| Sheona's Incredibly Un-Interesting Autobiography |
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| One of my last memories of Germany was walking accross the school playground with a friend, eating a packet of Refreshers and saying "It's 1969 you know". And the only reason I remember that is that one of the bigger kids made us cry by saying that the teachers would take our sweets away if they saw them. We arrived in England in the dark. Dad collected us from the airport, and I'm pretty sure he drove us to Camberley in a van. He'd bought me a little embroidery kit as a hello present, I remember only that it had yellow plastic rings. We lived in a row of little box - really, cube shaped - houses with flat roofs. They were perpendicular to the road, facing an identical set, with a bit of grass and a tree between them. At the back was a yard, with a high wall around it. That is an English yard, not an American one - the main difference between the two is that in America what they call a yard is what I call a garden. Some people would say lawn, but I think that's pushing it a bit. Or posh. Or both. Our yard was a bit of tarmac, with the high wall and a bit of a flower bed at the back. We never grew flowers, but later on when we got a cat she had a great time burying squirrels in it. The houses were staggeringly ugly. If you didn't know that you were in the 1960s, these houses were a shocking reminder of the decade that stamped all over stylish buildings. Constructed of brieze blocks, the top halves had brick cladding which was painted. Some clown in the DoE (Department of the Environment) who was having a joke at our expense had the upper half of our row of houses painted green. Pale green. Sickly pale green. Imagine the embarassment: we now lived in a greenhouse! As I was getting older, I obviously have more memories of living here. The change to decimal money came in 1972 I believe, but the coins were starting to filter through to us before then (the 10 pence piece at least, which replaced the two bob bit - ah, that is the two shilling coin, sometimes known as a florin. But not by me... not yet, anyway.) The early 70s were the famous Wilson winters of discontent. And discontented we were! The power strikes severely disrupted our viewing of Penelope Pitstop, Wacky Races and the Clangers. I went to school in a terrapin, and reported back each day to my father the colour of one of the teacher's knickers (they were revealed when she pulled rather enthusiastically on the bell rope, very short dresses were en Vogue that year). I have no idea if he found this information interesting or not. I'm thinking that maybe I should explain the terrapin in case anyone thinks that we went to school in a hard shelled aquatic animal. Terrapins are temporary buildings, most often seen in schools and on building sites. Any passing turtles wouldn't be tempted to flutter it's eyelashes - probably they don't actually have eyelashes, but you're getting the point I assume - at one of these beasts. They were (and probably still are) ugly things. Resembling terrapins - the animal - in only one respect - the colour of some of their side panels was green - they were like big boxes. For some bizzarre reason they were usually balanced on piles of paving slabs - which meant that they were raised somewhat from the ground. So of course we loved playing underneath them. Which was, of course - with that unerring instinct for spotting 'fun thinks for kids to do' demonstrated by parents and teachers alike - instantly banned. Life trundled on. The winter of discontent wasn't easy on the adults I suspect, but for the kids - apart from being deprived of our favourite tv shows - it was quite a good time. The mothers banded together and ensured that dinners arrived on tables in a sort of blitz spirit. The DoE in their infinite wisdom had arranged that cooking facilities for half the houses on the estate were fuelled by gas, the other half by electricity. The striking workers cut gas and electricity on alternate days. Following their Army husbands' tradition they "buddied up" with someone, and took it in turns to cook 2-family meals. Of couse, we kids didn't notice this at all. Beans on the table was all that counted for us. But I do have vivid memories of the days when the electricity was off and the heating wasn't working. At these times my brother, mum and I would huddle around the open gas cooker, with the oven on. Sundays were Mum's day off. Dad would take Spencer and I walking in the woods, and pretend to get us lost. He'd get us worried about starving to death before producing sweets and chocolate from his coat pockets. No ordinary sweets these, they came from Army tinned rations. The boiled sweets were green, red, orange and white and wrapped in waxed paper. Very strange to us - but tasty. The chocolate was the best though, especially when it was Tiffin bars, made for the Ministry of Defence by Cadbury. Small bars of milk chocolate with raisins, nuts and little biscuits, they were totally unavailable commercially. On one of these walks we (ie Dad) collected sticks for school, which were then made into a Tipi (which we, in those unnlightened times called a wigwam). We were probably doing some kind of project, but to be honest, apart from terrapins - the buildings - and the short skirted teacher I only have 2 memories of that school that stand out. Oh 3. That is one of the school photos, and when I remember I'll get a copy and put it here: |
