Fetching Some Coal

One winter's night Mom sent me outside into the barren little yard behind our house to see if there was any slack left. Slack is the little bits of coal that are always left when the big lumps were all burned. It was my duty to get the coal, because it was outside the house and I was a male. Well that was Mom’s rule anyway. Chores inside were female; chores outside were male territory.

The coal man brought a sack of coal once a fortnight and emptied it in a messy pile just inside the gate at the back of the yard. Then he would trudge back along the narrow little alley behind the houses, to the street where he had parked his truck, fill up his sack again and haul it on his back along the alley to the next customer. I thought it must be very hard work, and boring too. It was easier where my Gran lived; there was a ‘coal hole’ in the pavement in front of each house there, so the coal man only had to take the cover off and drop the coal down. I fell down a coal hole once - I rarely looked where I was going – and I still have the scar to prove it.

Queueing for coal

As the war went on, coal was in short supply, so everybody got less. Eventually people were queueing up for it with prams or wheelbarrows or anything else they could use to carry it away. This night, we had a meagre little heap of it in the yard. Maybe some of it had been stolen; during the war people helped each other out a lot, but there were those who were more interested in helping themselves.

It was a bitterly cold Birmingham winter night; the freezing wind caught my breath as Mom slammed the back door shut with a loud bang as she shouted ‘Keep the warm in’. There was a clear frosty sky, with a ‘Bomber’s Moon'. I shivered, remembering the terror of the latest air raid, and hoping there would be no bombing that night, or ever again.

I walked quickly past the air raid shelter. I didn’t like to think about having to go into that concrete and brick edifice that we had to share with the family next door and wait in extreme discomfort for Jerry to drop a bomb on our house. Sometimes the bombing raids got so scary, I wet myself. At least Mrs Gilks next door always brought a flask of tea along, and shared it with us, because my Mom never brought anything.

An Anderson shelter.
This one has a vegetable garden on top.

Not everybody had a solid shelter like ours. Most people with gardens had an Anderson shelter, named after Sir John Anderson, the Home Secretary. We had one of those at the house where we lived before in Bacchus Road. It was so cold, wet and uncomfortable that to me it seemed worth chancing a direct hit from a German bomb and dying in bed. An Anderson shelter consisted of fourteen sheets of corrugated steel, forming a shell 6ft high, 4ft wide and 6ft long. It was buried 4ft deep and covered with 15 inches of soil. It could shelter six people in extreme discomfort. We spent more time bailing the rainwater out than sheltering in it. And one time Grandad Joe fell into the shelter when he was drunk, and landed right on top of the fat lady who lived down the road.

Only twenty percent of the population of the United Kingdom had a garden, so more than three quarters of British citizens didn’t even have the option of having their basic safety needs met, and had to shelter from the bombing as best they could. Lots of them had to go to public shelters, but some, like my Gran, had a Morrison shelter inside the house. It was a sort of cage thing with a steel top that was supposed to stop the house falling on you and killing you. Gran’s shelter had a snooker table on the top. My cousin Jean ripped the felt with a pool cue once and blamed me for it. I have never let her forget it.

Anyway, there I was on an expedition for fuel on that bitter night. There was only enough slack left to fill an old boot, which is what I was doing when I heard the air raid sirens start.

The Stick

I started my secondary school life at Handsworth New Road Secondary Modern School, after failing my Eleven Plus exam due to my poor maths and spelling ability, and perhaps my appalling monotonous Birmingham whine. The test was guaranteed to weed out any young boys who were not of the middle class, or aspiring to be. We had no preparation for it at school, and no advantages at home, such as books, or interesting discussions on world affairs after dinner. There was no literature at my home, and no newspapers either, except the Sports Argus at the weekend.  So the system worked very well at keeping working class children from places like Winson Green out of Grammar Schools and higher education.

So, in my short trousers, which all boys wore until the age of fourteen, I arrived with all the other boys at the melting pot for local youth; to be prepared for the factories of Birmingham, a form of slave labour. It was necessary that British society get the fodder ready for a life of discipline in the factories as well as teaching them a modicum of reading, writing and arithmetic.

