early school days

Before I talk of school I think I had better remind anybody who will read this that we had rationing, nightly blackouts and of course had to carry with us at all times our gas masks. Black outs meant just that, it was pitch black outside so we never went out at night. No light must be seen at all and warden would check to see that no light was showing at all. We knew nothing different as it was the way we were bought up so it was normal to us. If we had any new clothes, very rarely that was, we had immediately we were home agin had to change into our everyday clothes. Believe this I even now do this today. Food was rationed and what we children missed most was sugar. Many a time we have put golden syrup in our tea to sweeten it, all it seemed to do was darken the colour. there was plenty of bread and potatoes so we did not go particularly hungry. What we did miss though was fresh fruit. I never saw a banana orange peach apricot pineapple etc. the whole of the war. In fact it would be about 1947 before we saw a banana. The first fruit I saw was a pomegranate. That would be in late 1946 or early 1947 I think they were from Italy. I was not impressed though as there seemed to be 90% pips and little flesh.
So to school. It was late summer in 1942 that I started at an infants school. I was to be there from the age of 5 until age 9 or if your birthday was after the summer holidays and before the late summer intake you could only be 8. I was 9 and 1 month old.
The first day at school. together with our gasmasks we went into uor classromm for the first time. The teacher informed us that if she clapped her hand together, we were to immediately leave what we were doing and get under our desks. She would then read us a story. Thank goodness the real occasion never happened. We had to put our gasmasks on from time to time. All I can remember is that the perspex got steamed up and I could hardly see anything out of them. Still that was how it was. My sister was 4 years older than me and she loved to go and try to find some perspex. She showed me some and told me that it was off an aeroplane but to be honest I was too young to make any judgement. Often though when going to school, which was about 500metres away there would be an UXB with some army men round. Of course we young ones were inquisitive and try to have a look down the crater. We would be told in no uncertain manner to clear off as it was dangerous. Sometimes in the early months of my schooling there would be an air raid and you would be able to see the dogfights in the air. To be honest I had no idea which was which. With the passing of time though thr raids diminished and gas masks were not carried, thank goodness. We were allowed out at break time and gradually the fears of bombing receded.
At 8 we had to move out of the primary school and travel over the road to the local Church Hall. This had been requisitioned because of the increase of children wishing to go to school. It was a wooden hut, similiar to a scouts hut. It was divided into 2 classrooms with a velvet curtain, all there was in each class was a blackboard, a chair for every child and a sort of cloth satchell big enough to hold about 3 excercise books and a couple of pencils. It is a wonder that we were taught anything really but we seemed to do alright. Around this time we had V E celebrations. It is hard to believe but all streets had a party and there would be a piano playing, buntings out all over and food, such food we had never seen before in our lives. The comradeship was just impossible to describe. I was only 8 though so did not really appreciate it as much as I would have done had I been as old as my sister. So at age 9 we now had male and female schools. I was to go to a boys junior school about 175o metres away across the busy A1 road. More of that the next time.