A little more

Before I start I must thank K.E. for his kind comments, he will hopefully appreciate my early years although he is not as old as  me but will perhaps have been told by his peers about the war.
 I will say this, perhaps most didn't know about a couple of things, this was that a man used to go round each night in the Winter months checking to see if there was any chink of light showing and if there was he would hammer on your door and tell you to make sure that the blackout curtain was properly in place.
 As my Mother lived alone with us 3 young children she must have lived in fear. It certainly transferred to me whenever there was an air raid warning which seemed to be regular in the early 40s. After the sirens when the bombers were imminent there were what they called 6 pips. I think that is how many there were. They were short blasts to let you know that bombing was imminent.
 My Mother would usher us to the cubby hole which was a storage place under the stairs. That is of course before we had erected the Morrison Shelter. This shelter was named after the Politician.
 As the years went on the air raid sirens got less so that by the time I went to school they were not so severe.
 As youngsters we were inquisitive and one morning walking to the Infants school there was a Soldier guarding a hole, naturally as a 5 year old I went over to have a look. The Soldier told me to clear off unless I wanted to be blown up. Obviously a bomb had fallen and not gone off.
 My Sister who was 4 years older than me used to go looking for perspex, the glass from aeroplanes and when she found a piece she was thrilled to bits. I was too young to look for bits of was damage.
 I told you that the first day at school the teacher told us that if she told us to go under the desk and she would read a book to us. This actually never happened for real. For the last year at Infants we had to go to the local Church Hall which was a wooden hut and was split into 2 classes by a velvet cloth, no desks only a chair and a canvas satchel to hold you few exercise books.
 So it was at 9 I had to walk about a mile over the main A1 road to the Juniors school. I didn't dislike the school at all. It was a large house that was converted into classes, later becoming the Grantham Police Station. It had lovely grounds too. I don't know what it is being used for now.
In 1947 the Winter was as bad as it could be remember, the snow was very deep. What I could remember was that the guttering of nearly all the houses on the Estate was pulled down due to the weight of snow which fell for most days for several weeks. When I eventually wen to work on the Railway some of the old Drivers would tell us that the snow where it had drifted was still in places in May that year
 Eventually the winter relented so it was back to the normal day of walking to school without having to fight my way through drifts.
 I often think it is a wonder that we had any education at all during the war years. I did mention earlier that the Infants school was from 5 years to 9 years. The Juniors which was all male was from 9 years until 13 years and the new Comprehensive school which was commonly called the Dunces school was again mixed and went from 13 years until you left school at 15.
 Of course everyone had to sit the 11+ which for most including me was taken at the age of 10. If you passed the first half you sat a second and if you passed that too you went to the local Grammar school. Quite often it was not what you knew but if your Parents could afford to pay for you went to School on a Saturday morning as Thursdays were taken up by the Local Army Navy and Air Force cadets. You had no option. Happily my Parents were not well off so I went to the Secondary Modern Boys school. More soon.