There was definitely a shortage of elastic after the war
although according to most of the women in the local community the situation
had eased a little. Elastic is not
something that most five-year-olds give much attention to and I did not differ
from others in this respect. In fact I had not given it a moment’s
consideration until the humiliating incident in my first week of school. It might even have been my second week of
school because by the time it happened I had quite given up crying bitterly for
my mother and was beginning to enjoy the novelty of playing with the lumps of modelling
clay known as plasticene, an activity that was entirely new to me. The plasticene itself had no doubt started life
in an array of bright colours but over time had deteriorated to a grey
sludge-brown and my mother suspected it harboured both TB and scabies and furthermore
had been handled since the year dot by hordes of children and you never knew
where their fingers had been. This was
not a favourable summing up of the activity but nevertheless as it was not
available in any shape or form at our house I was delighted to play with
it.
In those days at St Botolph’s Primary School we sat in double
desks with lids that opened to reveal storage spaces for books, pencils and the
afore-described lumps of modelling clay that we usually used immediately after the
dinner break. Each afternoon Miss
Honour our glamorous young teacher with long blonde hair and red finger nails,
instructed us to retrieve our balls of plasticene and carefully make for her
what our mothers had given us for our dinner.
I set to with enthusiasm, making a range of cuisine items that may or
may not have been on the dinner menu that week at 28 York Road. Georgie Freeman my desk mate and younger
brother of my best friend Molly from 31 York Road produced obscure grey blobs
that he told me and also Miss Honour were shredded wheat with milk. I reflected with a certain degree of envy
that such exciting dinners would never be allowed at number 28. My ever-critical mother, on the other hand
was less than complimentary and said it was a crying shame and that her sister
Mag was much the same, dishing up bread and milk day after day never mind that
those boys of hers were all but fully grown.
I was of course equally envious of my cousins and their daily doses of
bread and milk, most especially when made with delicious condensed milk from a
tin rather than the boring variety we had in bottles.
At the time of my
mortifying moment concerning elastic we had not yet got to the modelling clay stage
of the day so it must have been late morning.
I am reasonably clear about this time frame because I had first become
aware of the problem during morning playtime, therefore electing not to take
part in Molly’s skipping game even though she was playing with a rope that had
proper wooden handles and belonged to her older sister. To my horror, after paying my usual visit to
the girls’ lavatories whether-or-not-I-needed-to-go as instructed by my mother,
I was quite unable to make my pink winceyette knickers stay up around my waist.
I spent several minutes frantically attempting
to force them to remain in place before abandoning the task and heading
speedily towards the relative safety of the wooden bench bestowed upon the
school by a previous headmaster.
Barbara Scutts who was already emerging as a bossy and opinionated
student immediately told me that the bench was for the use of teachers only and
I was going to be in Big Trouble if I did not vacate it but I ignored her and
before she could berate me further the end of playtime bell sounded and I was
able to escape back to the infants’ classroom desperately trying to keep my
wayward undergarment in place. It was not easy!
Back in the classroom it was not
until we stood up to sing Run Rabbit Run that to my horror the cloud of pink descended
once more to my ankles and Georgie standing beside me stopped singing immediately
and observed loudly that my knickers were on the floor. Stepping out of them I hastily raised the
desk lid and placed them alongside the lump of modelling clay at which he
announced to as many of the class already aware that something untoward was
happening, that I had taken my knickers off.
Once the handful of pink was safely out of sight I treated him to as
withering a look as I could manage whilst fighting tears and said that he was a
liar and would go to hell. Undeterred
Georgie called loudly to Miss Honour, still enthusiastically engaged in playing
the piano that I had taken my knickers off and put them in my desk and it was
his opinion that I had piddled in them.
This of course attracted the immediate attention of at least a third of
the class with Barbara Scutts leaning backwards from her place in the row ahead
of us in an attempt to track the actual whereabouts of my underwear.
It took Miss Honour several minutes to stop playing, encourage
us to finish the song which proved impossible, and investigate what item of
clothing, if any, was actually in my desk and what state it was in. When she finally did so, she was followed by
a procession of interested onlookers, Barbara to the forefront saying my
elastic was probably broken and then when she was ignored vociferously enquiring
as to whether she was correct. I visualised throwing my Uncle Harold’s darts
at her, the ones I had been expressly forbidden to play with and did but he
didn’t find out. Then I wondered if she
realised how deep my hatred of her had become.
But Miss
Honour after holding up the handful of pink and reassuring herself that the item
of clothing was not even slightly damp, had magically produced a safety pin
from somewhere on her person and regardless of the audience and my clear
reluctance to co-operate, was proceeding to assist me back into the offending
garment before firmly pinning it to my liberty bodice. I was to tell my mother that the elastic
needed replacing she instructed, otherwise they would keep falling down. Barbara was making helpful comments about
elastic and Georgie was grinning broadly.
Oh how I detested them both!
I recall nodding
miserably, filled with loathing for each and every one of the attentive spectators,
wishing endless misfortune upon them and when we were released at dinner time
it was of course the very first piece of news I imparted to my mother standing
at the school gate, though barely able to speak coherently through the torrents
of tears.
Once at home and whilst I ate my sliced half a sausage with
reheated vegetables from the previous day, the elastic was deftly replaced, amid
observations that it was still hard to come by and I was to make sure not to
treat it too roughly when pulling up and down otherwise I would find myself
reduced permanently to using a pin and I wouldn’t like that at all. I was quite certain this was correct and
decided that I would henceforth as far as possible abandon the playtime visit
to the girls’ lavatories whether-I-needed-to-go-or-not. It was more than likely I would be able to
manage perfectly well by employing in depth bladder control until elastic became
more readily available again.
When I got back to school that afternoon to my relief the
mishap was not immediately mentioned and even Barbara Scutts appeared to have
forgotten about it. We settled down to
our plasticene session, and Miss Honour said that today we no longer had to
make what we had eaten for dinner, we could make whatever we wanted to. What a treat! I set to work making my teddy bear, recently
transgendered from male to female for some reason now forgotten and renamed
Sugar.
Alongside me Georgie appeared to be engaged in the creation
of a very long worm and I felt with great satisfaction that my model was an
enormous improvement on his. Miss
Honour walked between the desks asking us about our models. Because I was inordinately pleased with my work,
thinking it closely resembled Sugar the Bear I beamed with pride when she spoke
words of approval and managed to stick my tongue out at Georgie when she turned
towards him. She asked him if he was
making a snake. He said he wasn’t and to
my horror added that he was making the broken elastic from my wet knickers. I felt strongly he should be reprimanded in
some way whilst loudly protesting that my knickers had been completely dry but
Miss Honour simply ignored us both and began to speak to Barbara about the
puppy she was making. Barbara
importantly explained that it was her grandmother’s Scotch terrier and its name
was Dougal.
Despite the fact that his sister was my best friend I found
it impossible to forgive Georgie for a very long time.
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