An alien in the classroom

An Alien in the Classroom

by CHRISTINA BACKMAN

We were aliens during the Second World War, those people who were neither British nor their allies, refugees and nor for that matter enemies. They were those, in fact, who came from neutral countries and in our case it was Sweden.

My father was a foreign correspondent who joined the Swedish section of the BBC at the beginning of the war and was working two weeks and resting one. When the blitz began and enemy aircraft started bombing London in 1940, key staff were required to spend their free week outside the capital and so if Bush House where they worked received a devastating direct hit, at least a third of the staff would be safe and could carry on with their jobs. The school I had been attending had closed down and the headmistress put my parents in touch with George and Elsie Wilson of Woodland Lodge at No 103 North Road, Bourne, and so my mother and I became evacuees, alien evacuees, and for the next eighteen months we were to share the home and the lives of as English a family as you would find anywhere. I was just seven years old.

Woodland Lodge, the Wilson family home

at No 103 North Road,
Bourne, where

Christina was

evacuated in 1940.

Auntie Elsie, as I called Mrs Wilson, was kindly and practical. My first memory of her is being given oranges cut in four to suck, a memory particularly vivid as these were the last oranges before supplies of this fruit to Britain were cut off because of the war. My next memory is of being taken by the hand and going a few houses down the North Road and firmly introduced to Derek, Mary and Jean Smith who were to become my favourite playmates. All three were then pupils at Miss Close´s little school in Elm Terrace, just off North Road, and by the good offices of the Wilsons, that is where I went too.

I can remember that first interview with Miss Close in her small front parlour. She was short and slightly built with silver hair parted down the middle and she impressed me as being without doubt the oldest person I had ever seen, mainly because her eyes had sunk back somewhat, showing the lines of her skull. A few friendly words to my father and me and Miss Close had accepted me as a new pupil.

Elm Terrace in those days was tree-lined with a row of narrow red brick houses on the north side. Pupils entered the school, not through the front door but by passing through a short passage into the yard and in through the back door. Here, a low building lay at right angles to the house and this is where we hung our coats and where we sat to eat our sandwiches at break time.

All told, I hardly think there were more than about 35 pupils in the three forms and with three teachers: the smaller children who did not attend afternoon school, the six to seven year olds and then the top form. I qualified for the top form. The narrow classroom overlooked the lane and stretched the whole width of the house. There was a large table parallel to the windows and a smaller one at right angles to it, used only when the entire school assembled. At the upper end of the big table was a chair for Miss Close, benches along the sides and a couple of chairs at the other end for the youngest in the class of which I was one. Opposite the windows was a comfortable fire, which we were glad of during those terrible war winters, especially Diana, who had chilblains, an English speciality quite new to me. There was no electric light, only gas, but what particularly fascinated me were the front stairs, which were narrow, steep and built into the wall so you had to open a door to get to them. I had seen nothing like that in London.

Elm Terrace, just

off North Road, Bourne,
where Miss Close

ran her little

school from No 3.

Miss Close´s school was privately owned and patronised by those who were prepared to spend a little on giving their children a gentle start to their school lives. At the age of ten, many of them left to attend Bourne Grammar School or, as in the case of Derek Smith, the local council school. This move had worried Derek because there were reports that you were likely to be caned if you misbehaved. Some pupils, all girls in my day, stayed on until they were fourteen and could then go out to work.

Miss Close´s school had very little in common with present day educational standards. There were about twelve of us in that top class, the eldest was perhaps fourteen and I was the youngest at just seven. We had all our lessons together. As we were so few, Miss Close was able to give each child individual attention in lessons such as arithmetic and I returned to London proficient beyond my years in long division and suchlike. Textbooks were few though I seem to remember Marten and Carter´s history books. No homework was given. Exercise books were even fewer or even non-existent and so we did our sums and writing on slates with terrible, squeaky slate-pencils. At least we wasted no paper. There was after all, a war on, as we were constantly reminded.

What I remember best are the handwork lessons. We were encouraged to choose what we wanted to do and then helped to do it as well as we were able and so my dolls acquired handsome yellow, embroidered bibs and frocks. My work may have been clumsy but I learnt the delight of working with textiles and colours and am eternally grateful for the encouragement I received. Conscientious teachers at more sophisticated schools expected more but criticised severely and achieved far less.

Miss Close used to read to us, also during handwork. I think. This was my introduction to English children´s literature, particularly the Pooh books [by A A Milne] which were very popular at the time. It must have been at Christmas 1941 that we went with the Wilsons to the annual stage show at Bourne Grammar School and saw the younger pupils act Teddy Bear and other Milne poems. Another time they did Julius Caesar with John Wilson in a leading roll.

There was only a lawn in the yard or what would have been the garden. I do not think we used it very much as most of us went home for lunch but games of "He" and particularly "Grandmother´s Steps" spring to mind. I certainly cannot remember having organised games or gym lessons but we did have our fair share of exercise out of school hours, climbing trees in Mason´s field, messing about along the Car Dyke and catching tiddlers in the old gravel pit.

In London I had started to learn the piano and my father was anxious for me to continue even though in Bourne I had no instrument to practise on. Miss Close gave me lessons, once again on the principle of teaching a not too musical pupil what she wanted to learn which in this case was the music from the Walt Disney film Snow White that was immensely popular at the time.

In the late spring of 1942, things were much quieter in London and the heavy bombing raids had subsided. The Wilson family was growing and the family needed our two rooms. My father decided we could return to London but I was heartbroken to leave Bourne, my school and my friends. As a parting gift, I was given Captain Marryat´s The Settlers in Canada in which the headmistress had inscribed Christina Backman From E. Close May 1942.

Memory plays strange tricks. Perhaps you will say it was not as I have remembered at all but looking back on those eighteen months, I cannot recall any unpleasantness or unfairness, only kindness and friendly children and I would dearly like to know more about Miss Close and her old-fashioned little school. Who else has memories of those days?