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| Part 3 - Back in Blighty |
| There will be a school photo here. When I get it.... Imagine if you will, the 6 year old me... very pale brown hair, which is shoulder length but tied in two high bunches, and decorated with pale blue ribbons with silver embroidery. (Don't laugh, ribbons were all the rage then) I have a big grin on my face, because at that stage I didn't realise that freckles might be considered unattractive by some. The school uniform consisted of a maroon v-neck jumper and a grey skirt (which you can't see). So, now I don't actually need to post the photo here, do I? Phew! |
| So, back to the plot.... is anyone still awake? I mentioned two memories, and now I've forgotton what they were... actually I just remembered a couple of other things... oh the delights of aging! One of the mums came in and read to us The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I didn't ever catch the last word, it was a year later when the book actually came into my possession that I realised that it wasn't a War-roam. Still it sowed the seeds of a life-long love of fantasy books. Along with my bookworm parents Student teachers did placements with us. One of them had a friend who could get paper for us, which came from some company or other. No idea. It was the old green-striped computer print out paper, in 2 ply, with a layer of carbon paper. We used to put the huge stack of paper in the middle of a long table, and formed a production line to separate the layers. We loved this more than actually doing something with the fruits of our labours, and "Paper Machine Duty" was always oversubscribed. Not so the hand washing afterwards. Our carbon blackened hands were a source of terror to the other school children - especially the infants, since we were now Top Infants, whatever they may be - that we chased unmercilessly around the playground. I can also remember some Christmas show we did - in a bold break with tradition not a nativity - which involved the whole of my class appearing as Santa's elves dressed in woolly tights and matching jumpers (pullovers) and bobble hats. Strange garb for an elf! The producer of this piece probably had their artistic licence endorsed immediatly after the show. One of the terrapins - building - housed a weekly ballet class, which was briefly graced (ha!) by my presence. Mincing around and being a tree was never my strong point, and anyway, Blue Peter was much better. Final school - and I think it was the Branksome Hill Road Junior school, but I'll have to check - memory is of .... hang on to your hats: School Milk. First a word about School Milk: YUK! The whole concept of School Milk was a Good Thing, since it there were plenty of kids who probably never drank milk anywhere else. But then, ther are people who would say that school dinners were a Good Thing, and quite frankly I think the lot of them should be lined up and shot. If the providers of School Milk had seen fit to deliver a School Milk Fridge at the same time, and not placed the milk crates in the warmest possible spot, the 10:30am milk drinking session wouldn't have been such an ordeal. As it was we sat in our classroom, 30 of us, each equipped with a cardboard straw and a dinky little 1/3 pint bottle of milk. Warm milk, as in 'warm because it hasn't been in the fridge', rather than 'warm because your mum heated it up and gave it to you in your bunny mug with a nice dollop of honey in it'. The Geneva Convention has rules about cruel and unusual punishment, but I'd be prepared to bet that the Minister for Education was banking on the fact that none of the 6 year olds in the country had read it. Indeed we hadn't, engrossed in the works of C.S. Lewis as we were. And so there we were. 10:30, and the Milk Monitor (they should have worn arm bands like "trustys" in prisons) would dole out the straws, and then distribute the bottles. Dinky the bottles might have been, but to those of us who were used to "nice cold, ice cold" milk, they were instruments of torture. Some kids were lucky, their neighbour or one of the surrounding kids would have an infininite capacity for "the white stuff". I was not one of the lucky ones, and had to close my eyes and drink for England. Because otherwise Dire Punishment followed: no playtime outside! People who know me in Real Life have probably noticed that I'm not really Margaret Thatcher's number 1 fan. Not even close. But the day she, as Education Minister, made the cost-cutting decision to end School Milk, I could have kissed