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School dinners, I loved them, especially the mashed potato with salad cream on top.

Rice pudding or Sago puddings were my favourite desserts and sometimes a slice of cake with runny custard was there to be had.

I used to think it was strange how the dinner ladies knew my name but I didn’t know who they were, obviously they were friends of my parents.

Mrs Bailey the headmistress at the infant’s school, used to choose children to go to her office and practice their reading using a newspaper called the Children’s Mirror.

If you were really good you got to keep the paper, why I don’t know because we had already read it.

If you fell down in the playground they sat you on a chair in the corridor and applied Iodine to the cut or abrasion.

This was a fantastic badge of honour to be able to limp around with a bright red knee and it took days to wear off.

The brick staircase to the lower playground at the end by Heathside Lane is still there I believe but it is blocked off.

One day in an almighty hurry, as usual, I hurtled down the steps and veered to the right and someone threw a large brick just as I turned the corner.

It caught me on the forehead and I proceeded to bleed at a very fast rate.

I staggered down to the wire mesh fence unable to see out of my right eye because of the blood.

My shirt was covered in it and all the other children gathered around to see it.

If this happened today the health and safety brigade would have a field day.

The child would be rushed to hospital by ambulance and a major inquiry would have to be held.

That particular day, they just cleaned me up, coated the cut in Iodine and put a plaster on it and I didn’t even go home early.

Badge of honour indeed, a red forehead, wow.

I can still remember the boy’s name who threw the brick but I won’t disclose it here, he might still feel bad about it, if he can remember it.

David Wood