And so my time of living at home came to an end..............Boarding School

I was at the tender age of 7 years when this came about, my brother had been at boarding school for a year and all the talk was about sending my sister within the next year. My parents didn’t want to send us, we weren’t anarchic children, its just dad was in the army and knew that we’d be moving every 3 years, therefore they agreed that boarding school was going to be our best start for an education.

So activities in the house-hold were for my sister to go to a new school. She was having lots of new clothes, new things and I was 6 and looking on with green eyes. One day, probably whilst in the kitchen, after being given wrong for something and very likely not long after being belted for breaking the tip of my brothers sheath knife, I told my mum that she didn’t love me and proceeded to tell her that it was because they’d sent my brother to boarding school and would be sending my sister as well. I was jealous of my siblings and wanted a share of this boarding school action.

Discussions obviously took place when my dad returned from work and all I remember is that we were looking at where I could go. It was all a bit of a rush job as I only visited the school that I ended up attending. It was an hour outside of London, at the north coast of Kent, Grenham House in Birchington.

After visiting the school and thinking that it was fantastic, it had a large sports field, a tennis court and was close to the beach. I was really excited to be going to this place. In the forth coming months I was going shopping, being measured for clothing and receiving loads of new stuff:  what 6 year old wouldn’t love all this?

I don’t remember much about the day I started but can remember components of my years here. We had 6 classes, these were split up roughly between year groups, I ended up being moved at the end of every year, I didn’t know if this was a promotion but I do remember doing really well in the exams and coming in the top 3 of the class. I was never first in English as I remember the guy always received a book. I did come first in Maths however I don’t remember receiving anything apart from acknowledgement from the headmaster.

Class 6 was the youngsters, we had a teacher called Miss McKenzie ( I don’t know how I remember that, maybe I was obsessed) who wore floral dresses. One memory is that we’d ask her to retrieve stuff off the higher shelves, she’d end up standing on the desk to reach and I’d peak up her dress: on one occasion she had on matching flowery panties. I guess this was when my interest in the female anatomy sparked.

We had a school bell that was rung to let the pupils playing outside it was time to go in for the night. On this memorable occasion it was summer and there were quite a few kids out playing, the bell went signifying to the first years that they had to go in. This boy ran past us and was heading inside when he ran into the side of a wall, being kids we thought this was funny and giggled. He didn’t move and so we proceeded to carry him to the nurse. There were at least eight boys trying to move him and it was decided to send a runner to inform the nurse that we were on our way and what had happened. We continued moving this boy and then someone noticed a wet patch increasing in his groin area. This caused hilarity amongst us kids and once we’d regained our composure proceeded to take this boy to the nurse. We ended up bumping his head a couple of times, once on the steps leading to the nurse’s room. We delivered this boy to the nurse and then headed off to prepare for bed. We were told in assembly the next morning that this boy had died, I can’t remember his name but they built a library in his memory.

I was really fortunate that I was introduced to hockey here, I was 7 when I first picked up a stick, I wasn’t immediately fantastic and had to wait until I was 8 to find out that this was the sport for me. At 11 years I was playing for the 1st XI, they were all 12 and 13 years of age. There was one match, played annually, were we were playing a ladies under 18’s team. This match was against the Westgate Ladies and a write up was always in the local paper. We lost 1-3 but I did score and for the first time was reading read my name in the newspaper as one of the goal scorers.



It was here that I met my oldest mate of whom I'm still in touch, even if it is occasionally, and am connected through Facebook. We last saw each other at 16, as we ended up going to the same secondary school.

I was 10 years old and therefore planning to move on to secondary school. I had to sit examinations to be invited into the school. I passed these as well as my 11+. The 11+ was an examination taken prior to attending secondary school and identified if you went to a grammar school. Thankfully I didn’t need my 11+ and it was only I who bothered that I passed; perhaps I should stop using this as a qualification, now.

I moved on from Grenham House at the end of the school year all excited about entering the Duke of York’s Royal Military School. I wonder why I ended up in the army.