My mother had mentioned the subject only occasionally during the last couple of years but now she talked about ‘passing your scholarship’ almost every day.
‘You’d love it at the High School’, she would say. Or:
‘You’d hate it at a secondary modern with all those rough, common kids.’
She bribed me with promises to buy me anything I wanted if I passed and threatened that if I failed, I would never have a career like other girls. She made me believe that if I did not pass my scholarship my life would be ruined. But it was not this prospect which bothered me: what terrified me more than anything was her inevitable wrath if I failed.
‘What if I fail?’ Those words repeated themselves in my head every minute of every hour of every day, week after week.
‘What if I fail?’
If I failed, how would I face my mother? She would never forgive me. She would make my life a living nightmare. If, on the day the results were announced, I found that I’d failed, I wouldn’t be able to go home. I would never have the courage to confess to her that I hadn’t passed. There would be no alternative but to run away. No, to fail would be unthinkable.
At school, too, we were under pressure to do well because Miss Prince was evidently determined to maintain the excellent pass rate which Clare Terrace had always enjoyed. The work became progressively harder. We were given essay subjects which I found difficult even though English was my strongest subject. For example, we once had to write a composition entitled: ‘Newspapers’. I had never read a newspaper and knew absolutely nothing about them so I wrote a feeble and fatuous account of the usefullness of newspaper, such as for making papier maché or wrapping up fish and chips. My mother bought the ‘Daily Telegraph’ and my father read the ‘News of the World’ on Sunday; to me, this title gave the impression that it must be a very important publication so, in my ignorance, I wrote:
‘The News of the World is Britain’s best newpaper.........’
The girl who sat next to me, Penny, was very clever and wrote about how reporters obtained their stories, how editors worked to put all the reports together and how newspapers were printed and published; her essay was read out in class and she was rewarded with form points.
I grappled with arithmetic, always my weakest subject despite the extra coaching I’d had from Mrs. Tobit. Miss Jellis lost her temper with girls who were slow to pick things up and so the sight of a blackboard covered with figures caused me such acute panic that my mind would go completely blank. Bad handwriting was not tolerated, either, and all our work had to be neat and well presented. We had to learn poems - such as Shelley’s Ozymandias - by heart and read books - for example, Gulliver’s Travels, - which were really quite difficult, and then answer questions on comprehension. Good spelling, naturally, was expected and as the scholarship loomed nearer, so the tests we were regularly given became more challenging.
I began to develop curious facial twitches and other nervous habits and the harder I tried to stop them, the worse they grew. I would roll and snap my eyes, distort my jaw until it practically dislocated and make strange, strangulated noises in my throat. My mother was embarrassed by my twitching and took me to the doctor, who prescribed a tranquilizing drug which had no effect at all. I had nightmares and was plagued by strange aches, sharp twinges and other discomforts which, I was assured, were merely ‘growing pains.’ As the weeks passed, my anxiety increased. I was afraid of everything: I was afraid of my mother, I was afraid of Miss Prince and I was afraid of Miss Jellis. I could not bring myself even to think of the consequences if I failed my scholarship. What if I fail...........?
Then, finally, the inexorable, long-dreaded day that we were to sit for our scholarship arrived. The build-up had been unbearable and my twitching was out of control but, as I crossed the road and entered the school gates, I felt only a numbness and the curious sensation that what was happening was unreal.
‘Make sure you read all the questions properly!’ were my mother’s parting words.
The atmosphere in the classroom on that fateful morning seemed to bristle with nervous anticipation as we took our seats. I stared at my desk, mesmerized for some reason by the brimming ink-well. Evidently, we were going to be required to do a lot of writing in this examination. I must remember to read the questions properly.........My heart gave a great lurch as Miss Jellis, grave and unsmiling, entered the classroom and walked to her desk. She told us to read each question carefully before answering, then we were instructed to turn over our examination papers and begin. I held my breath, closed my eyes and braced myself for the worst. With apprehension, I ran my eye over the pages and was surprised to see, at first glance, that the questions appeared to be not nearly as difficult as I’d anticipated. I followed the injunction we had been given to read each question carefully and realised, with a huge rush of relief, that I would be able to answer all of them.
