Memories of school

This morning I decided to walk to fetch the paper - still trying to hang on to some pretence of a New Year's resolution to do more exercise. It was a cool, drab morning with a feeling of dampness rising from the pavement, but I could hear birds singing as if heralding a new advent as we wait for spring.

On the way back I saw a gully that leads to a path around my old primary school. Although I pass the main gates several times a week, I have not looked at the grounds for years. Apart from some shiny new play equipment and a small extension the place does not seem to have changed - but it all looks smaller than I remember. The playing fields that once seemed so vast, now look quite small, more like a suburban back garden than the huge plains for adventure and exploration when I was 8.

I look at the 'infants' school building, probably built in the 1970's. I rememer its small classrooms; cosy, intimate, with play cupboards and nature tables. The 'middle school', a plaque proudly dating it's oldest part to 1863. I remember my first classroom in that block, it had high Victorian ceilings which made everything echo, but there was an excitement of learning when anything seemed possible.

The rest of the school is a rather bleak, square 1950's building. The old boiler house is still there, it was always out of bounds and we always thought it was haunted, we used to stare up at the blackened windows in the hope of catching a glimpse of the ghost.

So many memories came flooding back, of teachers, of friends, lessons, subjects. A warm feeling of a time in my life when there were few worries. A feeling of gratitude for a place, that although it is not always in my consciousness, it is very much a part of my history, and therefore a part of the person I am today. By the title of this blog, you probably have guessed that I like history, and I think as well as understanding other people's history - I need to undertand my own.

School holidays

As someone who does not have children, the summer holidays normally have the benefit of less traffic on the roads and never having to have someone sat next to me on the train.

The downside is that the little darlings are let loose on the streets. Today in Waterstones in Birmingham a group of youngsters who had missed out on evolution were trying their best to wreck the small lift that wheelchair users can use to reach the mezzanine level. Then there were the parents who already looked at their wits end with their offspring as they screech at them. All of this happens on the first day proper of the holidays!

But then my faith in this country's future was restored in my local town. There are a plethora of charity shops, and I was doing a trawl in search of books. In each one there was a young female helping out. None of them looked like the surly teenagers I had seen in Birmingham, and all were very polite and eager to help. It left me with a nice feeling that our young people are prepared to offer their time for others. Perhaps Mr Cameron's Big Society will work out after all!

iPods

Ok, so I am behind the times. I have only just discovered the iPod, well iPhone actually. I have never been a person who keeps up to date with the latest gadgets, and am nearly always the last to join in with the movement.

I always thought iPods were annoying things that people played too loud on the train so that everyone could hear how dire their taste in music was! At work yesterday someone looked at me with utter disgust that I had only just entered the iPod era, anyone would have thought I had just told her that I had murdered 12 school children.

Anyway, I am now wondering how I lived without one. It makes the long hot journey home on the train fly by, it drowns out the screaming child on long train journeys and the inane chatter of the teenage girls reading their glossy magazines and wondering how many more diets they need to go on until they become size zero.

Now on my phone I have the soundtrack to my life. I have gone through all of my CD's and found songs I had forgotton about, songs that take me back to my young carefree days when everything was an adventure. Songs that have helped me through sad times, songs that remind me of happy times. And then I realise I must keep the volume down in case people realise how dire my taste in music is!

Re-unions

Yesterday, I met up with two old friends. I haven't see the one for 12 years and the other for 7 years. All of us are 31.

It was a good evening, full of catching up on the latest gossip and what we had all been up to over the years. Reminding each other of the things of our youth, which we had forgotten - intentionally or otherwise.

You often imagine that re-unions are for people in thir 60's, where the main topic of conversation is the list of people who had died. It was a very sobering experience to be having a re-union at 31, and to be discussing people from school and college who had died. Between the three of us, I think the total number of our contemporaries who had passed away was 5. Often these deaths were sudden - and not always the result of an accident. It seems that the invincibility of youth is over as we face our own mortality head on.

So we raise a glass to those who have gone before us, and be thankful that we are still here - and make a promise to live life to the full every day.