I distinctly remember our ‘taster’ day, the term before starting. Three people went from my primary school, myself, * and *. I can visualise being in the hall which had a stage and raised seating areas on both sides. I thought that I would like to make friends with a particular girl, probably because I envied her pony tail but we were never in the same class. There was a four form entry and * and I were in S1.22 (S denoted a senior school class) with English teacher Miss * as our form mistress. She was one of the younger teachers. Many of our class already knew each other from having been in the junior school together. From that first day, I remember * and *. They both sat near the front and they later became my particular friends. * and I sat near the back, with * and * in front of us. Someone had made a mistake with class numbers and two people were asked to volunteer to move to S1.21 instead. * and * got there before * and I. Had I been moved, my friendships might have been very different as, until year four, we were taught in class groups for everything except Maths and French, for which we were set by ability; we were later also set for music. Class sizes were about thirty until we reached sixth form, when they were much smaller, perhaps twelve, or fewer for subjects, such as Religious Knowledge, that were undersubscribed.

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The school was a new one, having only been on that site, in Selsdon, for a year when I arrived. When I was in the upper school, probably in the sixth form, there was a proposal to build a swimming pool and an aggressive fundraising campaign began. Each year, we held ‘Guild Day’, when the whole school had various stalls to raise money for charity. One year we were told not to bring in all our second-hand items for Guild Day, as we would need them for fund raising for the swimming pool. I and one or two  others were vocal in our objection to this. Miss Cameron, the headmistress, said if we weren’t going to help raise money for the swimming pool, that was fine but then we should not use it once it was built. Despite enjoying swimming, I never did.

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We could usually sit where we liked, although some teachers wanted us to stick to the same seats, presumably to help them remember who we were. In the winter months, I always made a beeline for a seat next to the radiator, as I felt the cold. ​Although the building was modern, Some of the equipment was not and we had desks with lids that came in pairs. Each was equipped with an inkwell, which was regularly refilled by the ink monitor. The inkwells frequently also got filled with blotting paper, making them unpleasant and unusable. We were expected to write with fountain pen and everyone was provided with a scratchy dip pen when we first entered the school, although I don’t think anyone actually used these, unless they’d forgotten their own pen. In the first years at the school, most of our pens needed to be filled using the ink from the inkwells. You squeezed a rubber reservoir inside the pen, which then filled with ink. Cartridge pens soon proved less messy, making the inkwells redundant. In the last few years at school we were allowed to write with biro.

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Like most school children, the compass in the pencil case proved just too tempting and many desks were embellished with carvings. When one pupil carved f**k on a desk, a word that was very rarely heard in conversation at that time, it was a step too far. After assembly, the first years were asked to leave, leaving my class, then in the second year, sitting in the front row. Miss Cameron was a diminutive lady of Scottish heritage, with an icy stare, a masters degree in bio-chemistry from Cambridge and a manner that could be acerbic. She was, in most ways, an excellent head mistress. Her speech on this occasion began, ‘You may think it is amusing to write f**k on a desk…..’. The impact of hearing any adult, let alone our headmistress, use this word was astounding. The rate of carving on desks probably dropped significantly for some time.

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I travelled to school on the ‘Shirley coach’ for which mum paid termly, aided by a travel grant from the council. The coach was organised by one of the parents. I had to walk up beyond Shirley Library to a side street and wait for the coach, which occasionally didn’t turn up. The coach was over-subscribed and we often sat three to a seat. Legally, this was only allowed for those under the age of ten and this seemed to be a senior school only venture, so no one was that young. Occasionally, an officious driver refused to let the additional people on and we were left marooned. In retrospect, he was well within his rights. On the bus, I became friendly with and usually sat next to *.

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We came home on the bus, or rather buses, usually getting the 54 or 64 from Selsdon to Croydon and then the 194 family (194, 194a, 194b or 194c) or 119 home. An alternative was to get a 130 from Croydon and then a long walk from Shirley Oaks but I did this occasionally for variety and to save the fare. Once a year we tried to walk all the way home. Once we were fourteen and therefore liable for adult bus fares, we were issued with bus passes, so that we could continue to pay half fare. You did ask for ‘a half to Shirley’, or wherever, rather than say ‘a child’, as you would now.

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I can’t remember the official school start time, perhaps 8.50am or 9am but the first lesson began at 9.20am. The school day ended at 3.45 on Mondays, Tuesday and Thursdays, when there were eight, thirty five minute[1] lessons each day. On Wednesdays and Fridays, there were only seven lessons and school finished at 3.10pm. In the fourth form and in the lower sixth[2] we had Friday afternoons off, shortening our timetable by a further two lessons per week.

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It was unheard of to go home for lunch. We were expected to commit to school dinners for half a term and I tried these in my first half term and I think a couple of times for half terms after that; it did not go well and I almost always took a packed lunch.

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From S1.22 on the ground floor, we became S2.15, at the top of four-storey high K block, then to S111.17, back on the shady ground floor with maths teacher, Miss *. There followed two years with Miss *, as IV.10 and V.10. We were mixed up and split into much smaller sixth form classes, but our friendships had been established in the first five years. I was in VI.1.31a and then VI.2.31a, with Miss *. Almost everyone stayed on to sixth form.

