My First Day at School, 1951, by Ian Bertram

From MemoryArchive

Who: Ian Bertram
What: First Day at School
When: September 1951
Where: Gateshead, Co Durham, UK

On my first day at infant school we are all given slates and a slate pencil. The teacher writes our name on each slate for us to copy. I can already write my name so I rub out her version and proudly write my own. She is cross. I have written it in the wrong way. She makes me write it out as she has written it, not as my mother has taught me. It is my first exposure to the tyranny of adult conformity.