So, then, it was all over. All we had to do now was wait for the results. My stomach turned over every time I thought of my mother’s reaction if I failed. But the questions had seemed so easy, even the mental arithmetic; surely, I must have passed? Yet, supposing the apparent easiness was a deception and there was a catch in every question that I hadn’t noticed? The doubts persisted, no matter how hard I tried to put them out of my mind. What if I fail.....?
My mother kept asking questions about the examination.
‘How do you think you got on?’
‘Could you answer all the questions?’
‘Did you remember to read the questions properly before you answered them?’
‘ Yes, but how do you think you got on?’
I became very quiet and preoccupied. Miss Jellis told my mother that she thought I was a very self-conscious child. All the time, the words kept running through my brain: what if I fail........?
We did not know when the results would be announced. One morning assembly, with no prior warning, Miss Prince suddenly informed us that she had received the results of that year’s eleven-plus examination. There was an audible intake of breath from the girls of Form One and we tensed ourselves as she prepared herself to read out the names of those who had passed. It is sometimes a disadvantage to possess a surname which begins with a letter that is placed near the end of the alphabet; I had to wait, breathless and with racing heart as she announced each successful candidate in order.
‘Margaret Champion, pass.’
We were still only on the C’s. It would take an age to get to the W’s.
‘Judith Jackson, pass.’
Still many letters to go.
‘Angela Stumbles, pass.’
We were getting nearer to the W’s. Any minute now. What if I fail........?
‘Penny Vinson, pass.’
Well, she was such a clever girl that there had never been any doubt about Penny passing; why, her parents had already bought her High School Uniform...........
‘Margaret Walker, pass.’
I had passed!
I felt no elation upon receiving this news, just a numbness, a feeling of disbelief; perhaps I had only imagined that Miss Prince had just read out my name. Perhaps it was only a dream......
Now Miss Prince was summoning the successful girls to the front in order to hand them their pass slips. Should I go? Had she really read out my name? Had she make a mistake? I would look stupid if I went to the front only to find out I hadn’t passed. Only when I looked at the piece of paper which was handed to me and saw my name on it was I able to believe that I had, indeed, passed my scholarship. An overwhelming sensation of relief washed over me as I realised that I wouldn’t now have to suffer the wrath of my mother which, if I’d failed, would surely have been terrible. Miss Prince told us that we could all go home to give our parents the good news. I didn’t have very far to go: our house was directly in front of the school, just across the road.
But the front door was locked and my mother evidently out. I ran to Fred’s Stores just around the corner to see if she was there, but the shop was empty.
‘No school?’ asked Fred.
I explained why I had been allowed time off.
‘Well done!’ he smiled. ‘Your mum’ll be pleased now, all right!’
I wasn’t sure what to do so I returned home. I waited to see if my mother would appear but when there was still no sign of her, I decided to go back to school. So I left the slip of paper announcing my pass on the doormat inside the glass porch, closed the door and returned to my classroom where those girls who had failed were sitting disconsolately.
When I went home at lunch time my mother was in the kitchen standing over the stove. I expected her to congratulate me but all she said was:
‘You laid that piece of paper on the doormat very tenderly, didn’t you?’
What did she expect me to do with it, I wondered? It was addressed to her and my father so I put it where the postman always left the letters and if I’d taken it back to school she would have been furious. Nevertheless, she’d wasted no time in telling everybody we knew of my success. I kept hearing her say:
‘I found it lying on the doormat - she’d lain it there so tenderly.’
My mother made me write to Mrs.Tobit to tell her of my success and to thank her for coaching me in arithmetic. I knew perfectly well that she was hoping Mavis hadn’t done as well as I and the letter was an excuse to brag. It took me a long time to compose it and I tore up several sheets of paper before it was done to my mother’s satisfaction.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘it looks as if it’s been written by a stiff old maid, but it’ll do.’
For passing my scholarship Auntie Frances gave me half-a-crown and Mrs. Bonham from a few doors up the road gave me sixpence. I was beginning to fear by now that the promise made by my mother to buy me anything I wanted if I passed had been nothing but a blatant lie.
All the girls from Clare Terrace who had passed the eleven-plus, and their parents, were invited by the headmistress of the High School so that they could have a look around, meet the staff and acquaint themselves with what were going to be their new surroundings. Mrs. Robertson put us at our ease immediately. Although her status as headmistress imbued her with great dignity, she was also an attractive woman who wore lipstick and elegant clothes; she had red-gold hair which was braided into a plait and looped around the back of her head. She welcomed us warmly and presented each of us with a badge on which were the letters F.C.H.S., standing for Falmouth County High School. She told us to start wearing our badges straight away so that we would feel we already belonged to the school. We obeyed but, later, it appeared that offence had been caused at Clare Terrace and the parents of those girls who had failed to get into the High School protested to Miss Prince. Consequently, we were forbidden to wear them to school and we were bewildered and dismayed when Miss Prince told us that Mrs. Robertson had denied telling us to wear the badges.
Now that the ordeal of the eleven-plus was over, I realised that I had a life after all and set about getting on with it. The term was nearly over, there was the long, summer holiday to look forward to, there was the beach and there was freedom. Our mother was preoccupied with getting the house ready for the first of the summer guests so Jean and I were able to do more or less as we pleased. I was very happy.
We visited Auntie Frances often and she always made us welcome. I believe she was genuinely fond of us and we liked her much more than we ever liked our grandmother, her sister. She bought chocolate cup-cakes and jam tarts for us and gave us money to go down to the corner shop to buy Corona, which we never had at home. We felt at ease bouncing about on the dusty, uncomfortable chaise longue in Auntie’s sitting room, surrounded by the Staffordshire pottery and the Victorian prints. When she thought we were getting bored she would say:
‘You go now, dear, if you like.’
Many years later, when we stood by her grave after her funeral, contemplating those times,
it was as if we could hear her saying:
‘You go now, dear, if you like.’
Jean and I were with our mother on a visit to Auntie Frances and Uncle Cliff when an argument erupted. I don’t know what prompted it because I was outside when it began. Jean said it was my fault because I’d told Uncle that he was ugly and Auntie was offended; I think, though, it was more serious than that. I heard my mother’s raised voice say:
‘Well, I thought you were being funny like you sometimes are!’
A few moments later, she stormed out of the house with an expression like thunder and marched us straight back home. A day or so later, when I told my mother that I was going to see Auntie Frances, she told me I was not allowed to. When I demanded why, she replied:
‘Because I said so!’
My father was looking on so I asked him why I wasn’t allowed to see Auntie Frances. He simply looked at my mother and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, I’m going, anyway!’ I retorted, making for the front door.
‘Oh no you’re not! You’ll do as I say!’
She stood barring my exit; I was dismayed and outraged. She had no right to stop me from seeing my aunt. She was a mean, vindictive, hateful woman. Suddenly, all the resentment and anger I’d bottled up over the preceeding months blew up.
‘You bloody old cow!’ I shouted.
My father and my mother looked at each other, without saying a word. Appalled at what I’d said and terrified of the consequences which, surely, would be dreadful, I raced upstairs and hid in the attic. When I emerged some time later, to my surprise nothing was said of the incident. At the very least, I thought that an apology would be demanded of me. But it was as if nothing had happened. Not long afterwards, relations were restored and we were able to visit Auntie again. We had missed her and I think she had missed us. She began giving us pocket money every weekend - something our parents had never done. It started as sixpence each, then went up to a shilling, then one-and-six and, finally, two shillings. She continued to give us each two shillings a week even when we were in our teens.
One day, a letter arrived from Auntie Marie and in it were enclosed two pound notes, one for Jean and one for me. She wrote to say that she had had a win on the pools and that we were to treat ourselves. In the fifties, one pound was, to us, riches beyond our dreams. Because I was becoming interested in sewing, I decided to buy some dress material with my money; Jean, on the other hand, went straight round to Fred’s Stores and bought sweets. When Fred asked her where she’d got the money to buy so many sweets, she told him that her auntie had won the pools. Twenty-four hours later, there was a rumour going around Falmouth that Mrs. Walker had won a fortune on the football pools. Our mother had a lot of explaining to do.
