Nineteen Eighty Four
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “1984.”
Orwell got it wrong in that novel of the same name.
Why ? I hear the humble reader ask…
It’s quite simple – unless its of a medical nature – nothing can be as fearful to a young mind more than your first day at a new school.
I go past the old places from time to time – amalgamations mean there’s now one great super-school on a Salford Street, servicing the needs of all 11+ year Roman Catholic children in the area – that is of course – if they haven’t passed the entrance exam to the Grammar school in the next door city.
I’m drawn back to my own experience…
Large brown coloured buildings greet me. A building a lot different to the Junior school i’d been at not a few months ago. The birds have landed in a much different nest since flying the primary coop…all I could see is squares – lots of squares. Its a bit overbearing – can I go back to the old place ? I hear another pupil ask his mum…It heightens the fear
Directed towards the cafeteria – the new intake are led in a waiting pattern. I head through a door to hear a bell ring, and a torrent of bodies passes by.
Chattering classes discussing the new term and the morning events – new opportunities and new subjects to be learned. Fifth years checking out the lambs to the slaughter. Well to do Mums and Dads proudly waving embarrassed second years goodbye.
We receive a welcome from the Head and his deputy , and our new form tutors. We are then led down a corridor by an older lad a “prefect”- into what seems like a maze of classrooms
We’re then divided into two…some friends stay together – whilst others meet new friends from other primary schools.
One group takes a sharp left – Art , Pottery, Ceramics…whilst the group i’m in takes a different turn – Technical Drawing, Metalwork, Woodwork
The smell of cooking hits my nose as we stop – Home Economics – or as I knew it later “Cooking” lay a short distance away…so what wonderful class did we end up at?
“Here’s the place”, the prefect smiled.
Needlework.
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