Peace, love and slippers

[greenlake]

Have you ever worked in an office wearing slippers?

Why stop at just slippers....?

[Big Blue Plymouth]

I faintly remember something like that. I remember in junior school they used to give you Friday afternoon to do anything you want (in the classroom) - must have been a labour government in.

Yes, it was labour. It was also the tail end of the hippy era so all sorts of right-on experimental sh!te.

I'd actually learned to read and write reasonably well before I was 5 but I went to school and they messed my head right up by using some bizarre phonetic system called ITA (or something). They made me write in it even though my written English was really good for a kid of that age.

I felt I actually unlearned things in those years.

Oh, and you were forbidden from bringing in Enid Blyton books. There was a weekly reading session where you could bring in your own books but Blyton was expressly forbidden.

[cojak]

My personal choice is pair of these

Lord, they must fire the feet!

[MrMarkyMark]

Lord, they must fire the feet!

Actually they do.
Toasty, New Zealand wool. Wouldn't have anything else...

Even more suitable for the Northern cold, I would imagine .

[SueEllen]

Yes, it was labour. It was also the tail end of the hippy era so all sorts of right-on experimental sh!te.

I'd actually learned to read and right reasonably well before I was 5 but I went to school and they messed my head right up by using some bizarre phonetic system called ITA (or something). They made me write in it even though my written English was really good for a kid of that age.

I felt I actually unlearned things in those years.

Oh, and your were forbidden from bringing in Enid Blyton books. There was a weekly reading session where you could bring in your own books but Blyton was expressly forbidden.

Enid Blyton was sexist and racist. Even today her stories have been cleared up for TV.

Anyway my head always use to tell us a tale of how she got some of the girls from a school she was head at, to write Enid Blyton a letter asking why she protrayed girls like that.

Enid Blyton responded by telling the girls they were so rude and she would report them to their head.

Oh and my head was a Tory voter.

[Big Blue Plymouth]

Enid Blyton was sexist and racist. Even today her stories have been cleared up for TV.

The argument back then was that the stories portrayed the lives of kids from privileged backgrounds.

I used to love the Famous Five & the Faraway Tree. It was pure escapism.

As Blyton was banned, instead the teachers used to read us misery inducing stories of kids brought up the wrong side of the tracks in some God awful industrial sh!tehole. Jesus Boots was one, but there were others I'm glad I can't remember.

As for the sexism and racism - I thought tomboy George was pretty progressive for the time. I don't remember any racism - yes there was a title with n****r in the name (or was it sambo?) But that was normal for the time. I think it unfair to label her a bigot.

Oddly enough, at the very same school, we used to do some musical activity where we would have the radio on and sing songs from a BBC songbook that accompanied the show.
T|hen, at the end of term you would vote, along with kids up and down the country for your favourite song.

The only thing I remember is that the tune chosen as the winning song was entitled "Sambo Tom". And yes, it was about a little black boy.

That was the way of the world back then. Racist by today's standards (what isn't?) but to smear people like Blyton as bigots (as C4 once did in one of their shameful hatchet jobs) is disgraceful especially when you consider the pleasure she still brings to children of all colours all across the globe.

[SueEllen]

I'm only relaying what I got told at my schools.

One of my Tory voting primary teachers -PTAs are good for gossip - actually explained to us why certain books weren't allowed.

(By end of secondary school teachers would tell you which way they voted. )

Yes historical context does come into it, but if your educational authority is Labour run and linked to the GLC until it got abolished, then you aren't allowed to think for yourself.

In fact if teachers were allowed to think for themselves I think even the Tory voting teachers I had, would have pulled the books apart in their critical analysis of them as not all of them came from lovely middle class homes. In fact the poshest sounding teachers had had elocution lessons to lose their northern working class accents.