During the winter, we had had a lodger, an elderly gentleman called Mr. Grantham. My mother always referred to him as ‘Granny Grantham’ behind his back because, she said, he was like an old woman and she was glad when he left because he got on her nerves. But he had been kind to me; he was an amateur artist and I was fascinated and intrigued by his collection of materials, many of which I’d never encountered before. He gave me all the little broken bits of his pastels and I took to that medium with such enthusiasm that I bought myself a box of Reeves’ pastels with the money I had been given for passing my scholarship.
I discovered, too, Indian ink and experimented with pen-and-wash technique and used the scraps of fabric left over from my sewing projects to make collages. I had seen ornaments made from shells in the Falmouth gift shops and decided I could do better myself. I collected shells and made crinoline ladies from limpet shells and little mice from yellow periwinkles with black buttonhole thread for their tails. Later, I put them on display in our dining room and was delighted when my mother’s guests bought them. My days were always busy and the word ‘boredom’ didn’t exist in my dictionary. I entered a painting competition organised by the Saturday children’s cinema at the Grand and won first prize, which was a big box of chocolates. Selfishly, I kept them to myself and didn’t offer my sister a single one.
We had some curious neighbours while we were living in Clare Terrace. There was Mrs. Penhay, an eccentric, dishevelled old woman who looked like a bag lady without the bags; we used to see her stealing milk from people’s doorsteps early in the mornings. Cowboy Mitchell was a more alarming character: He wore a cowboy hat and a long, black coat and used to walk around the neighbourhood swearing to himself and brandishing a knife which he used for opening tins of Kit-E-Kat with which he fed a colony of feral cats in a derelict and vermin-infested street behind the Parish Church. Around the corner from us was a pub on the roof of which was a pet monkey. It was a rather bad-tempered monkey with a liking for wine gums. We used to throw the sweets up on to the roof but if we offered green ones, the monkey would throw them straight back at us.
There was another woman whom Jean and I disliked at first sight. Whenever she saw us in the street, she would stop and, to our extreme discomfiture, stare at us intently. She was a squat figure with fat ankles and had thick, puffy lips which looked like pale, glistening, raw sausages. One day, to our great alarm, we saw her talking to our mother and at once thought that she was reporting some shocking misdeed of which we were guilty. Our mother was looking harrassed and when the woman had walked away she called me over and said:
‘That woman’s from the Salvation Army and she wants to know if you’ll go to their meeting on Sunday afternoon.’
I was aghast at the very idea. She could not be serious! As if I didn’t know all about The Salvation Army! They and their band went to Vernon Place (which we children called Vermin Place) most Sunday mornings to play and sing. They made a horrible racket and bribed children with the gift of a penny if they would join in with:
‘I’m H.A.P.P.Y.,
I’m H.A.P.P.Y.,
I know I am, I’m sure I am,
I’m H.A.P.P.Y!’
My sister had earned her penny but it was beneath my dignity to go anywhere near them.
‘I’m not going!’ I told my mother, indignant that she should have imagined, for one moment, that I could possibly be persuaded to.
‘Well, you’ve got to, and that’s that. If you don’t, she’ll only keep on pestering me.’
‘But I don’t want to! I hate that Salvation Army lot. Anyway, you can’t make me go!’
‘Look,’ said my mother, helplessly, ‘just go the once, just to shut her up. If you don’t like it, you won’t have to go again, I promise.’
‘But what about her?’ I cried, gesturing towards Jean, who was looking on and wearing an annoyingly smug expression.
‘She’s too young.’
‘But it’s not fair!’ I wailed.
I hoped that by the time Sunday came around she might have forgotten all about it, but she didn’t and told me to hurry up and get on with my lunch or I’d be late for the Salvation Army. I lingered for a long time over my plate, thinking that she wouldn’t make me go anywhere if I hadn’t finished my lunch. But the ploy didn’t work; she took my plate away and told me to get a move on.
