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Education
School was an absolute pain. Living on the western side
of Tring the distance to the railway station on the eastern side was two miles
and the theory was that the station bus would meet the Berkhamsted train. The
steam train was very often late so the bus would go and I had a very good knowledge
of every tree, house, and paving stone between station and home. One glimmer
of light on the journey was Muriel. Being the only school girl on the train
she was most careful to distribute her favours fairly. North church tunnel lasted
for one minute and twelve seconds and once every three weeks it was my turn
for a grope with Muriel whilst lying in the string luggage rack.
School orders were so ridiculous that you were put on a charge if caught speaking to any female who was not your mother or your sister. The saving grace was chemistry and the access it gave to fissible material. Eventually I took to cycling to school. The trick here was to catch up with the bus on the return home as the vehicle slowed for Pendley Beeches fuelled by the gas trailer it was towing. A pull up Pendley Beeches would speed us for the down hill run into town. Several V1 bombs exploded during term time, but fortunately these were in the woods outside town. Landmines floated down by parachute and caused huge craters but again luckily there were not severe injuries from them locally. In the hot summer of 1940 you could see dog fights in progress in the skies high above Tring. There were many aerodromes in the area from which raids on the continent were carried out.