When we went for walk this morning, George and I, there was a football match being played on the field so we walked around the outside instead. With George on the lead and no ball-throwing going on, there was time to reminisce as we were walking along.

I realised that I have said nothing about friends outside school. None of my school friends lived locally, the nearest being Saltaire in one direction and Keighley in the other. A girl came to live in the next street and we could see each other’s house from our back bedrooms. When we were small, we used to play in her garden, ride our bikes around the local streets and flash torches at each other when we were supposed to be in bed asleep. As we grew up, we ventured further afield, including going for a smoke from time to time in the park where no-one could see us. (Shhh… I haven’t told you that!) My friend went to the local secondary school and when she left and got a job, we grew apart.

Sixthformers were treated differently at school. We had more freedom to hang around inside the classroom, we had a different uniform (still unflattering, but different) and we got to wear a prefect’s badge and be a bit bossy.

As I’ve said, I made the choice to study Chemistry, Zoology and Botany for ‘A’ Level. We also studied higher level “Apologetics” and a bit of German (in case we were really going to be scientists).

I have to thank a teacher who ran an after school club called “World Citizenship”, or something similar. We learned and talked about issues which were affecting people across the world. She berrated us for our conservatism and said that, at our age, we should be railing against the status quo. I was surprised, as I came from a Conservative (with a capital ‘C’) household and she was a teacher with a plummy voice. However, she woke in us a desire to learn.

We learned about a young American doctor called Tom Dooley and the whole class became obsessed with him. We read his heroic account of being a doctor, treating refugees across South East Asia during the late 1950s and we agonised over his diagnosis and death from cancer in his early thirties. We didn’t know at the time that he also worked for the CIA and exaggerated his stories in order to stir up anti-communist sentiment. Our devotion was similar to that awarded to a pop-star. But at the very least, it kick-started my interest in the world outside Bingley.

As we moved into 1963, I had my first brush with breast cancer, when mum’s sister Violet died after a short illness, aged 62. Another sister, Jessie, had already died at the age of 35, I believe from the same cause. I’m telling you this on the day I took my final hormone suppressing tablet, having survived five years since my own breast cancer operation.

It’s 11pm, “Beck” (my Saturday night BBC4 Scandi fix) is finished and I’m being transported back to September 1986 with TOTP. I’ve been singing at the top of my voice to The Communards and “Don’t leave me this way”. (Who knew that Richard Coles would end up as a Rev and be so funny?) So the 80s weren’t all bad!

Elton John has always been a favourite of mine and, watching the EltonJohnLewis advert has given me the feeling of watching my own life unroll backwards. I picture myself at the same age as Elton when he recorded “Your Song” in 1970; the same year as the first of his albums that I bought, “Tumbleweed Connection”.

I’m rushing ahead. It’s 1962, I’d passed some GCE’s, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and, at 15, I wasn’t old enough to leave school. So I was heading for 6th form.

But this was the holidays. I’m trying to remember where Mum and I went. I know that there were only a couple of Bridlington holidays. In 1961 we went to Ireland. We flew!! It was a short hop from Yeadon Airport (now Leeds Bradford) to Dublin to stay with mum and dad’s friends – and my godparents – who had returned to live there a few years earlier. The had a printing business near Dun Laoghaire. Their son had a motorbike and he took me for a ride on it. I thought he was cool. On the way back, we had to circle the airport several times because the landing gear was stuck!!

A bit of research about the airport tells me that it first opened in 1931, with scheduled internal flights starting up as the 30s progressed. Having been a military aerodrome during WW2, civil flights began again in 1947. The Dublin route had not long been established when we took our first ever flight.

We had two holidays, I think, in London and Southsea with Susan and her grandma. These seemed terribly sophisticated, compared to the Bridlington B&B, as we travelled to London by train, then on to Southsea where we stayed in a hotel. After a week or so of sea air, fancy bathing costumes and sunburn, we spent a few days sightseeing in London before returning home by Pullman!

Before I go (TOTP has been replaced by something called “Guitar Heroes Part IV” and I have to say that few of them were heroes of mine! Well, some of the clips are from “The Old Grey Whistle Test” and I haven’t changed my opinion that some of the performances were somewhat self-indulgent) I can’t talk about EltonJohnLewis without also mentioning Iceland’s Christmas advert. I am proud that I am among the many people who shared it across social media so that it has got the publicity it deserves. It’s a fact that palm oil is responsible for the destruction of so much of the orang-outan’s habitat and I’m sad that it was felt that the message of the advert was “too political” for viewing on TV.

