars on the mantelpiece in her bedroom - so she said - and I, never a lover of spiders, thought her a bit odd and slightly scary, so she never became a best friend. June was my best friend. Her surname was Wilson, so everyone knew her as 'Willy'. Because of the distances we all travelled to school, we never saw each other in the holidays at all, so occasionally some of us would stay at each other's homes for a weekend during term time. June came to stay with me for a weekend and we decided that on the second night we would have a midnight feast, which meant trying to confiscate any food that we could during the day and deposit it under the bed. We managed to secrete a couple of packets of crisps, a few biscuits and some of my dad's greengages, which were a particular favourite of his.
 
We went to bed that night determined to stay awake until after my parents went to bed, but sleep overtook us - my parents never went to bed before eleven-thirty, or even later. We ate our midnight feast about five-thirty the next morning!
 
I went to stay with June one weekend too. What a revelation that was. Whereas I was allowed one candle to go to bed with, June on the other hand had candles everywhere in her bedroom. The room was low ceilinged, dark and filled with dark oak furniture, but every surface covered with candles - extremely atmospheric. And I remember her bed was against one of the walls and to the back and side of the bed, the walls were filled with photos of her favourite actors, film stars and singers. She lived with her parents and younger brother, but I hardly saw her parents at all, they were either working or out and would leave June and her brother on their own; a luxury I never had the pleasure of - being left alone in the house. One or both of my parents were always there. Freda was the only other friend I stayed with, but this time, because her family lived in Egloskerry, I was able to travel by train and I went and stayed for a week in one of the summer holidays. Again, the way they lived was so different from our family. Freda had five brothers and sisters, and all left to their own devices during the day, because both of her parents worked. Freda's mother would cook a meal in the evening, but breakfast and lunch, we had to fend for ourselves. I ate the strangest sandwiches I have ever had that week at Freda's. Two particularly stick in my mind. One day we had Marie biscuit sandwiches and the other day uncooked sausage meat sandwiches. It's a wonder we didn't get food poisoning.
 
We played outside everyday, mixing with a large group of children, both younger and older than we were. One boy in particular springs to mind. I would have only been twelve going on thirteen, but I recognised a good-looking boy when I saw one. This one was especially so. Tall, dark haired, with a racing bike. His name was Lloyd. I had never come across that name before. His name somehow rolled off the tongue and I managed to have long conversations with Freda about Lloyd. She, in turn, was totally disinterested, having known him most of her life. I was very sorry when my week's stay came to an end and I had to go home. I never saw Lloyd again.
 
Mum had given me a small box of chocolates to give Freda's mum as a thank you present for having me to stay. The box had stayed in my small suitcase all week. I packed to leave. Freda's mum was at work and I totally forgot to give them to her. It wasn't until I was on the train that I realised. I didn't want to go home and say I had forgotten, so as I had a carriage to myself, I opened the box and scoffed as many chocolates as I could manage until the train neared Otterham, and then threw the remainder of the chocolates and the box out of the train window. The wildlife must have thought it was their birthday that day. When I got home, my mother asked if I had given the chocolates to Freda's mother and of course, I replied that I had and that she had said thank you and it was very kind. I should have been given a middle name - Pinocchio! I don't know whether it was just me, but it always seemed to be easier to lie to my mother than tell her the truth. She would have gone on and on about me forgetting to give them to Freda's mum, or why had I eaten them, or why didn't I bring them home.
 
When John left school, I became better friends with the other kids on the school bus. Celia and Phoebe, two sisters who went to the comprehensive were especially friendly and we would sit together and chat all the way to school, comparing what lessons we had. Theirs always seemed more interesting. Another lad who became a friend was Gary, a couple of years older than me, who went to the boys' grammar school. He was a tall well-built boy, but at the age of fifteen was still wearing short trousers! His mother refused to let him wear long trousers until he reached the age of fifteen. We all felt sorry for him, but he was so nice no-one ever made fun of him. He lived quite a distance from me, but one Friday on the bus home, he announced that he was going to cycle over to Otterham Station to see me on the Saturday. He would whistle when he arrived, so I was to listen out for him. I told him not to, as my dad would not let me go out and speak to him. He was quite strict with me when it came to boys, especially ones he didn't know.
 
I dreaded the next day coming, but there was no sign of Gary. I breathed a sigh of relief as evening came. It was winter so got dark early. Mum, unfortunately, had lit the fire in the front room for some reason; something that didn't happen often and we were all sitting in there instead of in the kitchen, when I heard a whistle from outside. I froze, hoping nobody else would hear it, but both Mum and Dad heard. Dad peered through the curtains and said that somebody was riding around the car park on a bike and whistling every time he came past the house. He suddenly turned and stared at me.
 
