ST MARY’S SCHOOL, MY FAMILY AND MUSIC I had just failed the 11 Plus and went to St Mary’s Secondary School. We had all our old friends from junior school, but there seemed to be loads more children and I started to settle in quickly and meet new friends. I met another Eckersley there, Paul Eckersley, and John Simmons was my friend. His nickname was Jibbs and we hit it off. He has since told me his parents were as old as mine were and I don’t think he felt or got much love either. The pranks Jibbs did were very funny, simple things like making loud squeaking noises and keeping a straight face whilst the teacher would get increasingly annoyed. He also made up names for people so Michael Doyle, my friend from St Gabriel’s, would become Sir Arthur Conan Boiled Egg! A long connection from the Doyle to Boil but somehow this made it funnier. I also made up similar names and, looking back, we were trying to be intellectual, whilst showing very little interest in the subjects. Many teachers and students became our study and fun, often leading to discipline. We were caned across the hands, bruised, beaten – looking back on this I am sure this was abuse. I always got six of the best which was three lashes with a cane across each hand! The headmaster, heads of year or departments would mete out this discipline. The games teacher or PE teacher would also give us the cane for simply not excelling in sports activities! It was during one of these disciplines that I got whacked across my wrists which swelled up really badly. On this occasion it was my friend Roy Pickering and I. Roy only had one arm – he was a thalidomide child. Pregnant women in the early 60s could take the drug thalidomide to prevent morning sickness. A side effect was many children were born with a lack of limbs. Another girl in our year had two very small arms. Her name was Anne and she was always smiling and insisted on doing everything for herself! Anyway, I was enjoying school, having fun. I was starting to become a bit of a class clown, I think, in fact becoming a lot of a class clown. My reports always said I did very, very well, lots of potential in me, but needed to be the centre of attention. But looking back I think it was because I wasn’t getting any attention anywhere else, and the only attention I could get was by performing. I met up recently with my friend Jibbs who reminded me that I would impersonate other school friends and even make songs up about them and sing them. Would I do anything with these skills later in life? At this time, music began to play an important part in my life. The radio was on all the time at home, and music was a constant part of my childhood. The music of the 60s was a soundtrack to my life in my first ten years, then the music of the 1970s for the next ten years, which coincided with going on to secondary school. I loved The Beatles and other rock and roll bands in the 1960s. I also liked the music coming out in the 1970s, all the glam rock like Slade, Sweet, Mott the Hoople. I remember hearing ‘Roll Away the Stone’ at the local fairground just blasting out. This song really moved me and through such a powerful sound system, with the lights as well, it was just so powerful. I remember on one of our holidays hearing a song playing through the sound system. It was David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’. Wow! I was transfixed by this music and lyrics. I was to become a real Bowie freak – I was given a David Bowie (and a Motown Gold) album for Christmas when I was eleven or twelve, together with my first record player, which was a massive deal for me. I had my hair cut spiky like David Bowie had at the time. The cinema or ‘movies’ was a big part of everyone’s life back in the 60s and 70s. We used to go to the picture house opposite Leigh Market every Saturday lunchtime. That was the market my mum worked on every Saturday as well as working on a bread van every day. It was quite funny: we knew and described people by what bread they had – ‘You know Mrs Smith who has two toasties and bread cakes at weekends? Well, her sister’s auntie’s died!’ It was all very much Peter Kay type observational humour living. It was a fun upbringing, and we did find a lot of humour in who we were and what we did. Anyway . . . the movies. It cost sixpence to get in, if we paid. Most times we climbed through a window round the back and sneaked to our seats. Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars and other serials were shown but, strangely enough, neither he nor any other film characters were heroes to me. Maybe that was something that was lacking for me as a child – I didn’t have anyone to look up to. I didn’t have ambition, or any role models, we just seemed to get on with it, life.

<H1>CHAPTER 2
<H1>ST MARY’S SCHOOL, MY FAMILY AND MUSIC

I had just failed the 11 Plus and went to St Mary’s Secondary School. We had all our old friends from junior school, but there seemed to be loads more children and I started to settle in quickly and meet new friends. I met another Eckersley there, Paul Eckersley, and John Simmons was my friend. His nickname was Jibbs and we hit it off. He has since told me his parents were as old as mine were and I don’t think he felt or got much love either.

The pranks Jibbs did were very funny, simple things like making loud squeaking noises and keeping a straight face whilst the teacher would get increasingly annoyed. He also made up names for people so Michael Doyle, my friend from St Gabriel’s, would become Sir Arthur Conan Boiled Egg! A long connection from the Doyle to Boil but somehow this made it funnier. I also made up similar names and, looking back, we were trying to be intellectual, whilst showing very little interest in the subjects. Many teachers and students became our study and fun, often leading to discipline. We were caned across the hands, bruised, beaten – looking back on this I am sure this was abuse. I always got six of the best which was three lashes with a cane across each hand! The headmaster, heads of year or departments would mete out this discipline. The games teacher or PE teacher would also give us the cane for simply not excelling in sports activities! It was during one of these disciplines that I got whacked across my wrists which swelled up really badly. On this occasion it was my friend Roy Pickering and I. Roy only had one arm – he was a thalidomide child. Pregnant women in the early 60s could take the drug thalidomide to prevent morning sickness. A side effect was many children were born with a lack of limbs. Another girl in our year had two very small arms. Her name was Anne and she was always smiling and insisted on doing everything for herself!

Anyway, I was enjoying school, having fun. I was starting to become a bit of a class clown, I think, in fact becoming a lot of a class clown. My reports always said I did very, very well, lots of potential in me, but needed to be the centre of attention. But looking back I think it was because I wasn’t getting any attention anywhere else, and the only attention I could get was by performing. I met up recently with my friend Jibbs who reminded me that I would impersonate other school friends and even make songs up about them and sing them. Would I do anything with these skills later in life?

At this time, music began to play an important part in my life. The radio was on all the time at home, and music was a constant part of my childhood. The music of the 60s was a soundtrack to my life in my first ten years, then the music of the 1970s for the next ten years, which coincided with going on to secondary school. I loved The Beatles and other rock and roll bands in the 1960s. I also liked the music coming out in the 1970s, all the glam rock like Slade, Sweet, Mott the Hoople. I remember hearing ‘Roll Away the Stone’ at the local fairground just blasting out. This song really moved me and through such a powerful sound system, with the lights as well, it was just so powerful. I remember on one of our holidays hearing a song playing through the sound system. It was David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’. Wow! I was transfixed by this music and lyrics.

I was to become a real Bowie freak – I was given a David Bowie (and a Motown Gold) album for Christmas when I was eleven or twelve, together with my first record player, which was a massive deal for me. I had my hair cut spiky like David Bowie had at the time.

The cinema or ‘movies’ was a big part of everyone’s life back in the 60s and 70s. We used to go to the picture house opposite Leigh Market every Saturday lunchtime. That was the market my mum worked on every Saturday as well as working on a bread van every day. It was quite funny: we knew and described people by what bread they had – ‘You know Mrs Smith who has two toasties and bread cakes at weekends? Well, her sister’s auntie’s died!’ It was all very much Peter Kay type observational humour living.

It was a fun upbringing, and we did find a lot of humour in who we were and what we did.
Anyway . . . the movies. It cost sixpence to get in, if we paid. Most times we climbed through a window round the back and sneaked to our seats. Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars and other serials were shown but, strangely enough, neither he nor any other film characters were heroes to me. Maybe that was something that was lacking for me as a child – I didn’t have anyone to look up to. I didn’t have ambition, or any role models, we just seemed to get on with it, life.