Brookfield Primary School was a new fresh school and looked like a gigantic bungalow. There was an old oak in the playing field where children collected acorns and made bird’s nests out of mown grass.

I was nearing 7, an honest girl who’d learnt to keep quiet in certain situations. Once a teacher sternly questioned the class about someone putting paper towels down the toilet (me) and asked for the child who did it to admit to it. Well obviously that wasn’t going to happen and I learnt how to be cunning.

Another telling off I had in the toilets was because someone grassed on me for using too much liquid hand soap. I’d enjoy pressing that button four or five times and watching the soap emerge all gooey. It made such a nice pool in my hand. Too much for some people’s liking. How boring they were. I just had a feeling that the girl was going to tell on me. What a b#@£h.

By the way, what is it with kids looking under/over toilet cubicles? They’re so nosey.

I’m reminded of a time when I was a teacher and I walked in on a couple of four year olds laughing merrily as they threw used toilet paper into each other’s cubicles. Kids 🙄

I liked being nice to the teacher and getting praise in return. I loved messing around with friends. I was banned from working in the library once (where there was no teacher so we could have lots of fun) for ripping Hayley Capewell’s exercise book though, for the record it wasn’t on purpose and I didn’t even know I’d done it. Miss Abdullah was a nice teacher who taught me to write a European 7 with a dash through and eventually, let me back in the library again.