A CLASS ACT.doc

A CLASS ACT Florence Cartlidge 1. Growing up in bomb-blitzed Manchester during the Second World War meant times were tough, money was short, anxiety was rife and the pawnshop was a familiar destination for many families, including mine. 2. Yet I could not have asked for more enterprising and optimistic parents. They held our family together with hard work, dignity and bucketloads of cheer. My sturdy and ingenious father could turn his hand to almost anything and was never short of carpentry and handyman work. He even participated in the odd bout of backstreet boxing to make ends meet. For her part, our mum was thrifty and meticulously clean, and her five children were always sent to school well fed, very clean, and attired spotlessly, despite the hard conditions. 3. The trouble was, although my clothes were ironed to a knife-edge, and shoes polished to a gleam, not every item was standard school uniform issue. While Mum had scrimped and saved to obtain most of the gear, I still didn’t have the prescribed blue blazer and hatband. 4. Because of the war, rationing was in place and most schools had relaxed their attitude towards proper uniforms, knowing how hard it was to obtain clothes. Nevertheless, the girls’ school I attended made it strict policy that each of its students was properly attired, and the deputy headmistress who ran the daily assembly made it her mission to teach me a lesson. 5. Despite my attempts at explaining why I couldn’t comply, and despite the fact that I was making slow progress towards the full uniform, every day I would be pulled out of line and made to stand on the stage as a shining example of what not to wear to school. 6. Every day I would battle back tears as I stood in front of my peers, embarrassed and, most often, alone. My punishment also extended to being barred from the gym team or to not taking part in the weekly ballroom dancing classes, which I adored. I desperately wished that just one teacher in this horrid school