Joe started going to Walton Grammar School two years before I did. her us went there till we were meant a four-mile bike ride m and evening, and Mother was scared of allowing us among the traffic, which by that time included a very few motor- cars.
For several years we went to the dame-school kept by old Mrs Howlett. Most of the shopkeepers』 childrehere, to save them from the shame and e-down of going to the board school, though everyone khat Mother Howlett was an old imposter and worse than useless as a teacher. She was over seventy, she was very deaf, she could hardly see through her spectacles, and all she owned in the way of equipment was a e, a blackboard, a few dog- eared grammar books, and a couple of dozen smelly slates. She could just mahe girls, but the boys simply laughed at her and played truant as often as they felt like it. Ohere was a frightful sdal cause a boy put his hand up a girl』s dress, a thing I didn』t uand at the time. Mother Howlett succeeded in hushing it up. When you did something particularly bad her formula was 『I』ll tell your father』, and on very rare occasions she did so. But we were quite sharp enough to see that she daren』t do it too often, and even whe out at you with the e she was so old and clumsy that it was easy to dodge.
Joe was o whe in with a tough gang of boys who called themselves the Black Hand. The leader was Sid Lovegrove, the saddler』s younger son, who was about thirteen, and there were two other shopkeepers』 sons, an errand boy from the brewery, and two farm lads who sometimes mao cut work and go off with the gang for a couple of hours. The farm lads were great lumps bursting out of corduroy breeches, with very broad ats and rather looked down on by the rest of the gang, but they were tolerated because they kwice as much about animals as any of the others. One of them, niamed Ginger, would even catch a rabbit in his hands occasionally. If he saw one lying in the grass he used to fling himself on it like a spread-eagle. There was a big social distin between the shopkeepers』 sons and the sons of labourers and farm-hands, but the local boys didn』t usually pay much attention to it till they were about sixteen. The gang had a secret password and an 『ordeal』 whicluded cutting your finger aing ahworm, and they gave themselves out to be frightful desperadoes. Certainly they mao make a nuisance of themselves, broke windows chased cows, tore the knockers off doors, and stole fruit by the hundredweight. Sometimes in wihey mao borrow a couple of ferrets and go ratting, when the farmers would let them. They all had catapults and squailers, and they were always saving up to buy a saloon pistol, whi those days cost five shillings, but the savings never amouo more than about threepence. In summer they used to go fishing and bird- ing. When Joe was at Mrs Howlett』s he used to cut school at least once a week, and even at the Grammar School he ma about once a fht. There was a boy at the Grammar School, an aueer』s son, who could copy any handwriting and for a penny he』d fe a letter from your mother saying you』d been ill yesterday. Of course I was wild to join the Black Hand, but Joe always choked me off and said they didn』t want any blasted kids hanging round.
It was the thought of going fishing that really appealed to me. At eight years old I hadn』t yet been fishing, except with a pen, with which you sometimes catch a stickleback. Mother was always terrified of letting us go anywhere n