So that when I got to Secondary School I was ready to work with metal and more wood. To me, hands-on stuff just came naturally. So on reflection becoming a Tool and Die maker was a natural step after leaving school.
But art was where I should have stayed with. Who is to know where I could of have gone with paint. Although I did get to The University of Guelph at the ripe old age of 70. There I got good to high marks at painting and higher marks in sculpting. Which we worked in wood and then metal. Well working with metal was a breeze. And I was not about to tell them that I was a retired tool and die, maker.
I loved the University of Guelph . and when after about being there for five and a half years part-time. I had 11 credits. So I had 9 credits to go for my 20 credits. And my average was 78%
But I decided that I did not want to spend the last few years of my life writing art history essays. I had done all the hands-on stuff painting sculpting and I didn’t want to work on Essays alone.
O
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As I got older. I went to the market at Petticoat Lane on my own. To get there you had to take the tube. Get on the Bakerloo line and change to the Northern Line to go to Liverpool Street .. Liverpool Street …. Petticoat Line consisted of acres and acres of land. Some of it cleared bombed sites stools in side streets. Etc. Just one big mess of people selling things. .You could buy anything there from drawing pins to bangers.
You had to be careful about what you did buy. Dad bought some stockings for mum for Christmas one year. When she opened up the packaging there was not one matching pair. There were stockings with two heels, there were stockings that had two or three feet in them there were stockings that were two different lengths. No two stockings were the same colour the family thought that even though Dad had been taken he only wasted about half a Crown it was worth it as we all had a good laugh over them.
Eleven plus In 1952, In England at eleven years, we had the eleven plus exam at junior school. Which ( It’s been a long time ) is to grade all the students. Then, at that time after the exams, the kids were slotted into three groups. This was to ship the students on to the next stage of their scholastic careers. 1952. I came up between Senior School and Grammar school.
This scared the shit out of mum and dad. The conversation was on buying school uniform. They could not afford it. So I was sent to North Paddington School, on the Harrow Road in Paddington. Paddington being next to Kilburn.
At the Time the schools were run by the London County Council. It was a biggish school built solidly of dark brown greyish bricks. With girls playground on one side of the school, and the boy’s playground on the other 1952. a side of the school.in the far corner of the boys’ playground was the infamous “ Bogs “. Or 1952-1952-4. urinals, where I lost many a weeks dinner money to gambling. I believe that a week’s dinner money at the time was two shillings and a penny.
one thing here that springs to mind here is this John Touhey John and I had a disagreement, over what I can’t remember We landed up under the schoolyard shed. Sorry to say we had I don’t remember but I do remember I fell down with John under me. In doing so John fell on his arm and he landed up with a broken arm. I don’t think that there were any repercussions from this fight