By this time I was in Viri Amu Jones Junior School in Mynachdy. I remember Mrs.Evans and Miss Gough, two of the lovliest teachers anyone could wish for, hearts full of tears for children whose futures lay uncertain in the future. I remember Mr.Hunt who put his feet up on his desk and went to sleep. I remember being terrified of Mr. Charles, the headmaster who wielded the cane when it was perfectly legal to ask a boy to bend over and take his trousers down and to leave raw red welts across his inflamed buttocks. But, we deserved it more than we didn't. Miss Gough would rock me on her lap, and I felt wanted and important. And other kids would say that I was her favourite, and I would say the same of them when their time came to be hugged by Miss Gough.
Then the announcement came from an incredulous Mr.Charles that I had passed the eleven plus and was going to grammar school. Most of us woke up at the eleventh hour to the fact that if we did not pass the eleven plus we would remain at Viri Amu Jones forever. It was the greatest inducement to learning that was ever invented.
My father could not be proud of me, and only half-heartedly kitted me out in school cap, blazer and tie. His mind was in grief and shock at the loss of his eldest son, and the incarceration of his psychologically-disturbed wife. Only, in those days they said "insane".
We went to Evan Roberts and bought the school outfit and one shirt and a pair of Clarke's shoes.
I was to wear that outfit long after it fitted me. I washed the shirt and dried it in front of the one bar electric fire, when we had a shilling for the meter, or borrowed one from the next door neighbour until Dad came home.
A week into going to Cathays High, my sister came home and told me that Mr.Charles had announced to the school that a certain boy who had gone to Cathays High had betrayed the name of his dead brother by being caught stealing in Woolworth's. My friend's kind mother at the end of the street covered it up and somehow prevented my father from knowing. Woolworth's security personnel caught my friend and me lifting our bathing towels over the counter to steal something and hide it. They dealt with my friend's mother and she talked to us and instilled the fear of God into us about what could have happened to us, without so much as lifting a finger against us. I never stole anything again, I was so afraid.
Maybe a year or two later she became the victim of depression and her body was dragged from the river Taff. I will always remember her.