Don't need punctuation advice, the writer had his own way-- also some of the hyphens are probably em dashes not pasting in properly from the Word doc.

Here's the next. Sorry they are out of sequence a bit!

~S~

------------------------------------------------

COUNTRY SCHOOL

Those of us children who were evacuees realized very early in our stay in Chawleigh that we would have to get used to being called "Townies." After a while we found we didn't really object to this derogatory name, but rather took pride in being set apart from the village and farm children.

"Be you a Townie, then?" was usually the first question we were asked upon meeting an adult, followed by, "Where be ye stayin'?" I would reply, "At Bell's Farm with Mr., and Mrs. Webber," whereupon I would be informed of my good fortune in being billeted with such "fine, fine people."

Being a boy Townie meant we were often called out to fight. Our city life had provided many occasions for fights, and we Townie boys felt ourselves considerably tougher than our country counterparts. We usually gave a good account of ourselves, and soon were rarely challenged. We also had to answer incessant questions about London, which the village children had only read about or heard about. Of course we usually embellished our descriptions of life in the city and the horrors of air raids, some of which was derided, nut most of which was believed.

About a week after our arrival we had to report for school, for which I still had no taste. AT that time I could never understand why we had to spend long hours learning mathematics and the basics of English grammar—promptly forgetting most if it when I left school, except how to count money.

I did enjoy history and geography, being fascinated by one and intrigued by the other, but my favorite was Friday afternoon's art class. Our art teacher was a beautiful, dark-skinned woman with long, black hair, who was said to be a Gypsy. By then I had been drawing for several years, pressing into service any scrap of paper I could find, even opening envelopes to sketch on the blank inside. I had occasionally used the pages of my mother's writing pads and been chastised when she wanted to write a letter and her paper was used up. Imagine my complete joy when my "gypsy" art teacher presented me with my very first sketch book. I knew then I would be her slave forever.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My brother was to attend the village school. He would be taught by the teacher who was supposed to have had us billeted on her, but who had crossed the cobblestoned courtyard to the Jubilee Hall early and taken the twin girls. I was greatly relieved that I didn't have to live in a school, and couldn't imagine a worse fate.

The school in which I was to put in my time was in a small town some two miles from Chawleigh. Every school morning, we boarded a bus outside the village hall for the 20-minute ride, picking up other students at farms along the way.

Chulmleigh School was laid out in a square, an open corridor facing a grassy quadrangle. Along one side was the Assembly Hall with its stage at one end and kitchen, where our lunches were concocted, at the other. Another side was devoted to a woodworking shop and the art room. On the third side of the quadrangle, the home economics room and teachers' lounge were housed—together with the Headmaster's office, with which I was destined to develop an intimate relationship.

Occupying the fourth side of the square were four classrooms, each with huge windows and French doors opening onto the school playing fields beyond, much different and far more pleasant that anything us Townies had known in London.

Chulmleigh School was designed to serve the farm and village children of the several small communities in the area. The influx of evacuees, however, strained its walls to the bursting point. Now, with twice the students it was designed for, classes contained 45-50 pupils each with the woodshop, art room, and home economics room being pressed into service as makeshift classrooms. Confusion was a daily occurrence, especially when one of the specialized rooms had to be vacated for a regularly-scheduled class.

We soon settled into a routine, as children usually do, but most of us boys openly did not like school with its unreasonable discipline. Perhaps we weren't supposed to like it—perhaps grownups felt we would be better people by being forced to do something we hated.

One day each week, the boys of each class went to the woodshop where we were introduced to the secrets of hammers, saws, chisels, and other carpenters' tools. There we made quantities of ill-fitting dovetail joints, bookends, and pipe racks—all of wavily-planed boards—and a great many other articles, none of which should ever have seen the light of day.

Meanwhile, the girls were in the home economics room trying all manner of recipes in their search for culinary perfection. At the end of their cooking sessions they would return with plates of ill-shaped, grey-colored cookies, which no amount of tempting, pleading, or cajoling could induce us boys to eat.

Also, once a week we had to attend a class held in the Assembly Hall, presided over by an elderly dowager who attempted to teach us "social graces." The boys bore this cross with reasonably good nature—except when it came to ballroom, dancing, which was just too humiliating.

Girls lined up on one side of the Hall and boys on the other, and when an antiquated record player started grinding out dance music the boys were required to pick a girl and ask her to dance. The only thing I found made this indignity tolerable was being able to get close enough to a girl to tread on her toes, or—even better—to pinch her to the point of embarrassment (hers, not mine).

For these transgressions I was frequently sent to the Headmaster's office, where I was punished in the then-traditional manner. The pupil held out one hand, palm up at shoulder level; the Headmaster, using a thin bamboo cane, administered a firm and accurate whack on the outstretched target. The number of strokes varied with the severity of the crime. I always found the pain of the punishment a small price to pay for the pleasure I gained from teasing the girls.

But Friday's art class was different. We were taught the fundamentals of drawing using pencil and charcoal, and the basics of perspective; once in a while I was permitted to use the teacher's box of watercolors. Our black-haired "gypsy" made me realize how little I knew about art; she constantly urged me to draw and sketch, lending me many of her own books to keep my interest whetted. However, it took several years before I realized how much more I had learned from her than just art. She taught me that learning never stops, that nobody has the right to squander talent that has been given them, and that limits on any accomplishment can only be set by oneself.

We Londoners soon settled into the daily routine of a quiet bus ride in the morning to school, classes all day, and a happy, boisterous return ride in the afternoon. Our assimilation into village life was complete when us Townies began asking, "How be ye, then?" in broad Cockney accents, upon meeting fellow villagers.