The years ticked by and I progressed up the school. We had to make a choice in Year 4 whether we wanted to do humanities or science. Based on not very much, I chose science and left behind all the subjects I love these days – history, geography, art, cookery/domestic science. We did have some tremendous science teachers, particularly two nuns who were known as “Gus” and “Gerry”. I understand that they both could have been serious scientists had they not answered the call of sisterhood. Sadly, not every teacher was so good and many did not have any real teaching skills. (They certainly wouldn’t get a job in teaching today). For many years I felt that I must have peaked when I passed my 11+ at the age of 10 but I know now that I had an awful lot more to achieve.In 1962 it was time to sit my GCEs in Maths, Chemistry, Biology, English Language, English Literature, French and Latin. We also sat a strange RE exam called “Apologetics”, which unfortunately didn’t count towards our GCE numbers. I was not entered for physics because I wasn’t expected to pass but I did take it the following year and got a good mark and another pass.

On the home front, my mum and I became closer and closer. Every week we still went to visit her sisters in Bradford. My dad used to take us there when the shop was closed for a half day on Wednesdays and now we went by bus on Saturdays. Mum’s family lived close to David Hockney’s family in Eccleshill. I don’t know how well they knew them but my auntie Emmie used to tell me how Hockney had once given a painting or sketch to the local fish and chippie and that it used to hang by the counter.I wonder where it is now! Yesterday one of his paintings (Portrait of an Artist (Pool With Two Figures)) sold for £70m, the highest price ever paid for a painting by a living artist.

Some people I did know were neighbours who lived further along the row of terraces. Ada was a hairdresser and from time to time, my mum would go along to have her hair doused in some foul smelling liquid and then attached to something suspended from a huge stand, which often smelt as if it was burning! Then she came out with curly hair. And that, folks, was a perm! Albert had been gassed in WW1 and wore a wig. He mainly sat at home and put up with the terrible smell from Ada’s hairdressing. I don’t know if she did any “normal” treatments, perhaps people did stuff like for themselves.

Our journey home by bus involved a walk and two bus rides. I particularly loved bonfire night when almost every street we passed had a bonfire right in the middle of the road and fireworks being set off around it. I remember that, when we had the shop, we used to sell fireworks so we always had a good display which we would take up to share with Susan’s family. When we moved to Bingley, the local bonfire was often just in front of our house.

This was a weekend that we will always remember – not just as the annual Remembrance Day but as the 100th Anniversary Remembrance Day.  Yesterday, I attended a musical memorial at St Aidan’s Church, Skelmanthorpe, with children from local schools acting and singing and the Skelmanthorpe Brass Band.  Most moving, for me, was the reading of the names of all the boys and young men from the local community who had not returned from WW1 (the bodies of many of them were not even found).

Today, I joined many members of the Batley community at a service at the Cenotaph in Batley’s Memorial Garden.  It poured with rain throughout the service and wreath-laying but the sun came out as we made our way to the town hall for a welcome and warming cuppa.  Quite by chance, I met a lovely lady who had come to represent her husband who died only a month ago and who (she said) would have been there laying a wreath on behalf of one of the services (I don’t remember which).

This week I have also learned that my great auntie, grandma’s sister Edie, who was a nurse during WW1, actually served in France and was awarded a medal.  I hope to find out and write more about her and, hopefully, include some photographs.

So – to return to my time at SJC.  I believe that I settled in well and, by and large, I enjoyed my time there.  As I’ve already explained, I was taught by nuns throughout my school life but here there were also lay teachers.  Our headteacher was a nun and she knew the name of every one of the thousand girls in the school.  The nuns included some serious scholars who, in the main, were also good teachers.  The lay teachers were a mixed bunch, some good but many of whom would definitely not be up to scratch in the profession today.

I enjoyed embarking on new subjects, especially French (Où est Toto?  Où est-il? – The first sentence in my first French textbook, as I remember).  I was less enamoured by Latin, although I can still recite “Little Jack Horner”.  I began to lean towards science subjects, which led to a rather disastrous choice of ‘A’ Levels because we had to make choices in 4th Form which excluded either science or humanities.

I never shone at sports or PE and never represented the school at any team or solo sport. Our sporting activities included netball in the winter (no hockey, it was “too rough”) and tennis and rounders in summer.  Occasionally we even had modern dancing lessons.  My partner and I were once described by the teacher as looking like “brushes sweeping the floor”!!  I did, however, spend several years in the school choir.

