10 Life Lessons. Number 9.

And then it happened. A life-changing event.

Sometime in 1967, Mum and Dad got a letter from the council. They’d got what they wanted. An offer of a three-bedroom house on a really nice council estate about 3 miles away.

We all jumped into Dad's old van and drove to see what was to be our new house. It was empty apart from the council workers who were there making it ready for its new occupants, us.

It was Mum's dream house. It was what she called a “back to front” house because the kitchen was at the front and the living room was at the back. It had two toilets, and they were both inside the house! One upstairs in the bathroom and one downstairs.  I’d have my own bedroom, even if it was the smallest room in the house, it didn’t matter, it was mine. The back garden wasn’t huge but it was okay and the best part of all of this was…when you opened the back gate you walked onto a large playing field. About the size of a football pitch! Heaven.

Six weeks later we moved in. I could have moved schools but I only had eighteen months to go before I went to “Big School”, so I stayed where I was. If you knew all the shortcuts and back alleys ( as I did.) the walk to school was less than thirty minutes. My new best mate, Terry Dormer, lived about halfway so every morning I knocked on his door and we made the journey together.

We worked out a route. Once we’d left his house, we’d walk to the shops and then turn left until we came to the railway bridge. We’d cross the bridge, cross the road, climb over a park gate that for some reason was always locked, go through the park and into an alley. This took us to the butcher's shop, behind the shop was a labyrinth of alleyways that eventually brought us to the back entrance to the school. Door to door, 25 minutes. You couldn’t do it quicker in a car.

In 1968, I entered the final year of my time at Gascoigne. We were an old-fashioned Victorian school with certain standards and traditions. We had a “Head Boy, Head Girl and Prefects.” These were all chosen from the pupils in their final year. The year I had now entered.

The favourite to be “Head Boy” was a kid called Mark Davis. Every year in the Juniors I’d been “Top Of The Class”, Mark Davis had always been a close second. But unlike me, Mark wasn’t a member of any “gang”, he’d never been caned by the Headmaster, he’d never played Kiss Chase and snogged one of the girls behind the toilets at the end of the playground, he’d never had his nose bloodied by one of the bigger boys, as far as I knew he’d never had nits and he was absolutely useless at climbing a rope. But,  If ever a kid was destined to be “Head Boy” it was Mark Davis.

We sat cross-legged in the hall at assembly waiting for the Headmaster to announce the new order. He started with the Prefects. 2 boys and 2 Girls. I made a mental note, the two boys were going to be a walkover, I’d already beaten one in a fight the year before and the other one was a pussycat. No way could they tell me what to do. I sat waiting for Mark Davis’s name to be called for “Head Boy”, but it never happened. Instead, I heard my name being called. I looked around, teachers were clapping and smiling, surely not! Not me…what on earth were they thinking?

But it was happening, I was to be “Head Boy”.

I walked up to the stage, still in disbelief,  and the Headmaster, Mr Wood, smiled and pinned a yellow badge onto my jumper. It said Head Boy.

“Well done Joe. Well deserved.”

It was the first time I’d seen Mr. Wood without a cane in his hand and a stern look on his face.

Head Girl was Pauline Skeels. She was in charge of the girl Prefects and I was in charge of the boys.

Our duties were quite simple. Stop the younger kids from running up and down the stairs and in the hall. Break up any fights that started in the playground or report it to a teacher.

It’s funny, but throughout my four years in junior school, I’d never noticed a Prefect or Head Boy. Or had I simply ignored them?

As for breaking up fights, I was usually the one involved in them and now I was the one who had to step in and pull them apart. If it was two kids the same age, then I’d usually step in when it was almost over, but if it was one of the big boys against a younger kid then I’d step in straight away.

I never got the cane again at Gascoigne, instead Mr Wood made a point of saying good morning to me every day. He’d even call me to his office and ask me how things were going. I felt a bit like poacher turned gamekeeper, but I still had all my mates and as far as I was concerned I hadn’t changed, but a little bit of responsibility had made me grow up quickly.

Then suddenly everyone was talking about an exam, a very important exam. The Eleven Plus!

LIFE LESSON NUMBER NINE. Be yourself at all times. People will see you for who you are and you’ll be okay.