Mysts of Time!

Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

I went to school in a day and age where this phone and that meme would have sounded like something out of a sci-fi movie. Had I ever heard of such a thing.

I went to school aged 4 in September 1961. The school was about 100 feet from my house. When my mother died in 2015 I took Tony to see the road I lived in, and the school was still there, even the old building that was the sum total of the school at the time. It’s huge now.

It was so magical just to be there.

That first day I walked to school with my mum, and she was allowed to stay with me for a short while. Then the mums were asked to leave. I recall feeling tearful for a few minutes, then becoming totally engrossed in education. I’ve always loved learning.

My best friend was Jackie. She lived in one of the modern houses just across from us, behind the new tower blocks. All two stories of.

My aunt lived in a very tall house that we could see across a bomb site. It took me years to realise what that meant. South London was heavily bombed during WWII.

All I remember of that school are snapshots of one maths lesson, one writing lesson, not being able to touch my toes, and my teacher, Mrs Powell, kissing me goodbye the day I had to leave.

I was happy there in our old condemned house, with the scruffy garden and the sweet peas that grew so tall they fell forward and hung over the washing line.

The outside toilet that was freezing in the winter. The hall my grandad wobbled down on my new roller-skates. They extended from child size to adult. Our dog Bunty, and my close family.

Since then I’ve had much more money, been to posher schools that I disliked, and one ordinary one I loved. But I’ve never again had the feeling that I had in that house. Nor the family.

Some of my best memories are locked in the space and time. It’s a lovely place to visit. Still real to me. I can still walk those streets in my heart.

What a very long time ago it was though, yet in the greater infinite scheme of things it’s been no time at all.

Tine is weird.

Best love

Amorah – Deb