Eleven Plus

   The most important event of my life was sitting the Eleven plus. Father made it absolutely clear he would not face the shame of a son going to a Secondary Modern school. It was bad enough for my older sister Jill to fail, but a son,- unthinkable. At Ivy lane Junior school I seemed to be `above average`. I was fairly comfortably placed in the B stream.

   One day at the age of ten I pinched a girl`s bottom during school assembly. Such an innocent prank very nearly changed the course of my life (and notably a female was involved again). I was immediately demoted from 2B to 3D and got hopelessly behind academically in the run up to the Eleven plus.

   Most of the kids in class 3D could hardly spell their name and out of boredom I competed with another boy to see who could get the cane the most times from the sadistic class teacher. I won by getting 65 strokes in a term from a 2" diameter piece of bamboo. The teacher would get you to bend down and tuck your head under the table with another boy sitting on the table. When he whacked you on the backside the reflex gave you a rabbit punch in the back of the neck at the same time.

   After one school assembly and in front of lots of other children I nervously asked the headmaster what chance I had of getting into the Grammar school. 'Not a chance in cat`s hell` he roared. When I came to sit the Eleven Plus I was in sheer terror. During the exam I panicked and left the room crying after completing about half of the questions. I didn`t tell father. I kept it to myself. I couldn`t bear to look into the future.

   Miraculously I scraped into the Grammar School and was able to wear the green uniform instead of the blue. We were called `Grammar grubs` by former junior school classmates who waited at the school gates from the Secondary modern to beat us up. Kids who were once my pals. This was true English class war at its finest and we were the innocent warriors. Funny how later in life I observed how much better the `failures` from the Secondary modern would often fare against Grammar Grubs who were in the bottom stream, but just demonstrating that human beings develop at different times!


An extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun