Childhood memories

Can you remember the name of your first teacher? I can't. I do remember the names of two of the masters at my junior school - Mr Hill and Mr Lamb - but they are the only two and the infants' school staff is a complete no, no as far as my memory is concerned.

A short digression for any reader unfamiliar with the English education set-up way back in the late 1940s. We had three levels of school: infant, for ages 5 to 7, junior for 8 to 11 year olds and secondary for 11 to 15 (or was it 14? I don't recall when the school leaving age was increased from 14 to 15). Infant schools were mixed (boys and girls taught together) and the teachers were mainly women. After that, the sexes were segregated into separate schools. Boys had male teachers, although there was a sprinkling of women, and girls had women. During the school year in which children reached their 11th birthday, they sat an exam, known as the 11 plus. Depending on whether they passed or failed, they went on to grammar schools for the more academically-minded and secondary modern schools for the others.

But that's enough of the digression. As I said, I can't remember the names of any of the teachers at my infants' school but, despite what I said earlier, I can remember the name of my first teacher: Miss Richards. Miss Richards lived in a bungalow a few doors down the road from our house and it was at this bungalow that she ran a small school, a sort of pre-school school. It wasn't so much like the nursery schools or kindergartens we have now. The children were actually taught, although I suppose there was also plenty of time to play as well: four-year-olds don't have too long an attention span when it comes to learning reading and writing. My memory of the school is hazy to say the least. I have a vague recollection of being sent to stand behind the piano at one time, a punishment for some misdemeanour or other, but that is all.

I am envious of those whose childhood memories are as crisp as a Cox's apple and who can recall with absolute clarity some event that occurred when they were three or four. I sometimes claim to remember the beams of searchlights crisscrossing the sky (I was a war baby) but that might be what could be described as a folk memory. In other words, I know it happened and I just think I can remember it. I do remember walking (with my mother) along the Darland Banks just after the war and seeing the concrete cones positioned to cause problems for tanks in case the Germans had invaded. There were also large pits as tank traps which were an optimistic way of halting the advance of any such invading panzers. (The Darland Banks is the name of a stretch of the North Downs on the edge of the Medway towns.)

But all these memories - and there are a few more from my earlier years - are fairly vague until I reached the age of 11. I can recall much more from that age on. I have heard it said that elderly people find it easier to remember events from their youth than what happened yesterday. Perhaps as the years roll by and I become more elderly than I am now I shall be able to remember more. Somehow I think it unlikely. Which is a pity in some ways.