The highlight of 4th Form was finding my penfriend and lifelong friend, Françoise.  I was at the back of the queue when penfriends were being handed out and the girl I was given was hoping to meet someone who lived in Scotland.  I hoped that her geography was not too good!  Anyway, I wrote to her and she wrote back!  And so began a friendship which has lasted almost 60 years. My children all know her and her children and grandchildren too.

That was me. A young girl in a smart uniform (paid for by the local authority), randomly placed in Remove 1 and Cunliffe House (which involved wearing a green badge).

I managed two days in the new school, before I fell foul of the second flu pandemic of the 20th century. The first was the often heard of pandemic just after the end of WW1 but this pandemic also swept the world in two waves and, by December 1957, some 3,500 people had died in England and Wales. I was off school for two weeks and then began the process of becoming a “gel”, after the fashion of the popular school stories of the period.  Girls came from all over West Yorkshire and, as well as day pupils, the school also had a few boarders.

I believe that I settled in well and I was generally very happy at school. I had to make new friends because I had gone on to secondary school a year ahead of most of my classmates.  Some of those girls are still friends today.

I mentioned that my uniform was paid for by the local authority. It was a typical navy gym slip but, instead of the usual shirt and tie we wore shapeless navy and white check blouses with square necks. The uniform did not include a cardigan, so we all used to pad ourselves out with whatever we could fit underneath the blouse. This put them under so much strain that the shoulder seams regularly gave way and were always requiring mending.  In summer we wore striped dresses and a blazer. Oh, and the dreaded beret! Woe betide anyone who stepped out of school without their beret and a pair of gloves (white in summer).

The horror that was our gym outfit is practically indescribable! Known as “gym pinks” because of their ghastly colour, they comprised a dress, which allowed little room to move around and a pair of loose shorts underneath. When we were measured for our “gym pinks” we had to kneel so that the length of the dress was to our knees.

Anyway, I also had a free bus pass and free school meals. Except that I wasn’t having the free school meals. After a few months the school realised that they had been claiming the money while I had been travelling home for lunch (a round trip of around 10 miles). For some reason which I totally fail to understand, I continued to make these unnecessary journeys every day until I started the 5th form (Year11).

At some point, possibly when we still lived in Bradford, I was entered for my “scholarship” (more recently the 11+). As I was still aged nine when we moved to Bingley, I think it was possible that the local authority was one step behind and not aware of our move out of their area. Anyway, when I was around ten years old, I took the scholarship in Bradford, only to be told that, as we now lived in West Yorkshire, I had to do it again under their regime – in Wakefield, a town that I had barely heard of, let alone visited. The test was done (several of us had been “crammed” in the art of answering these IQ related questions) and duly forgotten. Then, one day, I was informed by one of the nuns that I had passed and was despatched home in the middle of the day to tell my mum the good news. Like most people we didn’t have a telephone in the house. For some reason I must have knocked on the door. I remember my mum answering it (although I don’t remember whether she was wearing her morning or afternoon clothes) and looking utterly horrified when she saw me standing there. She thought something terrible had happened – as if I had been sent home to tell her that I had been expelled or had developed a contagious illness during the morning. I said “I’ve passed”.

And so, that’s how I came to have a place at a grammar school in Bradford, starting in September 1957.

That summer, mum and I went on holiday to Bridlington, with mum’s sisters, Violet and Bessie and their respective husbands. We stayed at a boarding house run by a pleasant couple who had recently come to England from South Africa. (It was well before I understood anything about what was happening in South Africa, so no questions were asked). Staying at a boarding house involved going out after breakfast and not returning until tea-time, whatever the weather. (Tea-time, by the way is when we northerners eat our evening meal, known in other parts of the country as dinner or supper. We eat our dinner in the middle of the day. Dinner, known elsewhere as lunch, was generally our main meal of the day and the meal at the end of the day was lighter. We often ate supper too but that was a snack during the evening, when we got hungry again, because our “tea” was not very big, I suppose. That makes perfect sense to me but I understand if others find it confusing!).

The meal to which we returned was usually the sort of food which got England a bad name in les cuisines, les cucines and die Küchen of Europe (and no doubt prevented our entry into the Common Market until the 1970s), such as boiled ham and limp salad. There was no choice, so you either liked it or lumped it! There was never any venture into Afrikaans cuisine which would, I’m sure, have sent the guests running for the hills. We arrived on Saturday and on Sunday we would walk along the promenade and the sea but custom dictated that we weren’t allowed to actually step onto the beach until Monday. This branch of non-conformism robbed me of a day’s digging, paddling and sand-castle crafting.

