My Goodness! How Things Change!

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Over here in the UK, when I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, school children underwent an exam when they were 11 so the education authorities could separate the brighter children - who went to High School - from the slightly less bright (trying to be diplomatic here!) - who went to a Secondary Modern. I was one of four children from my little village school who was fortunate enough to pass my 11 Plus exam and so three of us girls, Julie, Jane and me, got to attend Nroth Walsham Girls' High School and the one boy who passed, Ian, went to the boys' grammar school at North Walsham known as Paston School for Boys - Lord Nelson was the boys' school's most famous student! A few months back I discovered someone had set up a group on Facebook called I Survived North Walsham High School for Girls so, naturally, I joined! The other day one of my old pals Lesley, had posted up some photos that she'd taken at some stage throughout our six years or so at the school. I don't remember her taking pictures and can only assume she decided to do it on the day we left in 1976. She said that she couldn't remember who the people were. I couldn't believe that one of the pictures was me and another was my best friend Val (who I still keep in touch with). So this lovely picture was me, possibly in 1976 but definitely after 1973! When we first started at the school we had to wear pinafore dresses and were then able to wear skirts once we got to the third year. The blouse I'm wearing was a lovely bottle green and white stripe and I'm amazed I wasn't wearing my bottle green tie! We were allowed to take off our ties at lunch time but weren't allowed out of school grounds or into lessons without it. The skirt was well within school rules. Shouldn't be more than 2" below the knee or 1" above! Needless to say, once we were out of school ground we used to yank the waist bands up and turn our knee length skirts into minis!!