The Days of the Sixes
Today is, of course, the sixth of June, 2006 - or 06/06/06. They don't pop up that often, these memorable dates, and therefore they tend to stick in my mind.
The last one with all the sixes was the sixth of June, 1966 - or 06/06/66 and I remember it well. I was in the third year of primary school, in Miss Temperley's class, and that afternoon things were a bit different from usual.
We were not in our usual classroom, which was upstairs in the main school building, but instead we were in the prefabricated hut where we were destined to spend the whole of the next - crucial - eleven-plus year, in Mr Storey's class. For some reason Mr Storey was in charge of us that afternoon - perhaps to get us used to him, or to get us used to the classroom, or both.
He was much stricter than Miss Temperley - he had to be, in order to turn a motley bunch of ten-year-olds into a streamlined fighting force prepared to do battle with the fearsome eleven-plus exam and to win, thence to conquer all the local grammar schools and take over the world.
But he was breaking us in gently and we were having a reading afternoon. No catch! No questions or worksheet or essay to write afterwards. Just reading.
There were three books on my desk. Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, which I had read before and very much enjoyed. Then The Jungle Book, also by Kipling, which I had picked up off the shelf because it was next to Just So Stories. I had, however, tried it that afternoon and abandoned it. Deeply dull. Never liked it. Never finished it. Still haven't read it. I went back to Just So Stories for a bit.
But, as a kind of insurance policy, I had picked up a third book without really looking at it. Being bored was the thing I liked least of all - it still is - so I thought I'd better grab another book just in case. It was The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
I started to read and was plunged into an eternal Narnian winter with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. Aslan the lion was my hero. I loved it all. The hot afternoon sped past and the bell went and I went home and carried on reading.
"Daphne! Tea's ready!"
"Just let me finish this chapter - - "
It was the eternal cry of my childhood. Over the next few days I read all the Narnia books and they are part of me forever, like the boarding school of Jennings, the river bank of The Wind in the Willows, the Lake District of Swallows and Amazons, the dream world of Catherine Storr's Marianne Dreams.
And the strange thing was, I knew it at the time: I knew that book was going to be special to me. I'll remember today, I thought.
Now I’m on my second Day of the Sixes. An ordinary day in many ways: a day of sunshine and interesting conversations. I’m going to remember this too.
The last one with all the sixes was the sixth of June, 1966 - or 06/06/66 and I remember it well. I was in the third year of primary school, in Miss Temperley's class, and that afternoon things were a bit different from usual.
We were not in our usual classroom, which was upstairs in the main school building, but instead we were in the prefabricated hut where we were destined to spend the whole of the next - crucial - eleven-plus year, in Mr Storey's class. For some reason Mr Storey was in charge of us that afternoon - perhaps to get us used to him, or to get us used to the classroom, or both.
He was much stricter than Miss Temperley - he had to be, in order to turn a motley bunch of ten-year-olds into a streamlined fighting force prepared to do battle with the fearsome eleven-plus exam and to win, thence to conquer all the local grammar schools and take over the world.
But he was breaking us in gently and we were having a reading afternoon. No catch! No questions or worksheet or essay to write afterwards. Just reading.
There were three books on my desk. Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, which I had read before and very much enjoyed. Then The Jungle Book, also by Kipling, which I had picked up off the shelf because it was next to Just So Stories. I had, however, tried it that afternoon and abandoned it. Deeply dull. Never liked it. Never finished it. Still haven't read it. I went back to Just So Stories for a bit.
But, as a kind of insurance policy, I had picked up a third book without really looking at it. Being bored was the thing I liked least of all - it still is - so I thought I'd better grab another book just in case. It was The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
I started to read and was plunged into an eternal Narnian winter with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. Aslan the lion was my hero. I loved it all. The hot afternoon sped past and the bell went and I went home and carried on reading.
"Daphne! Tea's ready!"
"Just let me finish this chapter - - "
It was the eternal cry of my childhood. Over the next few days I read all the Narnia books and they are part of me forever, like the boarding school of Jennings, the river bank of The Wind in the Willows, the Lake District of Swallows and Amazons, the dream world of Catherine Storr's Marianne Dreams.
And the strange thing was, I knew it at the time: I knew that book was going to be special to me. I'll remember today, I thought.
Now I’m on my second Day of the Sixes. An ordinary day in many ways: a day of sunshine and interesting conversations. I’m going to remember this too.
posted by Daphne at 6:14 pm
2 Comments:
and what are you reading on 06 06 06?
I have just finished re-reading Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford (warm, nostalgic autobiography) and am currently reading Jenny Tomlin's Behind Closed Doors (unsparing autobiography about her abusive childhood). I like almost anybody's autobiography but am beginning to read fiction again after a very long gap.
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