Schooldays
Anne Lord
My education began in Taff’s Well Infants School aged three. I remember very little about it. Though I do remember seeing a ‘herd of reindeer’ crossing the school yard on the way back from the toilet block, just before taking my place on the classroom floor, snuggled under a blanket, in the school’s production of Jingle Bells. I was very amused that I was wearing pyjamas so early in the day – I was three.
From the age of four to seven I attended Stanleytown Infants. There were just two classes, two teachers and a headmistress. My teacher was Mrs Farmer, ginger hair, rouged cheeks, painted eyebrows. She did not like me at all, and the feeling was mutual. One day she scornfully enquired why I was wearing a wristwatch when I couldn’t tell the time. I replied that I could tell the time. “No, you can’t,” she snapped. “I haven’t taught you yet!” I was about five, “My Daddy taught me,” I whispered. He had spent hours with me turning the hands of the broken kitchen clock. Another time the class was given the task of weaving paper. I can do it easily now, but at that young age I couldn’t get the hang of it. Mrs Farmer was so frustrated with me, she grabbed my arms and shook me. She did do me one good turn though; last year at my friend Jeanette’s 70th birthday party, I remarked that she and I had been best friends right through school. She said that Mrs Farmer had told her that there was a new little girl coming and that she, Jeanette, should look after her. She always did. I remember drinking milk out of little bottles, blowing bubbles with the straw. One day, much to my disgust, Arwyn Davies demonstrated how he could blow milk out of his nose. Sometimes there’d be Wagon Wheels to go with the milk. I didn’t like them much. I remember Alan Parry standing up to tell Mrs Farmer that he was sorry he couldn’t come yesterday because his father had been throwing knives at his mother. I envisaged some kind of circus act, but apparently that wasn’t the case. However, Mr and Mrs Parry remained married for many years.
I remember having to go to bed in the afternoons, and feeling very silly when we had to do musical movement in our vest and pants. “Make yourself very small, like a mouse,” Miss Thomas would call out. “Now make yourself big again and spread your arms like a tree.” Nonsense! I remember, hands together, eyes closed, ‘Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh, shadows of the evening steal across the sky. Amen’.
Then came the move to the Juniors in Tylorstown. I remember seeing Keith Jones for the first time on our first day, and thinking, ‘he looks nice’. He was. I had a crush on him forever. My new teacher was Mr Iorwerth Thomas, known as Iory, and the headmaster, the most photographed man in Tylorstown, Mr Trevor Morgan.
Mr Thomas used to read us the tales of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by Rudyard Kipling, oh how I loved those stories. I seem to remember him re-enacting the killing of Gelert. He told us proudly one Monday how he’d gone on a CND protest march during the weekend. Another day he told us to put our coats back on as he had something special to show us. He took us, the whole class, about thirty boys and girls, to the mountainside nearby, and there in a shady spot was a tiny clump of primroses. There weren’t many wildflowers about in the Rhondda in the early sixties. The sluggish river I crossed every day to get to school was black and glutinous with coal dust.
We did the academic work too, of course. As you can imagine I loved the English lessons and writing compositions. I wasn’t so keen on arithmetic. During my last year, the football team won the Rhondda Juniors Championship Cup at Football. We travelled all the way down to Wattstown Park to watch the final. As my cousin Paul was captain of the team, we brought the cup home to Stanleytown and carried it through the streets! We were so proud. Unfortunately I failed the 11+ so didn’t gain entry into the prestigious Porth County or Ferndale Grammar Schools. Everyone was so disappointed for me. Anyway, more adventures awaited me at Hendrefadog Secondary Modern School, the huge building that sat on the top of the mountain looking down on the valley below.
It was quite a trek up to school each day, but we were young and fit, those steps kept us fit, it was too far to go home for lunch, so school dinners became part of our lives. We ate them downstairs in the Infants School Hall, about eight of us to a table, same seats every day. “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.” Lumpy mashed potato, grey beef and gravy, no cabbage for me please. Semolina pudding that turned pink, and beetroot salad that turned my stomach. Happy days.
They were happy days. Different teachers now for different lessons, that was a change. School uniform for us girls, the boys got away with wearing whatever they liked. Navy skirt or gymslip – how I hated my first gymslip, a hand-me-down with big box pleats – and a claret and gold tie. Navy knickers and white ankle socks. Knee length socks were in fashion so we wore those and rolled them down. Hair that grew past our collar should be tied up. Prefects lined the corridors, armed with elastic bands, we would hear the ritual, “hair up, socks down” every morning.
Music lessons consisted of us singing hymns in the hall accompanied by Mr Evans on the piano. There was a television in Mr Thomas’ room, which was rarely turned on. I watched the Queen officially open the Severn Bridge through the window. The boys would regularly get the cane or the ‘dap’ for the slightest transgression. We played ‘shinty’ on a sloping tarmac school yard, on top of a mountain, all through the winter with wooden sticks and a wooden ball. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.