My first day at school was late in term one and all the other first years had been learning to dance around a Maypole. My first impressions of school were watching boys and girls dancing round the pole while the ribbons they held made intricate and precise pink, yellow, blue and white patterns as they wrapped around the pole.

Comes my turn the dancing and weaving in and out did not seem so easy and the precise pattern of the ribbons round the pole had changed to random.

Demoted from dancing I was placed in the band but being a latecomer the only instrument left was the triangle. While the others played symbols and flutes I waited patiently for my turn. When the teacher pointed to me with her baton I struck the triangle the hardest blow I could. It broke, fell to the floor with a clatter and the whole band stopped playing.

Fortunately for me my time at this first school was brief. My next primary school was very different no maypole dancing or bands here. The walls of our classroom were lined with boards on which someone had painstakingly numbered the times tables. These varnished boards surrounded us all day and each day was spent learning and then reciting a new table. The more tables you learned the further forward in the class you were allowed to sit and the more the teacher liked you.