´óÏó´«Ã½

By kind permission of the author

I went to school as we went to war.
I’d scarcely been there a week
When they closed us down, ‘for safety’s sake’,
To my intense relief,
For I hated the whole confusing place,
The playground noise, the too-fast pace,
With never a sign of a friendly face,
And too many rules to learn.
So, they closed us down and we went instead
To smaller groups in the dining rooms
Of some of the posher people’s homes,
With their wishing wells and garden gnomes,
Where you left your wellies in the hall
And sat up straight and took your turn
At sounding out from an Easy Reader
Mouthing each syllable, like the leader.
Conformist, it didn’t occur to me
That the other children were all at sea
With forming words from the alphabet
Which most of them scarcely knew as yet
While I’d been reading, it seemed for ever,
Though my teacher said that it wasn’t clever,
When she discovered my secret vice.
It wasn’t clever, it wasn’t nice
To make your teacher look a fool.
I did not fit in at all at school.

‘This story was submitted to the People’s War site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his/ her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.’

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