From the first day at Handsworth New Road Secondary Modern School, discipline was ruthlessly enforced with the pain of the cane. For the smallest offence a slim willowy cane was slashed on the offending boy’s hand. I was of course no exception; I ‘got the stick’ on the first day at my new school, for picking up a compass in the Science Lab, after being plainly told not to touch anything.

At the age of twelve, everyone seemed tall to me, especially the Science Master, Mr ‘Slinker’ Priest, although I realised later on in my time at this school that he was a small man. I believe that he would have made a good stand-in for the witch in 'The Wizard of Oz’, if witches were men. ‘Slinker’ and the witch still give me nightmares, even in my galloping old age.

I was long gone when this picture was taken, but this is pretty much how this scene looked in the 1940s.
Handsworth New Road School is on the right. We lived in Preston Road, and the BP on the corner
of Preston Road was where my brother worked for awhile, and sabotaged Slinker Priest’s car.

When I picked up the compass, ‘Slinker’ pointed at me and called out, ‘You, boy, come here’. He made me hold my hands out in front of me, and wait for my very first caning on my very first day at Senior School, trembling.

'Hold your hands still!' he screamed. He pushed up my hands with the end of his long willowy cane and looked down his long willowy nose at me. He rose on the balls of his feet to get a better strike, and hovered there to let me suffer some more in anticipation. I could see my friend Barry sitting in the front row of the long lines of wooden desks. He squirmed on the hard seat, lowered his eyes uneasily and looked at the ink pot stuck into the well of his desk. He made sure not to touch it, nor the very interesting Bunsen burner in front of him. He was happy that he was not being caned, and was fully aware of the pain that 'the stick' inflicted. The whole class of boys watched with interest as the cane 'whooshed' down, hardly hurting at all until seconds later, when the blood that had been momentarily stopped tried to flow through my constricted veins, bringing with its efforts, acute pain.

Corporal punishment was common enough in those days, and what seems barbaric to the enlightened of today was dished out regularly to juveniles at school in the 1940s. Holding both hands under my armpits, for ‘Slinker’ didn't stop at one, I went back to my seat and tried not to cry. I remember exactly why I was subjected to this unlawful common assault, and I thought then and now that it was barbaric. It left me with a memory of pain, humiliation, and a bitter hatred of Mr ‘Slinker’ Priest, who I still see in my mind’s eye as the witch in the 'Wizard of Oz' even today; even though he was a small man.

Postscript: Handsworth New Road Secondary Modern School is now a home for single Indian mothers.

Long Trousers

When I was a youngster, the purchase and wearing of a boy’s first pair of long trousers was a major event. It marked the anthropological changeover from being a boy to taking one of the first steps towards manhood. I didn’t look forward to this time in my life, for being short of stature, I knew I would get a razzing from my playmates at school when I appeared in my very first pair of ‘longies’.

Boys wore short trousers and long socks until the age of 13 or 14. 
I always kept my socks pulled up neatly, unlike Michael, whose socks were usually around his ankles

Mom had bought the long flannel trousers from ‘Peacocks’ a shop on the ‘Main’, as that part of Soho Road was called where the shops congregated. Auntie Chris, who had a treadle driven Singer sewing machine, had cut the legs of the trousers, because they were too long, and hemmed the ends to suit my shorter legs. She had measured me in front of my mother and my laughing brother. He was younger than me and was therefore safe from derision for at least for another two years.

Auntie Chris arrived with the doctored long trousers in a brown paper bag and advised me to go upstairs to my bedroom and try them on in case they needed some minor adjustments. Mom, Auntie Chris and my brother waited in the back room for my grand entrance. I tentatively tiptoed down the tortuous wooden stairs, holding on to the rickety wooden rail that was held to the wall by only one desperate screw. I opened the door at the bottom of the stairs and whooped with as much bravado as I could muster in this critical situation in my life, ‘Ta Da!’

Auntie Chris shouted delightedly at her handiwork, ‘Ooh, they fit ‘pearfict’, and don’t they make him look oldah!’