Full of resentment at the sheer unfairness of it all, I made my reluctant way down Jacob’s Ladder and across the road to The Salvation Army hall. With my head down, I shuffled in and scraped my way along the side of the wall in a vain attempt to make myself appear invisible. Everyone looked round as I sat down and I blushed with deep embarrassment. From the swift glance I had given the assembled company I was able to recognise several people whom I knew by sight: there was a boy wearing heavy, iron calipers, a woman with a horribly disfiguring birthmark, a man who walked all round Falmouth talking to himself. Evidently, then, the Salvation Army gave succour to every, poor Falmouth unfortunate. Did they think I was one of them, too? I saw the woman with the sausagy lips, smiling at me encouragingly. How I loathed her! This was far, far worse than anything I’d had to endure at Sunday school. The service began.
‘We’re delighted to welcome a new member this afternoon. Let us all pray for Margaret Walker!’
I genuinely did, at that moment, long for the ground to swallow me up. The embarrassment was too much for anyone to endure. Every face in the hall turned round and smiled at me.
‘Don’t pray for me, please!’ I groaned to myself.
At last, my hour of torture was over and I hurried home, my face still burning from the shame of what I’d been subjected to.
‘How did it go? asked my mother. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’
‘It was awful! I’m never, never, never going there again.’
And I never did.
Ethel wrote to my mother to ask if she, Harry and Judy could come to stay for a couple of weeks.
‘I’m not having that Judy here! raged my mother. ‘I’ll send a telegram to say they must’n’t bring her.’
But when they arrived, there was Judy, sitting in the back of the car with placid unconcern. Ethel got out and went up to my mother, who was waiting at the gate to welcome them.
‘Look,’ said Ethel, ‘we had to bring her.’
My mother looked sheepish and awkward.
‘It’s like this,’ she said, in the tone of voice she used when she was lying. ‘We’re lousy!’
‘Well,’ replied Ethel, ‘she’s not going to be bothered by a few fleas.’
Throughout their visit, my mother was barely able to contain her irritation and dislike of Judy. One day, I saw her, Judy, go running upstairs to her room, crying. My mother was in the kitchen with Ethel and I heard her say:
‘It’s when she says “ I don’t mind” all the time............’
I don’t think the visit was successful and I found myself feeling very sorry for poor Judy, who did her best not to antagonise my mother. Evidently, the affair of the encounter in the woodshed was never going to be allowed to be forgotten.
My mother started to complain about the expense of all the items which comprised my new school uniform. When I had reminded her of her promise to buy me anything I wanted if I passed my scholarship she retorted:
‘You’ve got the uniform. You should be satisfied with that!’
I was secretly disappointed with the uniform and thought it rather dull; it consisted of a navy skirt, navy jumper and red tie and for outdoor wear there was a navy blazer with F.C.H.S. embroidered on the breast pocket in white. Later on, when the embroidery turned a grubby grey, I used to paint it with white, waterproof ink. I also had a navy mac, which came down to my ankles ‘so that I could grow into it’ and a rather unusual, sailor-style hat which was secured to the head by elastic worn under the chin. Some of the High School girls, I’d noticed, still wore the old-fashioned, St.Trinian’s-style gym-slips with long, yellow sashes tied around their waists.
When all the items for my uniform had been acquired, my mother made me try them on so that she could see the effect. She tugged at the over-long blazer, hitched up the ludicrously long skirt, straightened the tie then stood back and scrutinised me.
‘Wouldn’t you like to go for a walk in your uniform, just so that you can get used to it?’ she asked in the persuasive tone she used when she was trying to make me do something I didn’t want to.
I was aghast. The very idea appalled me. She couldn’t possibly be serious! Supposing someone from the school saw me? I would die of shame. It would be total humiliation. My mother pleaded. I refused. She cajoled and wheedled. I dug my heels in. She threatened. In the end, I had no choice but to obey her. Jean, who had been watching the drama with amused interest, was told she had to come, too, and the three of us set off. The walk was interminable. It was as if she wanted to parade me the length and breadth of Falmouth. One or two people looked at me with curiosity and then, to my acute embarrassment, a woman she vaguely knew stopped us and asked my mother:
‘Have they gone back to school already at the High School, then?’
‘Oh no!’ answered my mother, avoiding my furious glare. ‘She was trying the uniform on and felt so proud that she asked to go out to show it off.’
I felt at that moment that I had never, in my entire life, hated my mother so much.
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