大象传媒

More frightening than Hitler.
I started school at Bennerley Infants when I was three and three quarters. In Miss Dampier`s Class next to the door. She was a thin rather quiet and withdrawn woman (Years later she committed suicide. You see until very recently a woman teacher who married lost her job. So many lived sad and lonely lives caring for other peoples children with no prospect of marriage and their own children.) Miss Dampier was helped by Miss Fletcher, Percy Fletcher the Milkman`s daughter. I was given a shiny black slate and a piece of white chalk and recall the scribbled lines I made. There was a daily ritual in which both ladies carried in two trays bearing fish paste jars. The tallest jars held concentrated Orange Juice - it was delicious. The smaller jars held Cod Liver oil. It was odd that every day there was some Cod Liver oil left despite everyone answering the question, "Has everyone had their Cod Liver oil?" And everyone answering "Yes Miss Dampier". I tried it once - I never tried it again. In the afternoon camp beds were set up and we all had to take a nap, though I do not remember doing other than close my eyes.

Bennerley Infants School
Schools, indeed most places were drab and dark. The Victorians with their penchant for profit had seized on building schools and internally covered them with dark green or yellow tiles. In this dismal atmosphere the large skittles stood out like beacons in their primary colours. The school bell was rung and we lined up in the yard. A large skittle was set up at the top of Bennerley Avenue and we were marched to Vernon Street. At the top of Vernon Street were the long green grass humps of the air raid shelters. Each had a flight of steps down, benches along the walls inside and a kind of manhole cover at the far end (escape hatch I suppose). (Somewhere in the garden at least one of the section remains from after the war when they were dismantled.) Down we went and sat in silence on the benches. After several minutes the bell was rung and we marched back up the steps, across Bennerley Avenue, keeping to the right side of the skittle and another shelter practice was over.
(There were also shelters on Bennerley Rec - others next to Holy Trinity church. No doubt there were others which I cannot remember. Also opposite the church and standing between the cobblers shop and what is now the restaurant was a large iron tank on concrete supports. It was an emergency water supply.)
One evening my Dad told me I was going to help him put up a sign across at the school. We went across and Mr (Albert) Denby the Caretaker was there to open up. He watched as Dad hammered large nails through a length of wood on the outside wall of Miss Dampier`s room. Then he fastened up a white enamelled sign with WARDENS POST on it. Mr. Denby had gone somewhere. He came back looking very serious. "You know those big nails?" I nodded. "Well they`ve come right through the wall and fetched plaster and paint off. What will Miss Dampier have to say?" What would Miss D have to say when she found out my Dad had done the deed. I must have been first in class the next day. Needless to say there was nothing to be seen - MISTER DENBY wherever you are!
Miss. Whittle was all your nightmares rolled into one. This thin faced harridan screamed at us all day long and belted kids left right and centre with rulers, slippers or the flat of her bony hands. We had a rhyme about Miss Whittle, `Miss Whittle had a pittle behind a rabbit tree. A rabbit came and bit her bum and made her shout "Wee, Wee!". (Daring, close to the knuckle stuff for the 1940s). Her weak point was given away on a shelter practice. The younger children went first and then we arrived and were duly screamed into our shelter. It had rained heavily the previous night so there were several inches of water on the floor through which we paddled to our allotted seats on a bench. In the dark we heard splashes and spotted a few frogs who had moved in. Someone shouted to Miss Whittle, "Miss there鈥檚 frogs down here." Her reaction revealed that she would rather stay outside and face German Bombs than join us in the company of amphibians.
Mam took me to see The Wizard of Oz in which the whole screen suddenly filled with a close up of the green face of Miss Whittle and I thought it was time to go home at this point. Truly I feared Miss Whittle far more than I did Hitler. Of him we would march around with our left index finger under our nose and our right arm extended in the Nazi salute.

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