Mom wisely said nothing, and gazed out into the back yard as though deep in contemplation of the coal heap. My brother burst into hysterical laughter. ‘Yow look a right prat Tone, yow look like a little old man’, he said.

Mom absent-mindedly smacked him on the back of the head with her open palm, and said, ‘Don’t swear Michael. Yes they’ll do, our Chris’.

After the performance I went upstairs and changed back into my comfortable shorts. I lay on my bed looking at the ceiling thinking how I could delay this terrible event tomorrow and the resulting embarrassment. I turned over the situation in my mind. I didn’t mind parading in front of my own family, but going to school and walking through scores of boys in the playground, all laughing at me, was another matter. I knew that I could not delay growing up, and as a man I would look stupid in boy's shorts. I came to the conclusion that there was no way out of wearing those bloody long trousers.

Monday morning came. I put on my long trousers and Michael sporadically laughed at me as we got ready for school. It was pouring down with rain and my shoes had holes in the soles, and cardboard would not keep out the water. Mom said I had better put on my Wellingtons. Not being experienced with long trousers, I wondered if I should wear them outside of the ‘wellies’ or push them down in the top and in my socks. I decided to push them into the top of the boots. So off I went to school in the rain, with my brother by my side. I approached Handsworth New Road Secondary Modern School and looked through the railings with some apprehension. No one was there that I knew, so I strode into the playground in my long trousers and Wellington boots with an assumed nonchalant air. Because it was raining, the Prefects let us into the school and I sat down at my desk so that I could hide my legs.

During that momentous day, I was ready and waiting with a practiced retort for any comment concerning my trousers, but not one schoolboy or teacher mentioned my change in apparel or my consequent move into manhood. Not even Mr Archer, with his twinkling blue eyes, who reminded me of Alan Ladd the film star, said a word about it.

All morning I savoured being a man, and imagined that I had become, or looked, somewhat taller, and perhaps my voice had started to deepen just a little, and maybe there was the beginning of some whiskers on my face. But by dinnertime I had forgotten all about my sudden transformation into manhood and was galloping around the asphalted playground with all the other boys. Because we were cowboys, and I was Hopalong Cassidy (in my ‘wellies’), the famous American cowboy who was on at the ABC Regal on Saturday mornings, and I was not concerned with such trivialities as long or short trousers. I had a posse to run and some rustlers to find.

Hopalong was one of my western heroes.

This is how we dressed fo 'PT', in shorts and plimsolls with no socks or shirts, not matter what the weather.

King Edwards Grammar School and the Eleven Plus Exam

After attending primary school, which I liked,  I wanted to go to a Grammar School. But to do that, you had to pass a test called the ‘Eleven Plus’. So on a certain day I went on the bus, by myself, to King Edward’s Grammar School to take the test. King Edward’s was a Grammar School just like the ‘Red Circle School’ in the Rover boy’s comic. Pupils wore blazers with gold badges on their pockets. I think that’s why I wanted to go to a Grammar School, to get a gold badge. There were lots of other boys there to take the test, but I didn’t see anyone from my school. The King Edward’s boys and teachers didn’t seem to think much of us boys from council schools, and mostly ignored us.

King Edward's Grammar School, Aston

I remember there was a statue of ‘King Edward the something’ in the playground. They called it a quadrangle; I’m not sure why - it looked just like a playground. Some boys called Prefects, who wore blazers with a coloured edging on the lapels, lined us up to go inside. We were told that at ‘lunchtime’ we could go to the ‘Tuck Shop’. I knew what lunch meant because I had read about it in the Rover and that’s what Auntie Jess called it.  But I knew it was really dinnertime, and Mom had given me two bob to spend.

The classroom was very old and the desks were all carved with boys’ initials of other times. The desks had ink pots and steel nib pens just like at our school. Biros were not allowed, a Master said; it didn’t matter because I hadn’t got one anyway. The Master - they didn’t have teachers - with a big moustache like a walrus, said passing this test was the chance for any boy with a modicum of intelligence, whatever that was, to get into a first class Grammar School. He told us confidentially that it was just basic English, Maths, and so on, some Civic Affairs and some common sense.

