Imagine my surprise, when I was looking on 'Friends Reunited', the
other day, I saw this photograph.
And in it was ... a very young me with my class!!
I had progressed from my college days, slit jeans (in order to make them flare, we used to slit them and put triangular pieces of fab fabric in the sides), loons, smocks and Biba...and was now a Chelsea Girl/Miss Selfridge/Snob girl/Van Allen gal!!
Those were the clothing shops on
offer to girls like me , in the 70s.
And not to mention this very 70s hairstyle!
You can tell I have rolled straight out of the 60s... but calmed down somewhat!
Dear Mr S has edited this photo for me and I received it in an email entitled,
'Kevin Keegan, the early years!!
Cheeky devil!
I am quite offended! ;-0
So..let's get the laughing over and done with...(anyone on Facebook has already seen this... and plenty have guffawed!!)
Moving on swiftly from the hair... (it is all my own hair and not a wig! And I had the perm done at Blackwater,where I lived.)..to the outfit.
I remember this particular outfit well.. the blouse was from Selfridges in Southampton .
I spent many a Saturday in Southampton , that's where I first came across the phrase, 'Never Knowingly Undersold' , at the store Tyrell and Green... and I even tried my best to prove them wrong, at times!
I'm not sure where I found my blue 'Bib 'n Braces pinny but I loved this and wore it endlessly with a variety of shirts and blouses etc and I had bib 'n braces dungarees too!
Lord knows what I have on my feet (!) but I know they were comfy as I had to be comfy being on my feet a lot of the day! I think they were some sort of clogs with trendy flowers embroidered on them!
I was 25 years old and in my first teaching job at a First school in Lightwater, Surrey.
Does anyone live near there...or better still know anyone in this photo?
In those days Surrey had what was known as 'First schools' and Middle Schools. The class in the photo was the top class of Lightwater First school, so equivalent to year 3 children nowadays. I did have a handful of year 2 children in this class, I recall.
And this class, without a doubt, was also the nicest class that I have ever taught!
I was really lucky to have found a good school in which to start my teaching career and I was very happy at Lightwater.
Going to school each day was an absolute pleasure...oh yes and not forgetting the fact that you could shut your classroom door and get on with your teaching ...no Sats, no Ofsteds (there's only one 'f' in Ofsted (think on that one!!! LOL!) , no piles of files to take home at night, records were to a minimum and amazingly every one of these little darlings could read write and spell exceedingly well..and their handwriting was beautiful. That was not all due to me because they had had good grounding before they reached me and all I needed to do was build on that.
I can remember at the end of the year that I was oh so sad to see them all leave me and that my teacher's table was covered in bunches of flowers and goodbye gifts.
I will never forget this lovely class and I can still remember all of their names!
To see them staring out at me the other day was quite a tear jerker!
These children would be around 40 years old now...and their teacher um... just a tad older of course !!!!!
A real trip down memory lane! Happy days!
Must fly..I have a hair appointment..
' A Bubble perm, please!'
;-)