THE SCHOOL VISIT FIASCO

The tradition in primary schools was that on the last day of term, you were allowed to bring your little pre-school brother or sister. I was very keen to go to school and one end-of-term, when I was five, Auntie Sue took me with her for the day. I was so excited I couldn't eat my breakfast.

It turned out to be a disaster. Auntie Sue taught the eight-year-olds. The classroom had two-seater desks. Everybody wanted me to sit next to them. Auntie Sue got me to sit next to a little boy in the front row and introduced him as Heinie Bigalke. Consternation! I promptly burst into tears, and wouldn't say why.

 The truth was, I was terrified of Heinie Bigalke because I had heard Auntie Sue on many occasions telling my mother about him and how naughty he was. One of his exploits was to tie a string of fire crackers to the school cat's tail. The cat ran franctically and the next day the gardener found it under a bush with a burnt tail. It was still terrified and the vet had to sedate it.

The day I overheard that story, I couldn't sleep and threw up all night, as was my wont if something had frightened me during the day. I felt so sorry for the cat. My mother thought I had a weak stomach: I never let on about my fears.

When order was restored and I was sitting between two girls, a safe distance from the dreaded Heinie Bigalke, lessons started. At first I enjoyed myself: I called Auntie Sue "Miss" like the other children and I was pretending to be a real schoolgirl. We had Scripture first, Miss read a Bible story and we said Our Father (who art in Heaven, Harold be thy name).

Then we went to a bigger classroom and we had singing, together with another class. We sang "My Grandfather's Clock" and "Hansie Slim". Then the bell rang for "playtime" and we went outside. I basked in the attention of the "big girls": we shared our sandwiches and somebody had a skipping rope ... they let me swing one end while we chanted "salt, mustard, vinegar … pepper!"

After that, we went back to our classroom for sums. I could count, but "sums" was new to me. I sat quietly and admiringly between my two desk-mates, who enjoyed being "big girls" and impressing me. "Tables!" they said. "You'll find out about tables when you go to school!" I could hardly wait to go to school and find out about tables.

Then disaster struck again: after sums came spelling. Auntie Sue, a.k.a. "Miss", read out the ten words the class had had to learn for homework. My mentors smiled kindly at me and gave me a pencil and a bit of paper so I could also pretend to write the words.

Well, I knew nothing about sums, but to a reader of books about sex maniacs, spelling words like "pretty" and "elephant" was a piece of cake. I was the only one in the class who got all ten of the words right. Suddenly I was invisible. Nobody spoke to me. I learnt something about discretion that day. Nobody likes a smartass.

Auntie Sue didn't take me to school again.