Member-only story
The ever-rising Middle Classes
I passed my 11 plus exam and got into the local grammar school, Henrietta Barnett School. It was an all-girls school, we wore a spectacularly ugly uniform at first (gym tunics, look it up), followed by a spectacularly ugly and impractical uniform (a white jumper, really?) wished on us by the HBS Students’ Council, and then a compromise which was practical and fairly ok — navy blue skirt and jumper with a sort of rainbow at the neck.
Anyway, I was mostly unhappy there, certainly for the first three years, after which things got a bit better. It wasn’t the school’s fault: I think I’d have been unhappy at any school because I just didn’t fit in. I was messy and disorganised, my locker desk was always in chaos and if I got bored I tended to go to sleep. Some teachers found this offensive by itself. I was also clumsy and rubbish at games, never did any homework and was capable of spectacular rudeness.
The only sanction the teachers had was to give me detention, which they did. These took place on Monday afternoons for an hour and a half after everybody had gone home, invigilated by a teacher who didn’t want to be there. You had to take a piece of paper home to warn your mother that you would be late, to make sure you got it in the neck from her too.
I felt it would upset her less if I simply told her I had an extra lesson after school on Mondays…
