THE GIFT OF READING

I started school (not this one) when I was five. My parents had already taught me to read and write, and in the reading class I was so engrossed in the exciting activities of Janet & John that I raced ahead in the book and wasn't on the right page when it was my turn to read. This was such outrageously bad behaviour that the teacher hit me across the top of the head with the edge of a ruler (she must have taken on board Molesworth's maxim that English is chiefly a matter of marksmanship - "you can always come topp if you lay the rest of the class out"). I don't think I even told my parents at the time - my mother was certainly horrified when I told her years later, but by that time we'd moved on several times. Being an RAF brat, I went to five different schools before I was 11 and five more between 11 and 18. And although I was quite naughty and disruptive from time to time, this is the only occasion I can remember being hit.

This blip is from the now-closed school around the corner where I blipped the Girls' gate not long ago. I imagine that for decades the "infants" would all turn up at this gate after walking, coming on the bus or by tram, by themselves or with a big brother or sister. No school run then with cars and parents clogging up all the side roads.