Going to the Grammar, For
Mam and dad a sense of pride,
For me a feeling of dread.of
Fear and awe deep inside.
Only about fifty at the village
I knew everyone by name
Seven hundred at the Grammar
How could life ever be the same.
First day bravado on the bus
With some of my Village mates
But once in town we all parted to
Our different school's gates.
A first term was agony.Village school
Bright boy to inept country joskin
I really tried to do my best but
Somehow I didn't quite just fit in.
I really can't recall much of
That First term's tortuous days.
It seemed that my mind existed
In a sort of painful mental maze.
The only relief at the end of the day,
The Return to village life each night.
Such a sense of joy and release as
My little village finally hove in sight.
A life of two different worlds until
I eventually made good friends
And my sense of alienation finally
Came slowly to its end.
A thirst for knowledge, helped
By A blotting paper mind
Finally ended that sense of
Feeling intellectually blind.
Academies are thousands strong,
A different concept these days,
Must be so very different from
Thos old Grammar school ways.
How many slip beneath the radar
Lost in alienation and mental haze
Which is all I can recall of that
First Grammar school term's days.
A world so much more judgemental,
Classified at far too early an age
How many are lost for ever at
That very first important stage.
Or is it a cynical plan to keep
People firmly in their allotted place
To labour and serve those others more
Able to stand the strain and the pace.
