Education part 1 - Playgroup

Playgroup was at St Michael’s Church Hall, Wallington.  I went there when I was three.  I remember walking there with my mum on autumn mornings and hearing a wood pigeon and asking if it was a cuckoo.  It was always autumn when I went to playgroup and there were always wood pigeons.

I didn’t like playing with the other boys at playgroup.  They were noisy and, led by Senna, the drycleaner’s son, tore around the hall, climbing on the climbing frame and shouting a lot.  I had two friends, Kirsty Boyle and Amber Johnsey.  Kirsty was bossy and later moved to Australia.  Amber was quiet and lived on Link Lane and sometimes my mum and I would go to her house.  She was Chinese.  She had a big sister called Jade who I would see from time to time.  I thought Jade was beautiful. 

I liked the dressing up box, though I don’t remember dressing up.  I realised that if you stood in front of the full length mirror and tilted it backwards, your reflection fell away from you.  I found that fascinating.  That was as fun as it got.

The least fun it got was at milk time.  We, the children, would be marched away in pairs and sat at a table and given a cup of milk to drink.  The cups were orange.  We were allowed to take one biscuit, usually a rich tea finger – the slimmest of all biscuits.  This was all fine.  I liked milk and I liked biscuits.  Even slim ones.

Then one day I was marched off to drink my milk with a certain boy.  I don’t remember his name but I suspect it was Gareth.  There were a lot of Gareths.  We were drinking our milk and had finished our biscuits when he reached out and took a second biscuit.  In my indignation I threw out an accusing finger to point him out to the playgroup woman (probably called Shirley; there were a lot of Shirleys) and knocked my milk out of my own hand.  It spilled all over the floor.  Never had I seen such a flood and on reflex, I cried like an orphan for the mess I had made.  It was now Gareth’s turn to point and he did so, a gormless look on his blameless face.

From that day on I would ask my mum, whenever she dropped me at playgroup, to talk to someone (Shirley, probably, or possibly a Marion) to make sure they knew that I wouldn’t be partaking in the milk that day.  Dutifully, she passed this message along every single time she dropped me off.  I remember watching her do it once and thinking I saw the hint of an eye roll from one of the Shirleys.  It bothered me, but not as much as the prospect of drinking milk.  Even so, when it came to milk time, I was filled with dread that someone would forget and march me over to the milk area.  It was a tense time.

In my reluctance to partake of the milk ritual, I noticed new distances opening up between myself and my contemporaries.  Not only did I not play with them, I also didn’t drink with them.  I was ignored.  I liked that.   Every time I saw my mum in the throng of mothers at picking up time, I was filled with delight.

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It's all true.  Hope you appreciate the creative leap involved in inserting the above picture.