Do you play Dr Who?

I remember the first time I had to change schools. Most kids stay in the same primary/junior school to the age of 11 when they saunter off into the big bad world of secondary education to be let loose on society, succumb to peer pressure and fall in with bad crowds. I on the other hand was a lot younger.

It was 1985 and I was 4 years old and until that point had been attending “Ashmore Park Nursery” the local nursery school, and I was happy. I had friends at school and at home I was wrapped in bubble of perfect family life with a mom, a dad and a baby sister, which lets face it is all a 4 year girl old really needs, loving parents and a baby to play dolly with. Then early one January morning I was rudely awoken while it was still dark outside whisked off to my aunts house and put back to sleep in a huge bed, bigger than the one I was used to sleeping in. I remember thinking it was some big adventure I sat awake for a while listening to the noises drifting in from outside. There was people coming and going and a hum of activity I knew something big was happening but at 4 I had no idea just quite how life changing that hive activity was for me!

At some point in the night, probably no more than a few minutes after being put there (but at that age it felt like forever) I fell back to sleep and woke the next morning to world drastically altered from the one I knew the day before.

I can’t remember much of that day except at some point my mom appeared looking disheveled, tired and wrought with emotion and I was ushered into the lounge from the kitchen/diner and told to sit down. The details of the conversation elude me but the basics of it stuck with me forever “Daddy was poorly last night, we had to take him to hospital and now he’s gone to live with the angels up in heaven.”.

I can’t remember much of the weeks that followed, unsurprisingly I can’t even remember what happened next that day. I have a vague recollection of going to stay with my Nan and Grandad, and not going home for a long time, but long in a 4 year olds terms and long now at 26 are surely 2 different things so it may have only been for a week or two rather than the months it felt, and lots of people crying. In fact I only really have 3 events that stick in my mind from that period of time 1. Having to move house, My mom didn’t want to stay in the house she’s shared with my dad as it was too tough for her to deal with the memories so we moved, 2. Going out with my Mom and “Uncle” (he doesn’t like being called uncle now I think it makes him feel old) Peter to buy bunkbeds as a bribe to convince me that it was a good idea to move house “because now you get to share a room with your baby sister and you get a cool new bed” and 3. Starting a new school closer to the new house.

My new school, Danesmore Park, was just around the corner from us, my garden at the new house backed onto the playground it was that close and I remember being able to hear the school bells and the children playing on the playground from my bedroom. Although I can’t remember if we’d actually moved into that house or were still living at my Grandparents waiting to move in on my first day there, I do know exactly what happened in my first 10 minutes after walking through the door.

I can’t work out if the apprehension I felt about starting there was nervous or excited energy, or more likely a bit of both but I walked through the door into the entrance hall and took my coat off, my Mom hovered in the background whilst my new teacher, Mrs Whitehouse (who was also the blonde kids first teacher when he started at the same school many years later) showed me my coat peg and ushered me through the doorway and into the classroom. A sea of faces looked up at me from the book corner where they were sitting waiting for the register and I remember feeling a little out of place until I spotted one familiar face in all those expectant smiles. Hayley Foster.

Her family lived half a dozen doors away from my Grandparents and while I’d been staying there dealing with the aftermath of my fathers death we’d struck up a friendship, We would often play in her, or my grandparents gardens building castles out clothes racks and old blankets, or colouring in pictures sharing our pencil crayons and arguing over the black one. I always insisted on starting my pictures with the black first, this really frustrated Hayley as every self respecting 4 year old knows you use the black last! I homed in on that girl like a heat seeking missile and announced to my teacher, my mom and anyone else that would listen I’m going to sit by HER, pointing at Hayley.

Once registration was over I followed Hayley over to her table to start our day, sat down and in that instant set a precedent that would last a lifetime I introduced myself to everyone around that table and proceeded on to the rest of the class. Even now in any work or social situation if there is somebody I don’t know in the room/at our table I feel compelled to introduce myself and find out at least their name within the first 15 minutes of being in their company I’m sure some psychologist would point out it was some kind of defense mechanism for detracting my fears of being accepted or some such nonsense I just call it being friendly!

I have no idea what happened for the rest of that day, in fact I don’t think I even have anymore real memories of that year or the next of school. It’s funny how selective your memory can be, I didn’t even realise I remembered that much about starting at Danesmore until recently when I started talking to the blonde kid about starting his new school and it seemed to open a flood gate and it all came rushing back.

Jordan, until this summer had also been attending Danesmore Park, although he started there even younger than I was, attending the Mother and Toddler group first and then joining the nursery, where he made a group of friends that would be in every class with him for the next 5 years. He can’t remember most of this. His passage into this school wasn’t marked by anything as traumatic as a death in the family nor did we have any of the usual anxiety of “Will he make friends?, Settle in o.k?” as he already knew a good 75% of the children and was familiar with his surroundings from the Mother and Toddler group. He relished being in school using his time there as an opportunity not only to learn new skills but also to socialize and soak up all the deluge of new experiences being thrust in his direction. It was a perfect introduction into the education system. It’s a shame the council can’t see how important these foundations are when they storm in and close schools down.

So they’ve closed Danesmore and for the first time in his life Jordan has had to go into a situation that he was not 100% familiar with all by himself. He has started a new school, and It’s got me to wondering, What memories he will take away with him from this transitional period??

Luckily for him there are 4 other children in his class that he’d attended Danesmore with so he didn’t turn up on the first day all by himself with no clue to how he was going to get through the day, So I can’t see him looking back on the first day and remembering a feeling of dread of stepping into the unknown.

Maybe his only memory will be of the girl in his class who on the first day said she fancied him and “I didn’t even know her name!”. Maybe it will be of the teacher, Mr Tennant, who was rather bemused when a small blonde boy approached him on the first day and asked “Do you play Dr Who?” and replied “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to play that ask one of the others!”. Obviously he’s not update with popular television so not seeing the logic of a 7 year old putting 2 and 2 together and it being a natural assumption that when your new teacher has the same name as a the actor who at the same time is playing your most “favourite t.v character EVER” they could quite possibly be one and the same. Maybe it will be of the flowers the teachers had given all new pupils to welcome them into the school, they had quite an influx of new students with the closure of danesmore from parents who like me didn’t want to send them to the local authorities idea of an alternative.

Or maybe in 20+ years time, he’ll be keeping a blog all of his own and be recounting his first day in school in his new school in much more detail like I just have while sitting wondering what his children will remember about their first day at school.

2 thoughts on “Do you play Dr Who?

  1. That was a lovely story. I went to quite a few different schools. Sounds like the blonde kid coped well with the move though and it’s good that he didn’t do it alone.

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