To get to Trinity I would have to take a bus from Winchmore Hill to Wood Green. Mum applied for a free bus pass as it was over three miles from Bush Hill Parade to Wood Green. The pass was denied because, although Bush Hill was, indeed, the nearest stop to the house, the direction was away from Wood Green. I was supposed to walk from a stop that was further away from the house but in the direction of Wood Green. Mum was not pleased that I had to be given my bus fare. When Dad had been at home, I was given one shilling a week pocket money but Mum didn't give me any, so, to save money, I would sometimes walk home from school. When Gran and Grandad discovered I was not given pocket money, this was soon remedied. Fortunately, I would have my lunch with them every day.
The first day at Trinity finally came. Only two others from Raglan, Peter Haines and Tony Heaton, were also going to Trinity and I didn't really know them. Neither of them was in the same form as me. The classes were much smaller than those at Raglan and, of course, you had different teachers for each subject. The classes were named 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D. I was in 1D and had to assure my mother that the classes were un-streamed.
My form teacher was Mr. Whisken - inevitably called "Whiskers" - and he was Burmese. I looked forward, especially, to meeting my English teacher and he turned out to be a middle-aged man called Mr. Eustance, who also taught Latin. I sat with a boy named Alan Willett in the front desk in the middle row of three.
We began French lessons, our teacher being Miss Kay, first name Edna. She was about forty, had blonde hair and blonde moustache. She wore tight dresses and a bra that made her large breasts appear rather pointed. She realised that Alan and I had a habit of looking down her cleavage and up her skirt and, without saying anything, boxed our ears.
The History teacher was Mr. Wintle, who had a strong West Country accent and was rather irascible. For some reason he said 'Wookey Hole", quite regularly and this is what we said when we imitated him under our breath. I was developing a talent for impersonations so was in the forefront when it came to satirising the teachers. On one occasion Mr. Wintle was explaining the origins of place names and was talking about those ending in '-thorpe', such as Scunthorpe, Mablethorpe, etc. He asked if we could think of any more at which I called out, 'Allthorpe', which was the name of the popular Head Boy. Mr. Wintle was not amused but the rest of the class were so I eased into the role of being of being the class clown.
As we had different teachers for each subject, each of them an enthusiast in the own field, my aptitudes and lack of them were very apparent. Our form teacher, Mr. Whisken, took us for Maths. I was very good at computation, number bonds and tables as I had had plenty of practise. Apart from an aptitude for this kind of arithmetic, my progress in other fields of mathematical endeavour was non-existent. I could just about cope with decimals and very simple geometry but theorems and algebra remained a mystery. I believe there was something called trigonometry, but I have no idea what that is to this day. My total incomprehension was masked by copying others' work in exchange for help with their English. I just didn't see the point of what we were expected to learn, whereas knowing 'the four rules' and the kind of maths you needed as life skills made sense. I later learned that this attitude was termed 'motivation'.
In Woodwork I suffered a similar fate. Neither Grandad nor Dad had done any work in the house, preferring to employ skilled workmen to do necessary jobs. Therefore, I had scarcely seen men at work and I had no desire to make teapot stands and the like. I remember little of my time in the woodwork room with Mr. Williams. I think I absented myself from many of his lessons. When I did this, as happened with alarming frequency as I got older, I was seldom missed. When reports were written they weren't too damning, as I don't believe the teachers wanted to admit that they couldn't quite place me, so everything was 'average'. Thus, I survived.
I remember little of Geography, which invariably involved colouring in brown and green areas of contour maps of Britain. Nothing exotic. History was a different matter. My interest that had begun Madame Tussaud's Hall of Kings, stood me in good stead and I worked hard at the subject for the remainder of my time in the school.
At the end of the year, the four first year classes were to be sorted, according to aptitude. This was not done in a conventional way, which would have been dependent on the end of term examination results. Instead, 2A was made up of those with a bent for science; 2B had an arts bias; 2D was for those who were not considered to be doing very well and my new class, 2C, was for 'don't knows'. In some ways pursuing interests and developing talents early is a good thing, but this system was inflexible. There was very little movement between classes so, if any of ‘don’t knows' developed any talents, or the no-hopers in 2D improved, this was not taken into account. 2B began learning Latin and 2A had extra science lessons - always from senior teachers and heads of department. Those of us in the other two classes would have to put up with less experienced teachers thus, in many cases, the gaps in ability, perceived or actual, widened. However, the inferences that could be made about this method were not apparent to me at twelve years of age.