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The school day began with registration in our form rooms. In the first to fifth forms, the register was arranged alphabetically by surname and we were each allocated a number; I was 5. This meant that the teacher did not have to say anything; we just called out our numbers in order. If someone was absent, we said so. For most of the time, there were thirty people in the class and we always finished with ‘thirty one is dead’. Looking back, I am quite surprised that it was never suggested that this was inappropriate. Next was the daily assembly, with prayers, a hymn and I think a short talk, as well as notices. It was a relief to reach the age, fourth form I think, when we no longer sat on the floor, instead we had chairs on the raised portion of the hall, or in the dining room, which could be opened up on to the hall, creating a balcony. At the beginning and/or the end of each term we said the school prayer, which was glued in the back of our Songs of Praise hymn books. I can still remember extracts from this.

 

My first year timetable shows that we were taught English, maths, science (physics), biology, history, geography, French, RE, PE, swimming, needlework, art, music, and singing. We had English, maths and French every day but for most subjects, we had two lessons a week. The following year, Latin and chemistry were added to the timetable and swimming was dropped.

 

We were provided with exercise books and each subject was allocated a different coloured cover, purple for RE, yellow for French, red for history and so on. Further up the school, we used loose-leaf paper fastened in to folders with treasury tags. Some subjects, such as geography (pale green cover), had larger books with plain paper, so we could draw in them, or past in maps produced in purple ink on the Banda machine. Some teachers were more adventurous and managed to use more than one colour. We also had a rough book, with inferior quality paper, for notes. The stationery monitor was responsible for issuing new books which were checked and initialled by the teacher, to indicate that you hadn’t wasted pages.

 

I was put in set B for maths. I think these sets ranged from B to D or E and there were two set Bs. I was taught by Miss * and then, for ‘O’ level, by Miss *. Maths is one of the subjects where I actually did better during the term that I spent at home in the fourth form. Work was sent regularly for me in all subjects and other pupils visited and lent me their books so that I could copy their notes.

 

I started off in set E for French in the first year. This was the set for those who had not previously done very much French. By the second year, we were amalgamated with the other sets and I drifted between sets C and D, of 4. We had, what was at the time, a state of the art ‘language lab’ but I found spoken French more difficult than the written work. Despite this, I passed my French aural ‘O’ level the first time and failed the written exam. Latin gave me up after two years; languages are just not my thing. I did try and * and I were once told off for writing in our rough books during Latin, when we were in fact taking notes but I somehow didn’t take to Latin at all. * and I didn’t actually need to pass notes as we learned the alphabet in sign language and communicated in class in this way. We got quite proficient and could spell out words rapidly.

 

I definitely preferred biology to physics or chemistry. We benefitted from new science labs, where we sat on high wooden stools and had gas taps, asbestos mats and Bunsen burners on each large desk. Geography was usually taught on the top floor of K block. For some reason a life-sized model crocodile lived in one of the geography rooms. It may be that it was left over from a Guild Day. I particularly liked mapwork and relied on the mapwork and weather questions to boost my marks in geography exams. I still enjoy following driving routes on Ordnance Survey maps.

 

We did hockey, netball and gym in the winter and tennis, cricket and rounders in the summer. I quite enjoyed tennis and in the summer term of the first year I went in on a Saturday for coaching from coaches from the Lawn Tennis Association but I was still pretty useless. Cricket, with the heavy ball that made me fear for my glasses and hockey on the freezing redgra pitch at the top of the hill were the worst. I do remember the excitement when the England football team, who were staying at neighbouring Selsdon Park Hotel, practiced on our hockey pitch. This was the era of the likes of Gordon Banks. After each PE lesson was the humiliation of the communal showers. These were a U shape and you had to run round the U and rescue your towel at the end. We made endless excuses to get out of these, with the ‘time of the month’ being the obvious one, to the extent that one teacher questioned our biology. She was particularly sceptical that so many of us used this excuse at once. There is a, largely debunked, theory that the cycles of women who are in close proximity often do align.

 

I had extra-curricular ballroom dancing lessons in the second year but was disillusioned by always having to be the boy. The fact that I can’t ballroom dance has never been a handicap in my later life.

 

I always enjoyed art and thought that I was quite passable at it until the humiliation of failing ‘O’ level, twice. Miss * taught us for ‘O’ level and as she managed to write a report for me for the term when I was absent and therefore did no art, I obviously didn’t make much of an impression. Lower down the school, I remember being remonstrated with for painting an entire sheet of paper red, which I wanted for a background; I should obviously just have asked for red sugar paper. Apart from drawing and painting, we also did lino-cut printing and pottery. I also enjoyed needlework, taught by Miss *. Certainly by the third year, we were allowed to choose what to make and she helped us with the patterns we had chosen. I made a green flowery dress and one point. I liked music too and was in set B. We used to listen to classical music and follow along in the scores, which was more fun than it sounds. I do have a recollection of working through music theory books but I don’t think I took an exam.

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Drama was something else I enjoyed and we had an outdoor ‘drama courtyard’ with a stage and ranked steps for the audience, as well as a drama studio and a hall suitable for performances. Each year, the fourth to sixth form students could form groups to take part in the Drama Festival and I was Miss Prism in the Importance of Being Ernest in 6.1, along with others of my former V.10 classmates. At the end of 6.1, the school play was Schiller’s Mary Stuart. Granted, the two main characters are female but there were a lot of male supporting roles for girls to fill. I was Bellievre, the envoy to the Duke of Anjou.​