[recorders available in a Mudcatter's childhood]
I don't believe there were plastic ones in those days.

Most children in the UK and New Zealand were learning on Dolmetsch "Dolonite" plastic recorders when I was a kid in the Fifties. Dolmetsch started production of these in 1947, taking the design from Schott, who had started limited mass production in the UK in 1941 (issuing them to German prisoners of war). The recorder didn't make much sense as a school instrument until you could mass produce them in standardized pitch in plastic.

How old are you?