The uncles would stride out wearing jackets and flat caps. The only nod to informality was to lose their tie and wear an open-necked shirt. I think the jackets might have come off on the beach and I do recollect the odd handkerchief with knots tied at the corner, being used as headgear. Anyway, it was lovely that they took mum and I under their wings and they were there to comfort her on the difficult first anniversary of her husband’s death. I can still picture us, walking along the promenade arm in arm, our photos captured by one of the seaside paparazzi who promised to develop the photo on the same day and then displayed it in a booth for all the world to see. I think there were two of these holidays.

And so, in September 1957, I embarked on my time at one of Bradford’s most sought-after single-sex grammar schools. Sadly, I think I peaked at 10! Although my GCE results were OK, my A Levels were dire (probably due to choosing the wrong subjects) and I had to pick myself up again when I left school. For that reason, if for no other, I have been a lifelong advocate of further study and I am happy to remind parents and children alike that there is a hell of a lot of life still to go after you leave school. So, if you didn’t achieve what you (or others) thought you should, you shouldn’t despair but grab all the opportunities for study as they come along, whatever age you are.

I saw Stephen Manderson ( aka Professor Green) on BBC Breakfast this morning. He was urging people to take and print photographs of their loved ones so that they have something to remember after that person dies. He very movingly reminded us that this can happen a long time before you expect it to and that you can’t do anything about it then. He wishes he had more photos of himself taken with his father who, sadly, took his own life at a very young age. It’s an important message, Prof Green and, although we do have family photos going back to before WW2, I’m writing this blog because you can’t ask questions either!

People of my parents’ generation were far too zipped into secrecy and thinking things shouldn’t be talked about. That is how I came to miss out on big chunks of my family history.

We had not been long in our new home when mum was taken ill. My memory of those weeks is that she could barely eat without being sick and that she had to have complete bedrest, except for a short while when she was allowed to sit up in a chair for just a few minutes each day. I don’t know how long this went on for but, knowing how strong she was, I think this illness can only have happened because she was so overwhelmed, both by her loss and the responsibility that she had to bear in disposing of the business, the building and our houses.

But eventually she was well again and life seemed to slip into a very easy pattern. Of course, with two women in the house, house work was not a huge problem and both mum and auntie Dodo used to change after lunch from their ‘cleaning and shopping’ clothes, into outfits more appropriate for knitting, sewing or reading. Theirs was a fairly routine existence with certain days set aside for cleaning each room or doing the washing and ironing. Tuesday afternoon was the day when mum walked into Bingley to collect her widows’ pension at the Post Office and Thursday morning was the day when auntie Dodo collected hers.

I’ve been looking at the rates for benefits for widowed mothers and have discovered that, in 1956, mum will have received 13 weeks at 55 shillings. (£2.75) + 16 shillings and 6d (82p) for me. After 13 weeks this was reduced to £2+82p for me. Widows aged over 50 were not expected to seek work as it was assumed that they would not have worked throughout their married life and would probably find it difficult to get any job. However, I do remember my mother over the years worrying that we wouldn’t be able to manage on her pension and that she would have to find some sort of employment.

By 1964 the pension had risen to £4.15s (£4.75) + £1.17s.6d (£1.87) for me – which will have ceased when I started to work and began to contribute to the household expenses. By the time she died in 1967, aged 62, her state retirement pension would appear to still be under £5 a week.

I always enjoyed going into Bingley because it included a walk through the park. We always took Pat the dog who, at that time, was allowed to accompany us into all the shops (I think). On pleasant days we would often take a longer route through the park on the way home. This was known as the ‘Bottom Meadow’ which, as its name implies, was a large open meadow quite different from the rest of the park which had flowerbeds and trimmed grass. The River Aire flowed past the Bottom Meadow and you could cross the river into another large meadow via a bridge which had been built in 1951 to commemorate the Festival of Britain.

Whew! I’m back from two weeks in India and back in my original blog site. I managed to lock myself out of here, had to prove that it actually belongs to me in order to get back in and then had to import my “On Tour” blog.

So, it’s back to the original storyline next time. I will skip through to the end of the 1950s (I promise I will) and get on with my story….