her. The tabloid papers of the time dubbed her "Thatcher the Milk Snatcher" but to generations of school kids she was an avenging angel. Life in Sandhurst was pretty nice. Dad arranged for me to have the tv comic Look-in delivered, which was great because at the time I watched great shows like Dr.Who and another one who's name escapes me now. It involved 2 kids who could go through an invisible barrier, which led to an Alternate Universe. I think. They were constantly persued by a group of people collectively known as a Think Tank. My intimitate knowledge of all things military (I knew that a Chieftain tank weighed 52 tons fully armed) lead to some confusion in my mind about a Thinking Tank, I thought one of those would be pretty cool, but I never saw a large, green, tracked vehicle the whole time I watched the programme. Another big favourite of the time was Catweazle. The less said about the better. One time I was out in the woods with my brother and mum close by the target shooting ranges. A horse came galloping up, with a green-clad but rather dashing figure on its back. I was rather impressed when the horse screeched to a halt and it turned out to be my dad! If the it had been popular at the time no doubt I would have punched the air and shouted "Cool! Way to go Dad!". Although that would probably have startled the horse and set off an unfortunate chain of events, so upon reflection that is a Good Thing. Other brief memories of that time: Aunty Pip and Uncle Don (and possibly also my grown up cousin Christine) coming over for dinner. Mum slaved away, and her piece de resistance was a lemon souffle. Which I refused to eat, rather loudly and forcefully, on the grounds that it looked just like scrambled egg. Another time I had to have my lunch at home for some reason, and since my mum was visiting her mum with Spencer (I think) Dad came home and brought us packed lunches from the mess or the cookhouse, I don't know which. I thought this was a great adventure, since we ate the sandwiches out of the packet (no plates) sitting on the floor. Oops, sorry Dad. Did she know about that already? Someone who briefly popped back into my life much later on who we used to see around the grounds of the Staff College at Sandhurst was Padre Mallet. He caught me and a friend collecting conkers once, but he was more interested in our conker playing technique than telling us off. That tree was a dangerous proposition, however, because it was very close to the lake, which was inhabited by numerous, viscious Canada geese. Viscious and evil they might have been, but it was still one of our favourite family passtimes to go down to the lake and feed the ducks. And Dad being the military man he is, there was none of this innaccurate tearing up of slices of bread. Oh no. The slices of stale bread were stacked carefully, and then cut into cubes. Now I never caught him at it, but I'm prepared to give evidence in a court of law that he measured them precicely. Then there were all the formal Mess functions, I always thought Dad looked great in his Mess Uniform, and mum was like a princess in her long evening dresses, once with her hair in an elabourate style with silk flowers in the curls at the back. Of course, I remember best the Petit Fours that she always saved and brought back for us. Not that I'm mercenary. Speaking of which (mercenaries, that is...) At the time we had no washing machine, so everyone used to go to the laundrette once a week to do the washing. The woman who ran the place kept one machine free for the oild coveralls - which showed how many Army families used the place. Years later I discovered that above the laundrette mercenaries who went to fighn in Angola were recruited! I could go on for ever about those halcyon (? uh? what's that then?) days, but .... well... who's interested? I could tell you about the painter who Dad insisted on calling Jerry (Mungo Jerry had 'In the Summertime' in the carts back then), the fascination with which we kids watched some men dig a pipe trench along the length of the grass outside our houses and then fill it with stones, that we proceeded to throw at each other. The semi-wild cat that followed Dad home and adopted us - a tabby that we in a rush of originality called Tigger - although she never became tame. Days spent playing at my friend - with a civilian father - at their huge, detached house with an equally huge garden. It seemed strange to me that her Father was home every night and every weekend. And how could I forget the horse that took part in the passing out parades for the baby officers? It marched accross the parade ground, up the steps and through the main doors of the Officers' Mess. It was years before I could appreciate how difficult that was for a four footed creature. Instead I'll get on with the story. After two-ish (and yes, I know that "two-ish" isn't really a proper word combination... but I don't care, I like it!) years we left Camberley/Sandhurst and moved into another cube of a house in Windsor. |