I seem to have lost my early years at school and only retain the bad memories – much what I have done with my grandmother The Dragon. I remember being excited at the thought of going to school and my brother being so impatient that he often disappeared from the house only to be found sitting in the janitor’s room drinking a little bottle of milk. I imagine the first time it happened the neighbourhood would have been out looking for him but after that the dragon just popped up to the school to drag him back home, or the janitor brought him.

 

My first teacher was Miss McIver, The Witch; she had a thin, nervous and seriously waspish manner that didn’t include smiling or any kind of kindness – I think she put a spell on me so that I can’t remember most of what she did. I was four and a half when I joined her class; she had thirty children around her, some of whom were still on the breast, according to a tale told by the dragon – she was standing at the railings to pass me some toast at play-time break when another woman popped her breast through the railing and suckled her five-year old (I was always the youngest in my class).

 

The only real memory I have of her is when I swapped pencils with the boy behind me; he had been given a red one and I a blue – I desperately wanted the red pencil and he wouldn’t swap me so I took it and he told the witch. She sent me to stand in the corner of a cold cloakroom all by myself, for what seemed like a very long time. I was distraught and frightened. I have no memory of the outcome of all this; whether the dragon came up to breathe fire on her or not, or if my mother berated her into sullen silence…but that takes up a year of my life, or more, and that’s all there is – The Witch.

 

Though, there is a vague memory that I came first in her class at the end of the year, second in the next and third in the third – after that it was downhill all the way!

 

‘Help, help! Teddy, I’ve won the bingo!’ My mother would wake up the whole street two or three times a year. We’d get a quick glance at all the prizes and the handful of paper money waving through her laughter before we were pushed back into our little cupboard bed; it was folded away during the day so my brother and I had space to play.

 

There would be lamps, cutlery, tea-sets, clocks, ornaments, toys, chocolates and games for us to admire and squabble over in the morning. The cash was always £25, well it is in my memory – that was about a month’s wages for some people then. My mother was such an excitable woman; a bit like me now whenever/if-ever I win anything…you should see me at a roulette table!

 

When I compare my parents to anyone else’s, from that time, mine won on all counts, all sides – my friends always loved them. There were only two of us so money probably wasn’t as tight as it might’ve been, and the dragon looked after us while both parents worked. My friend Anne, who lived in the next close, had seven brothers and sisters so she’d never been to the seaside until we took her with us. I have an image of her mother’s washing line; it was full every single day. My mother used to accuse her of washing clean clothes. Anne was very clean: I sat in dirt every chance I got – I seemed to love it and was always covered in it. When we played at marbles I sat and she hunkered.

 

Only my mother was mad enough to feed all the children in the street; she made us chips for supper sometimes and served them up in a paper bag – so we asked her to make some more for all our friends. When we brought back blackberries and raspberries and demanded she make a pie, she did. Thinking back on all this now – she was pretty fabulous.

 

 

 

There are very few photographs of my early childhood or my parents, and some of them have been lost in the fire or the skip fiasco last year. So my young mother only appears with friends that are long-gone, like my Godmother, holding me in the post below – I don’t remember her at all. I think she was my mother’s best friend at the time, and then her maid of honour and Godmother followed on naturally.

 

Ordinary working folk didn’t have cameras but there was always someone in the family with one that had to be lent out. I must search for more survivors; I have a few in my memory but don’t know if I still have them. Sad, I know. I hate losing photos.