I'm now at Grammar School, aged 12

This photo was taken at my Grammar School in 1968, I am now 12 years old.  Can you spot me on this photo - please take a guess and post a comment.

Our school uniform was claret/wine/red and blue.  Striped tie, white blouses, navy blue skirts,  red cardigans or v-neck jumpers, white knee length socks, a beret and striped school scarf were optional  red blazer for the summer with our motto on the pocket 'Tenax et Fidelis'.  In the summer girls could wear checked summer dresses.

P E kit was culotte style shorts and airtex shirts.  Sandshoes (pumps), hockey boots.  By year 2 we'd banished the culotte shorts and started purchasing stretch nylon shorts which just covered our bottoms!!!! not sure how we got away with that!  We played netball, hockey, tennis, rounders, did athletics and gymnastics in the well equipped gym.  I loved climbing up the ropes in the gym.  I was first to volunteer if the teacher needed someone to climb to the top to untangle the ropes!  I hated hockey but loved gymnastics.  I competed in a cross country on Sports Day the first year I was there and came in about 17th or 19th out of something like 120 pupils, gaining points for my house which was Trevelyan - colour blue.  The other houses were Collingwood - red, Percy - yellow and Ridley green ( may have got the last two colours around the wrong way).

When we started Grammar School they put you into Forms according to when you were born so I ended up being in a Form which had none of my friends from Primary School in it, I was aghast.  As I have said, I was a shy, timid child.  I had been at Primary School from 5 years old and had close friends in my class, I expected to be in the same class as all of them.  Three of the girls, including my cousin and best friend, ended up in a Form together, and the other girl from my Primary School ended up in a separate one on her own too.

Luckily I did manage to become good friends with two of the girls in my Form, and an acquaintance to the others but I did seem to be the odd one out because they all appeared to know each other from their Primary School.  One of the girls I became friends with sadly passed away from Cancer at the tender age of 21.  In fact there are a few of my school friends who have passed away too early in life.

When we moved up to Year 2, it was very nice because I ended up in the same Form as all the girls from my Primary School because they decided to put all the children who had not studied French at Primary School into a separate Form so that we could concentrate on learning French before embarking on a second language.  The children who had studied French, did a second language from Year 1, they did German or Russian.  We did not begin to learn a second language until Year 3 I believe, we got the short straw, lumbered with Latin - although I must admit that I did quite enjoy it and can still remember some words - my best friend from school says she can't!!!

I am in Class 9, or Standard 4 as it was called in this photo

This photo was taken in my last year at Primary School so I am between 10 and 11 years old on this, depending on when the photo was taken, I can only estimate as there is no date on the photo.  I'm guessing we haven't yet arrived in summer time as we are still wearing our knee high socks, not ankle socks, on the photo.  In fact I remember the ones I am wearing and they were a fawn colour with a self coloured pattern to them so if I wasn't wearing white ones it definitely wasn't summer.  Not sure why my mam made me where fawn ones!

If you have already looked at my previous photos you should be able to spot where I am on this photo - would love to have some guesses put into the comments box please.  I'll reveal the answer in a week or so.

My outfit on this photo, again something I can remember as if it was yesterday.  It was pink crimplene material with a pleated skirt and a lacy collar.  Oh, my goodness, fawn socks with that pink dress - how awful - definitely should have been wearing white socks.  What a fashion faux pas!

As you can see the hairstyle hasn't really changed.  Mam did not let us have long hair in Primary School in case we caught nits!!!!! 

My first ever boyfriend is on this photo, he's the one second from the right on the back row - handsome eh! He hadn't been at our school long, he only came in that last year when his family moved from another area.  He used to have white mice for pets.  I remember going to his 11th birthday party at his house, I think that was the first time I ever went to a boy's birthday party.  In class we used to pass each other notes up the aisle by rolling up the piece of paper and placing it inside an empty thread bobbin!!!!  Can't remember if we ever got caught!  Naughty girl!

I was always very envious of the girl in the centre of the middle row.  Both her and her sister had long hair down to their waist and wore it in plaits - how I longed for hair like that.

In Primary School we had separate entrances and playgrounds for boys and girls.  Girls in one yard, boys in another.  Most weeks there would be fights/arguments on the girls' playground.  You would be told you had to choose whose side you were on, you had to choose whose gang you wanted to be a member of.  I didn't want to be in a gang, I was so shy and timid but you had to make a choice.  Usually the gang leaders were the girl in the front row 5th from the left, the girl in the front row 6th from the right and the girl in the middle row 5th from the right.  This gang business didn't carry on outside school, it was just something that happened at playtimes when someone fell out with someone else and you wouldn't speak to the people in the other gang.

We played all sorts of games in the playground.  Skipping, two bally, uddy cuddy, chain tuggy, leap frog, the big ship sails, in and out the dusty bluebells, oranges and lemons, the farmer wants a wife, ring a ring of roses.  School never supplied any toys for playtimes, if we wanted to skip or do two bally we had to take our own to school. 

Those were the days.

I'm about 9 years old on this photo

Oooh, now this is a dress I absolutely adored. It looked like leopard print and was made of a material that was very soft and slightly furry, the colour was large and white with a nice picot edge to it.

Again this is a school photo taken at Primary School, I was about 9 years old.

I do wish these old photos had been in colour because it's hard to see how nice this dress was.

I just have an ordinary hair clip in my hair for some reason, no nice slides in my hair on this one!

My past

This is the first school photo I had taken when I was 5 years old. 

At Primary School we did not wear a uniform.  I'm wearing a lovely white broderie anglaise short sleeved blouse and a cotton skirt with rabbits on it it had an elasticated waist and straps over the shoulders, I think it was red (my favourite colour ), my sister had a blue one; either that or we both had a red and a blue - I'm not sure, will have to ask her.  How I loved that outfit.

I remember those slides which are in my hair, they were pale pink with little bobbly bits on them.  I had lost my two front teeth when this photo was taken!!

Don't I look so cute with my little kiss curl hanging down onto my forehead?  A lady neighbour of ours always said it was her kiss curl, she was called Mrs Clark - don't people say strange things sometimes?

The Church of St. Wilfrid, Kirby Knowle

Kirby Knowle is a village  in North Yorkshire, near Upsall and about 4 miles north east of the pretty market town of Thirsk.  No doubt my ancestors would have travelled to Thirsk on market days.

Some of my great grandfather's family were christened in the church of St. Wilfrid, Kirby Knowle which is shown in the photograph.  My great grandfather's grave is also in the churchyard.