大象传媒

I had just started school in Long Melford when WWII first started, my first experience of imminent danger occurred, when there was a rehearsal of the alarm system being tested. The Headmaster on hearing the siren sound in Sudbury came to the corridor, which linked all the classrooms together and rang a large brass hand-bell. Our teacher told us to stand ready to get out through a trapdoor, which had been made in the wall as an escape route. I stood up and was promptly sick all over the floor, the rest of the class all started to cry and a girl pupil was also sick. However we still had to go through the trapdoor, apart from my unfortunate accident and most of the rest of the class in tears the escape was successful, so successful in fact that we all enjoyed it and the trapdoor, became one of our new games chasing each other up the corridor, through the main door and out through the trapdoor, until being stopped by a teacher. Whenever I go to the old school, which is now a Community Centre, I often have a look behind the piano in the old infant鈥檚 classroom to make sure the trapdoor is still there, and stand on the spot where I disgraced myself.Our education suffered badly during the war years, one of the boys teachers had to go into the RAF, leaving the headmaster often having to cope on his own with about 100 boys ranging from the age of six to fourteen, we were often herded into two classrooms with an adjoining doorway, where the headmaster would stand and defy anyone to speak, I can assure you none of us did except to put your hand up to ask a question or to go to the toilet. We learned very little during those crucial years of learning, thank goodness for pocket calculators and spell check.

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