THE STATIONMASTER'S DAUGHTER

Chapter 4

Monday came all too soon, which meant school! There would be no time to watch trains today, how boring. I just loved waiting for the next train. Even in the rain, I was out there. Mum would get really cross with me, but I didn't care.
 
It was a two-mile walk to get to the school and a two-mile walk back. That was a long way for my six-year old legs. I wasn't used to it. My school in Cirencester had been much nearer. On that first day, I walked down the hill to the cottages and called for Margot and Maurice; we were joined by Victor, and then carried on down the hill and collected Nigel. Gerald was not old enough to start school at this point. It was a bitterly cold morning, our breath formed clouds in the frosty air. I had gloves on but my hands were still freezing. We walked quickly to try to get warm. We spread ourselves across the road; there was no traffic at that time in the morning. The only vehicle we were likely to see was the postman's van.
 
The school was in the next village, called Marshgate. It had bigger houses, a stud farm on the outskirts and a cattle farm, which was at the junction of the road we walked on and the road up to the school. Just as we reached the farm gate, the others turned in and opened the gate ready to walk through. I asked where were we going and told that the farmer let us take a short cut through the farmyard, which meant that we saved a few minutes on our journey. There were also three of the farmer's daughters, Mary, Phyllis and Katherine, who came to our school, so we met up with them and as long as we didn't frighten the cows wandering out of the shed after being milked and avoided the subsequent cowpats they deposited all over the yard we didn't create any problems.
 
I walked into school on that first day, so glad to have my new friends around me. Margo introduced me to the Headmaster, Mr Shepherd, who then took me into Miss Jasper's class. She was to be my teacher for the next three years.
 
Miss Jasper taught the five to nine-year olds and Mr Shepherd taught the nine to fifteen-year olds. Can you believe it, only two classrooms, two teachers and children from age five up to fifteen, if they were not bright enough to pass the eleven plus. Mary and Phyllis both failing this exam, would be staying on at school until they reached the age of fifteen, so were in Mr Shepherd's class. Katherine and the rest of us were in Miss Jasper's class.
 
Mr Shepherd, on first meeting, appeared to be a kind, middle-aged man, not very tall, with greying hair and a nice smile, but Miss Jasper terrified me from the moment I met her. She was a big built woman with short, greying straight hair. She glared at me as if I had no right to be there, then told me to go and sit down. She pointed her finger at me and said she expected good behaviour from all her pupils and would stand no nonsense. How right she was, she had a terrible temper; and within minutes of us all sitting down, she was shouting at one of the older boys in the class. I had never heard anyone shout like that in all my young life.
 
At morning playtime, we had school milk. I hated milk, and had never drunk it at my last school, the teachers there knew I didn't like it, but this time it was handed to me by Miss Jasper and told to drink it. But I didn't like milk I explained, expecting her to say that it was okay and she would give it to someone else, but she didn't. The little bottle was shoved roughly into my hand and I was told to drink it or else. I stared at it. The cream was pushing the top off the bottle. I had noticed all the bottles placed around the pot-bellied stove all morning. Ugh, it was disgusting. As soon as I was sure no one was looking, I offered mine to one of the older boys, who grabbed it and greedily downed it in one go.
 
Dinnertime arrived. There was a large hut in the playground, which housed the kitchen and dining room. Mrs Henwood, the cook, prepared the meals; she was a very kindly grey-haired woman, who did her best with the food provided, most of which I must admit was edible. The meat though was another matter, absolutely disgusting. I never did like meat very much and I certainly couldn't eat the meat on my plate, well, it wasn't meat, it was gristle, so I pushed it on one side. Mr Shepherd, unfortunately, sat at the head of our table and noticed I was leaving food on my plate.
 
'We don't waste food here,' he said loudly pointing at my plate. All the kids stared. I wriggled with embarrassment. 'Mrs Henwood doesn't spend all morning in the kitchen, cooking, for you to waste it. Now eat it up,' he continued, waving his fork at me.
 
'I can't eat it, it makes me feel sick,' I stammered.
 
'Rubbish child, get on and eat it.'
 
I can still remember how I felt with that piece of gristle in my mouth. I heaved and heaved, trying not to be sick, but I couldn't chew it and it was too big a piece to swallow. I managed to stuff it into my cheek and as soon as Mr Shepherd turned away to speak to someone else, I quickly took it out of my mouth, dropped it on the floor and kicked it over to the other side of the table. That first endless day finally dragged to a close. We all trudged the two miles home again. I was so tired I went to bed early.
 
The next day, I was a quivering wreck. I just didn't want to go back to that school. The butterflies in my stomach were going frantic. This was the start of a lifetime of anxiety going straight to my stomach. Miss Jasper showed her true colours. One of the kids did something she didn't like. She towered over that poor little kid, face all purple, and I mean vivid dark purple, and screamed at him at the top of her voice. How could anyone shout that loud? I was terrified and clung on to the seat of my chair as if my life depended on it. I expected Mr Shepherd to come bursting in any minute to see what all the fuss was about, but he never did. His classroom was next to ours and only divided by a glass partition, so he must have heard her. From that day on, I lived in fear of both of those teachers.
 