He said we must not start the exam until he said so, and if we turned over the exam paper before that, we would face dire consequences. Then after a pause, he wished us good luck, and said ‘Begin!’

The Maths questions involved things that I had never heard of, but the English ones were easy, except nobody had told me what an adjective was. The Civic Affairs questions were about who was the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, what was the name of the Prime Minister, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and things like that. These were things that any normal pupil would know, the Master had said, things that we would have gleaned from any newspaper that one would see at home, or during conversation around the dining table.  But contrary to his assumptions, I didn’t know the answers to the Civic Affairs questions. We didn’t have a dining room table at home, nor did we have conversation at dinnertime. And the only newspapers we ever had at home were the ‘Sports Argus’ and the ‘Sporting Buff’. There were lots of questions that I had no idea about. I failed my eleven plus.

SOME QUESTIONS FROM THE ELEVEN PLUS

Arithmetic

1 A man left home at 11.30 a.m. and cycled 5 miles to a railway station at the rate of 12 miles an hour. He waited 10 minutes at the station and then travelled by train a distance of 36 miles at the rate of 24 miles an hour. At what time did he reach his destination?

2 There were 9,975 spectators at a football match. This is 5 per cent more than were present at the preceding match. How many attended the previous match?

General English

1 Write out the following passage again, including only the one correct word from each bracket: The boy (who, whom, what) we met at the baths and (who, whom, what) spoke to (you, I, me) and (you, I, me) is Harry Baines; he (use, used) to live near me and he often (come, came, went) to my house to play with me. He had a good stamp collection; the total number of his stamps (are, was, were) more than three thousand. (He, Him, Me) and (I, him, me) (was, am, were) great friends.

2 Make adjectives from these nouns: beauty, slope, glass, friend, doubt, expense, delight, sleep, danger, sport.

Comprehension

Read the following story from Aesop's Fables, and then answer the questions:

Belling the Cat A large family of merry mice lived happily together in the cellar of a lofty house. Their only enemy was a fierce, black cat, who kept the mice in constant fear of a sudden and cruel death. Even in the dead of night it was not safe for them to stir far from their holes in search of food, and they found much difficulty in getting enough to eat. One day the mice met together to try and find a way out of their plight. 'I will tell you what to do,' said a young mouse. 'Let us tie a bell round the wretched cat's neck, then we can always hear her coming.' On hearing this suggestion all the mice began to squeak with delight, except one old grey whiskered mouse who said, ' The advice is very good, but who will bell the cat?'

Where did the mice live? What feelings had they towards the cat? What did the young mouse suggest should be done to the cat?

General Intelligence/Knowledge

The leader of a Guide patrol is named Mary Jenkins; so her surname is Jenkins, her Christian name is Mary, and her initials are M.J. There are 6 other girls in her patrol; each has 2 initials. Surnames: Brown, Smith, Evans, Clark, Jones. Christian names: Molly, Celia, Gwen, Ruth, Sally. Two girls have surname and Christian names beginning with the same letter; two others are named Ruth. One of the twins has the same initials as the leader, and the other has the same Christian name as Evans. Write down each girl's full name.

ANSWERS

Arithmetic

1. 1.35 p.m.      2. 9,500 spectators

General English

1. The boy whom we met at the baths and who spoke to you and me is Harry Baines; he used to live near me and he often came to my house to play with me. He had a good stamp collection; the total number of his stamps was more than three thousand. He and I were great friends.

2. beautiful, sloping, glassy, friendly, doubting, expensive, delightful, sleeping, dangerous, sporting/sporty

Comprehension

The mice lived in the cellar of a lofty house. The mice had feelings of enmity and fear towards the cat. The young mouse suggested that the cat have a bell tied round its neck so they could hear it coming.

General Intelligence/Knowledge

1. Celia Clark Sally Smith Molly Jones Ruth Jones Ruth Evans Gwen Brown