Those were the days, my friend.

 So England is out, again,  they came so close,  but not close enough.  60 years ago, a skinny, tall, girl with red hair, put the finishing touches to her school project, celebrating England's win at the World Cup, I can still feel the rough touch of the green spongey substance covering my project.  The book disappeared when my tenant trashed my flat.    Today's children, won't get to create such a celebration.  But we have done better than we might have done.  

60 years ago I also started my secondary school, and a couple of days ago, experienced the nerves and excitement all over again, standing outside my school buildings. That day a woman asked me directions as she thought I was an established pupil, but of course I had no idea where anything was.  That first day we were seated in alphabetic order,  me the tallest and Christine, the shortest next to each other. 

For much of my time at school I thought I was doing okay and given that I was almost always in the top 5 I was.  I was also happier at school than at home, but the end results were disappointing.  Low grade GCSE's except in History and Geography.  Some topics I think I might have got were excluded because of the timetable, but in key subjects, I really wasn't great, Maths I struggled with and even today my grammar is not strong suit and I dropped out of Science, and I was only offered the chance to do two A levels at 6th form, so moved on to Erith college where I did do muc better comparatively getting three A levels, two at a good level.   I also had some very deep anxieties at school, which hovered through the day, and for the first two years only made friends, not firm friends.  But everyone got on well, we could have been stretched a lot more and I could and should have stretched myself a lot more, but my experiences there were largely positive.   

But going back, wow it churned up both the positives and negatives.  I also had to deal with nerves around meeting fellow pupils, especially as I felt excluded from their reunions.  However, all these years on, what is truly wonderful is the school today.  Now it is a grammar school and the girls exuded talent and confidence. Whilst they have lost a couple of the wonderful tennis courts and the pottery,which I loved, they still have the grounds we played rounders in, and now have much better science facilities, music facilities, and language facilities.  It is twice the size of my old school and unlike me, the girls are allowed to walk around in socks and bare legs and have long hair, and they are really given opportunities we did not have.  Then no one expected much of us girls, career wise, and most of us have done much better than perhaps the school imagined, but these girls, despite the challenges of the times, seem match ready for the future.   Unlike the poor old England team, who have to go back to the start and try, try and try again.