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Having come back from being a paid for evacuee and having passed the eleven plus as it was then called I settled into the Richard Hind School Yarm Lane Stockton.
From Norton Green this was a school bus ride away or if you missed the school bus two bus rides away. One to the town centre and one to the school, this invariable meant you arrived late. There was assembley each morning with prayers and anouncements. We would be rounded up by monitors as we came in late and herded into the school hall under the beady eye of the headmaster. He would then finish his business by saying you boys report to my office during morning break, that gave you two periods of worry and trying to pack something into your trousers for what you were about to receive.
We moved from classroom to classroom for each period and they used a hall down the road called St Peter's hall for two classes and Gym work. The Gym instructor was a Mr Bill Williams and he was the Egyptian swimming champion although it was never explained to us how this came about.
Among the normal physical exercises some done outside we also boxed, wrestled and fenced with epee's. The sports afternoon we walked to the park five minutes away and played what ever was in season, football rugby cricket. The school had good football and cricket teams and we all wanted to be in them but the competition was fierce.

WALKING WOUNDED.
During this time I got Osteomyelitis a bone disease due to infection. There were quite a few cases in our area at that time and I often wondered why it happened, certainly not malnutrition as with our own gardens and animals food was never short in our house.
After a short spell in hospital and a long talk with Mr Reed the bone specialist at Stockton and Thornaby Hospital when he asked me what my ambition was and I told him to go in the army, he said do exactly what I say and you will be able to do that. With a plaster all the way up my leg and a big iron for a boot plus a pair of crutches I returned to school and promptly found out what was meant by bullying. Hopalong gimpy pegleg were some of the kinder things said to me, I would be tripped in the corridor changing classes and get a thump when the culprit thought I could not catch them.
For a couple of weeks I was so miserable I wanted to pack up school. Mother knew something was wrong but I would not tell her, Dad finally got it out of me when we were feeding the pigs one night.
My father was a very mild man but he said "right I will not show you up by going to the school but look at the weapons you have, Two crutches, a big iron on your foot and you are a fair boxer". A week later all bullying had stopped some boys with very sore spots on their bodies complained and my mother got a letter asking her to make me refrain from using my crutches as deadly weapons, Dad just smiled. I still took part in all the sports activity's even having a runner when we played cricket.
My leg would itch under the plaster and sometimes I would get out of bed and go out walking or sit on Norton Green, this was during the night and the air raid wardens got to know me well, I got many a cup of tea in their little watch room listening to their conversation about the local happenings. I walked for miles often coming home with blood running out of the plaster. Mother was covering everything I ate with "Glucose D" what ever that was so all food tasted the same.
Visits to the hospital for attention usually meant a one or two night stay where I met others with the same complaint and all of us seemed to be of an age, I was the only one who did not end up with a limp or other incapacity. One very pretty girl and a boy who lived very near to me ended up with one leg shorter then the other possibly due to muscles not being exercised properly.
The big day came and the plaster came off, I sat there in horror as this brown parchment covered walking stick emerged, the technicion cut my leg removing the plaster and it bled that was the only way I knew there was anything left. After several days of exercise and ointments I returned home in fear that I was a cripple for life. Bathing exercise and good food soon had it looking more respectable and after several months I was back to normal again. Mr Reed was right, I did as he told me and went in the army a few years later.

SAD EVENTS.
School was pretty normal we had raids a lot of the nights and had become quite blase' about it all as we picked up our little packs trooped into the shelter getting into the bunks and promptly sleeping through it all. I could even sleep as the 4.7" guns let loose behind us. One night Mum said more bombs had dropped but I was still on the bus for school next morning. Getting there we were all in the assembly when the Head master said some bombs dropped on Northcote and Dennison Streets some people have been killed and property smashed, you will be having all your periods that took place in St Peters Hall in the main school and that included school dinners. We did not know that a baby of three weeks old had died in St Peters road that night along with his parents.

BOILED RICE.
School dinners were a bit of a burden at times we sat at long trestle tables with the Teachers up on the stage watching our every move, using you knife and fork incorrectly brought down the hand of god usually wielding a cane.
There was a shortage of potato's and we got boiled rice of which there seemed to be plenty the way it was piled on your plate. It was a horrible grey gluey mass that even mixed with the other things on your plate stuck to your ribs on the way down and leaving a sulpherous taste in your mouth. I hated it and would some how manage to get it into my hankerchief then into my pocket because if you left anything on your plate you were a traitor trying to lose the war, "our brave sailors risk life and limb to bring that food to us". Mother would complain about the discoloured patches on my school blazor pockets and clip my ear for losing yet another hankerchief. To this day any other rice on my plate apart from rice pudding makes me choke, I just cannot eat it.

AIR RAIDS AND GIRLS.
We got back to normal soon after as our St Peters Hall had been repaired then one night it was estimated 300 German planes had crossed the North East coast as they went inland to bomb the city's they dropped spare bombs and machined gunned us as they went back home. Next morning we all had to get off the school bus in Stockton and walk into school. Something had landed in Yarm Road killing at least one person.
The police steered us past the damage but one of my mates called me, there hanging off a tree quite low was part of a hand with a couple of fingers on it. You have to remember we were used to seeing animals killed and cut up for bacon or meat so we were both looking at this part hand when the Bobby came to see what we were up to, we both got a sore ear as he swung his glove full of beans at us telling us to get along before he ran us in.
I only remember one daylight raid whilst at school. We all had to file into the brick shelters in the school yard and as our school was segregated boys and girls seperated by a big wall, we were amazed to find the girls already in there. That was a mad hour though I dont remember anything about the actual raid. The teachers complete with chairs and whips finally drove us boys back out into the daylight, we were all buzzing because Big Tommy had been seen Kissing June, shock horror, really kissing? blimy, they will have to get married now. How innocent we were.

NORMAL FOR US.
My schooldays were happy as I got innured to the cane in time, we had for some reason quite small manageable classes and some brilliant teachers. Most of the boys and girls from that school during that period went on to do well in their after school lives so the war did not cause us loss of a good education for the time.
Long nights in shelters followed by never missing school never seemed to worry us at all and the healthy sport schedule kept us fit despite the school dinners with their sticky rice, solid puddings, and custard that would stick wall paper on the wall. I am still around at 74 and probably because there were no interfering counsellors around then to make us worry even more by retelling our stories, I will never be convinced that works. We had a "nice cup of tea" then got on with it as that was the norm.
When I tell the Grandchildren we had a pretty normal schooling they look at me as if I am kidding but that was normal to us we knew no other way.
Frank Mee.

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