'Do you know who that is? he said, 'he's not whistling for you to go out is he?' I could feel my face flushing, but as I was close to the fire, I thought I could get away with a hot, red face as I denied all knowledge of the person outside. It was nothing to do with me. My dad glared at me for what felt like hours, but in all probability was a few seconds, and then he returned to his chair and picked up his newspaper. I was going to give Gary a piece of my mind on the Monday, causing me all this trouble.
 
Many pupils had televisions and one of the most popular programmes around in 1958 was Quatermass and The Pit, a science fiction series. The first series had first been shown in 1953, then a second in 1955 and this was the third in the series. The morning break following the previous night's episode was full of discussion on the programme. My friend Margaret especially, was full of it. As we didn't have a television and had no idea what was going on, she would explain to me in great detail the whole episode. I would have loved to have seen it for myself, but managed to keep up with the story with her help.
 
One of my favourite lessons at Horwell was French. We all loved Miss Westmacott. She had grey hair always piled up in an untidy mess on the top of her head, and wore billowing skirts and large cardigans. She would love to walk around the gardens in break times with as many of us girls as she could and tell us about the flowers and the birds; especially the birds or les oiseaux as she fondly called them. I can still hear her gentle voice saying 'look at les oiseaux girls, aren't they beautiful.' That is one French word I have never forgotten.
 
I think Miss Westmacott's nose was put out of joint one term as a real French man came to teach the 6th form girls. An exchange of some sort I guess. And you can just picture it, this gorgeous hunk of manhood, with his English spoken with a wonderful French accent, appearing one morning in assembly, introduced as Monsieur Bienvenue. I think some of the girls at the back must have fainted, there was such a ruckus going on! Miss Greer was shouting 'Girls, girls, now, now, calm down.' Even I was quite impressed by this good-looking creature in front of us.
 
I don't know whether any of the 6th form learnt any more French than they would have done normally, but at break times, he couldn't move for a horde of girls surrounding him, all talking at once, trying to get his attention. At first, I think he enjoyed the adoration, but by the end of term, he was looking a bit fraught at the thought of stepping outside.
 
Art was another class I thoroughly enjoyed. I was good at drawing trees and people. Chemistry now, that was a subject that totally passed me by. The Chemistry teacher was so patient with us girls, explaining time after time about the experiments, he was showing us, but it was a case of in one ear and out the other, we just did not get it at all. At the end of every lesson, he would give a big sigh, smile at us and say, 'Never mind, perhaps next week you can all do better.' Poor man! Bumper and his son drove the school buses, the whole time I was there. The morning journeys usually passed without incident, apart from the occasional sheep seen lying on its back in a field, feebly waving its legs in the air. At which sight, either of the men would stop the bus, climb over the hedge or fence, run to the poor sheep and shove it over until it was able to get back on its legs. It usually happened when there was plentiful grass and the sheep were well fed and their fleeces thick, so they were too heavy and rolled onto their backs. It was a good excuse for being late for assembly. 'There was a sheep on its back Miss, we had to stop and rescue it.'
 
The afternoon journeys were a different matter when Jack was driving the bus. He would put his foot down and drive fast, then brake suddenly, so we were all thrown all over the place. On straight stretches he would zig zag all over the road, again throwing us about. There was never any traffic in those days! Just as well!
 
One afternoon, one of the boys had somehow caught a mouse and brought it onto the bus. He started showing it round and one of the girls from the Comprehensive was absolutely terrified. She stood up on the bus seat screaming at the top of her voice, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as the boy kept going towards her with the mouse. What did Jack do? Just laughed his head off and kept going until we reached her stop, where she got off the bus, by this time in floods of tears. Jack had a secret too, one which we were all told to keep. About once a week, we would stop in a small village about halfway back to Otterham. Jack would jump off the bus, leaving us kids sitting there whilst he went to visit his fancy woman. A cup of tea he called it! We would always be late home, and I had to find some excuse, such as the bus was late, we got held up by a tractor! You know, the usual excuses.
 
I was growing up, but I still loved the trains and the station and still met up with my Otterham Station friends at weekends and in the holidays. We would still sneak up into the signal box when Dad wasn't around, and play games in the waiting room. The guard's vans and trucks still made great places to play in and of course the grain store, although I was even more careful never to be within touching distance of Mr Beer!
 
And then my dad dropped the bombshell! We were going to move again. He had another promotion and this time we would be moving to South Wales. Within a few months, we were on our way to the station house at St Clears in Carmarthenshire. But that's another story, and not such a happy one!