Primary times continued

I'm not sure that I should write this at the moment as my life seems to have sunk to a very low pitch right now, but my desk is one place where I can feel that things are less likely to go awry. So here goes.

Mostly my memories of primary times are of coming to terms with not being an an institution all of the time. Lessons were ok and generally undemanding, and my place in the top group was never in jeapardy. For the first time in my life I was also aware that there were such things as girls and that they were different to us boys. They were the quiet ones and they kept themselves to themselves, they didn't play football or cricket and rarely had anything to do with us roughs. They also worked hard and wrote neatly and never ever got told off.

My least favourite work at school was the handwriting lessons, where we would have to write with nibbed pens, that dipped into the inkwells in our desks. There was a position of responsibility called the ink monitor, and it was their job to make sure that each day the ink wells were full so that ew never ran out and had no excuse not to write. I always managed to make a mess with pen and ink and however hard i tried I could not make those nibs do what was expected. My pages were all blobs and blothches and i got more and more frustrated.

Twice a week we'd get to listen to the radio. Music programs that were accompanied by a printed book. Along to the radio we'd sing, chant or sometimes we'd just listen, and there my love of music was rekindled. Music has the ability to enchant and to transport. It was and still is a way of escaping.

Home life was pretty dull and before long my father had changed jobs again. This time as a shift worker. Consequently our paths rarely crossed as when he was home during the day, we were expected to be out of the house, so that he could sleep. In the evenings he was at work and so relative peace was the order of the day. Weekends and school holidays I recall leaving the house after breakfast, returning for lunch, then away again all afternoon and often through the evening too. Living in the country helped as we were safe from human predation. There were loads of other risks however. Our playgrounds were farmyards, fields and river banks and there we probably learned as much as we did in school.

One farm where we were tolerated was owned by an alcoholic Irishman, who terrorised the village driving his tractor back from the pub each day, with no consideration for any other users of the road. His long suffereing wife, did not allow him drink in the house, but all over the fam there were hidden supplies of cider. Over the years we got to find and sample most of them. We'd play in the hay barn when it was wet, creating rope swings, hideouts and probably damaging large numbers of bales.

Sometimes we'd even play with the animals. younger pigs and sheep were fair game and wed' ride these like small horses. The mature animals were rather more wary and probably dangerous too so we avoided them by and large as they did us.

We learned to drive tractors. The farmer's son would oversee this and in years to come, we'd pay back for the damage by putting in many hours work, haymaking or harvesting.

Much of my time in the village was spent fishing in the river that flowed through. We had been told at school that this river had the distinction of being the onkly river in the world that flowed due north, from source to sink. Whether it's true or not I don't really know or care.

That river I came to know like the back of my hand. I even learned to swim in it eventually. When I wasn't fishing, i was making rafts, or dams or toy boats. In the hard winters it would freeze over and we'd skate or play hockey or just see how far we could go before the ice broke. It was a dirty little river by and large but it was ours.

Fishing began for me with a home made rod cut from a willow tree. All boys in those days carried knives. Not for attacking others but for cutting string and making bows and arrows and for whittling sticks and the like. I'd steal some nylon line and hooks from my father and I'd walk the banks and find ways of catching fish. Bread and worms were the bait and small fry were our trophies. Most of the fish that we caught were no more than 3 or 4 inches long, and mostly theyd be returned to the water. I'd sit on a river bank for hours hoping to catch something bigger but rarely did that happen at that time. It didn't matter, there were always kingfishers, water rats, and dragonflies for company and no-one ever bothered me. I can still smell the river and the stinging nettles.

And so my early boyhood passed. Avoiding conflict with my father became a way of life as did having no money and nothing to spend it on anyway. I sometimes think that those days in the fields and on the riverbank were the best of my life.