Margo, who sat next to me, saw how distressed I was, so leant over and whispered, 'Don't cry, whatever you do, don't cry, or she will pick on you too.' I sat frozen to my seat until playtime, when we all trouped out into the cloakroom to get our milk. The boy who'd had my milk the day before wasn't in school, so I tipped mine down the drain.
 
'You'll get told off if Miss Jasper sees you,' Nigel said.
 
'I don't care, I'm not drinking it,' I replied acting braver than I felt. Then to change the subject, I asked, 'Does Miss Jasper always shout?'
 
'Yeah, she's horrible; she'll hit you too if you're not careful. It will be better when we move up to Mr Shepherd's class, he never seems to shout or hit anyone.'
 
'Why does he let her do it then?' I asked.
 
'Dunno,' was all the answer I got.
 
I learnt very quickly to keep my head down and work as hard as I could, so she would never be able to shout at me. I did manage it most of the time. Never a day went by though, without some poor kid attacked verbally and physically. She certainly wouldn't be in the teaching profession these days; in fact, she would have probably been locked up for abuse. However, in those days, it seemed that what went on in schools was not talked about when the kids got home, because the chances were they would be hit again, for doing whatever it was they had been doing to be hit in the first place! My distaste for milk unfortunately soon came to the attention of Mr Shepherd. Some kid had grassed on me! Luckily for me it was Mr Shepherd and not Miss Jasper who found out. I was hauled in front of him and tried to explain that I had Yellow Jaundice when I was younger, and apparently, ever since, I had never liked milk on its own or fat of any kind, which is why I didn't like the meat either. I don't think he cared particularly and said that I had to eat the meat, it was good for me, but he would excuse me from drinking the milk as long as he had a letter from my parents agreeing to it. He knew I would continue to give it away or tip it down the drain if I had the opportunity, regardless of what he said. I was a stubborn child, which I had found out to my cost when I was younger and hit on the back of my legs with a thin stick by my mother because I refused to pick something up in the garden. (My earliest and most painful memory)! That night I asked my dad to write a letter and took it in the following day. Even now, after all these years, I still cannot drink milk on its own!
 
Around this time, my bad headaches began and I had some days off school. As I mentioned in a previous chapter, Mum dragged me off to the doctor, who said I probably wasn't drinking enough liquid, causing dehydration, which in turn caused the headaches. He said I was to take a bottle of concentrated orange juice to school and my teacher was to make sure I drank regularly. That meant another letter to take into school.
 
The following day, I handed Miss Jasper the letter and my bottle of orange juice. I received the dreaded glare again and cowered away from her. She read the letter and I could tell that she did not want this extra responsibility. She made a big drama out of taking the bottle out of the store cupboard every break time, pouring a small amount into a glass, then telling me to top it up with water and drink it. She also made a point of telling me at regular intervals that I wasn't anyone special just because I had orange juice, but she couldn't refuse to do it as the instruction had come from a doctor. Looking back now, I don't think it was just dehydration which caused the headaches, it was also stress and anxiety caused by that hateful woman, but they became a useful ploy in getting time off school every so often. Mum fell for it every time, I am afraid to say. I managed to stay below the radar as far as Miss Jasper was concerned for the next two and a half years; but I did win first prize in a handwriting competition open to all schools in Cornwall, and first prize in a knitting competition also open to all schools. I knitted a baby's bonnet. Mum made sure I learnt to knit at an early age. I also learnt to crochet, sew and darn socks; oh! and cook - what a useful daughter I would turn out to be!
 
A few weeks after we moved to Otterham, a very sad thing happened. My little dog, Jill, discovering that she could get out of the garden, kept escaping through the fence by the road bridge, running across the road and getting into a farmer's fields just up the hill and chasing his sheep. She must have seen them on one of our walks and thought they looked like fun to chase! The irate farmer soon discovered that Jill belonged to us and came round, threatening my dad that if he caught her once more he would shoot her. Dad couldn't get the fence dog-proofed quickly enough, and unfortunately, once a dog has got the taste for chasing sheep, it is almost impossible to stop them, so Jill had to go. Dad found someone in Launceston who agreed to take her. She stayed in the house for the next few days, only allowed out on a lead, and then one day I came home from school and she was gone. Almost overnight, I lost my little dog. I was old enough to realise the danger she was in, but it still hurt terribly to think that my parents gave her to me in the first place and then gave her away because our garden wasn't fenced in properly. Every time we went to Launceston, I would look out for her, but I never did see her again. I have no photos of her, which saddens me, but I have never forgotten her, and having her began my life-long love of dogs.
 
I cried for days, so to cheer me up, my Dad made a swing for me. A large overhanging branch of one of the fir trees on the bank by the bridge was ideal. He attached a thick heavy rope to this branch; made a sturdy wooden seat for me to sit on and I would spend hours on this swing. It became a sort of refuge for me over the years. I had a lot of fun, but also shed many tears. When I was happy, I would take the seat off, climb up the ropes, and hang upside down or pretend I was a trapeze artist in a circus. When I was sad, I would just swing backwards and forwards until I felt better.

This was me aged about nine sitting in one of my favourite places, my swing! The tree at the top of the bank behind me is where one of the branches became my 'horse' who I rode to all sorts of magical places.