Читать книгу Lost Voices of the Edwardians: 1901–1910 in Their Own Words - Max Arthur, Max Arthur - Страница 125

I went to St Clement's School in Dove Street. We had a headmaster called Mr Campie – talk about discipline. Discipline was nothing when I went in the Marines, because this chap really was strict. Many times I didn't have a piece of bread to go to school with – there was nothing in the house – but had a polish on my shoes. I had one of those collars on, and that had to be washed and cleaned, and your hair cut. He had a cane, and he'd have your hand under the blackboard, and he'd bring it down on your fingers.

At school – talk about brainwashed – when we went out in the yard it was all ‘Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue’. I think that was the start of me joining up – having it drummed into me.

When I started school you had to pay a penny a week, and my old mother often didn't have the penny to give me for school. But while I was in the Infants, 1905-6, they came out with free education. Boots or clogs – we wore anything we could get. The old woman used to get a pair of old uppers off somebody and you used to get them ‘clogged’. If they were good uppers, you'd get them clogged.