The changing world (3) Skipton age 6 - 10

We moved to Skipton Bridge in 1952 My parents had first visited the village during the war when Canadian Halifax bomber had crashed on the village green. The R.C.A.F. memorial is now on the site. School was half way between our village and the next, Catton. It was a walk of three quarters of a mile each way. For a time we walked the journey twice a day when school dinners were served in Skipton. My memories of those walks were icy puddles in winter and dead rabbits. Myxomatosis left maggot ridden rabbit corpses all around.

Catton School, now closed, had two classes for ages 5 to 15. I think it was infants class then the rest. If you passed the 11 plus exam you went to Thirsk Grammar, if not you stayed put. Before I passed, only two or three had made the grade in the previous decade. I was a precocious child and suffered a little bullying for being teacher's pet. Miss Mather was our formidable head and I was her star pupil passing the 11 plus a year early. I can still recite some of the poems she taught us. Wordsworth must have been her favourite as they include Daffodils and From Westminster Bridge.

I was ever the non-conformist. Turton was the local MP with a huge majority. I remember asking my father to put up a poster for Mytton, Labour. Dad thought discretion the better part of valour. Local children chanted,
Vote for Turton
And be certain.
Vote for Mytton
And get bitten.

But the big social divide was chapel and church. Dad was a Methodist local preacher and became Sunday School superintendent. Sunday morning was Sunday School and we were in Sunday best clothes. The chapel service was in the evening except on the two high days of the year, Sunday School anniversary and harvest festival when we had afternoon services too. The latter was followed by Monday night with service, auction and supper. Harvest gifts were auctioned for church funds. Methodism locally was evangelical. Anglicanism was in our opinion spiritually dead. Over the coming years evangelical Methodists battled with liberalism. Some like my family stayed. Others left in one of two directions. They either went Reformed or charismatic, the latter could have been a return in a way to the Primitive Methodist tradition which had been my grandfather's background. My parents befriended Christian national servicemen from R.A.F Topcliffe and they often came for Sunday tea .

Two years before I went to grammar school my little brother Geoffrey arrived. We did not have TV. Dad had a very fine old valve radio with three wavebands and pre-set stations. But my major interest was reading which I even did secretly by torch-light under the bedclothes. Although I passed the 11 plus aged nine it was not without its trauma as I remember crying afterwards when out walking with Mum.

No TV meant we went to the cinema a few days after the coronation to see the colour film. Good Methodists did not frequent cinemas but dad dad take me to see Quo Vadis and The Robe also The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur.

The coronation was memorable. I remember the king dying in 1952 and also Churchill becoming prime minister in 1951 I think. Coronation day was miserable weather. I was cold in my fancy dress as an old sea dog with only pyjama bottoms worn as trousers. Mu body was covered in fake sun tan and I had a goose wing as a cutlass. Third prize in therapy at the old disused RAF squash court. The old base for the RCAF was now abandoned aerodrome and various hut sites, at least five of them around the village, one converted to council housing, another to poultry farming. The aerodrome was a place where learner drivers could really improve skill and sometimes for others too. Ropers were a local ship building family. I watch done of the testing an D type single seat Le Mons Jaguar, an Austin Mealy 300 and an Aston martin DB2. Imagine my thrill to be offered a ride in the Aston for a standing mile. I never experienced acceleration pressing back in one's seat until about 15 years later when we first flew to Nigeria.