I couldn’t get it together at school. Just wasn’t my bag at all.
Art? Project for the weekend. Still life. Went home. Painted the iron. Came back Monday. Teacher: "Looks like a grey jelly. Did you not consider a bowl of fruit?"
Domestic science? No better. Couldn’t light the gas. Always bagged the electric cooker. Not the prized Rayburn. An altar for the tea towels. Piping hot on the top though. Told to dry the teacher’s prize clear plastic storage jars. She nodded at it. ‘Good place,’ I thought. She asked for them. At 4 o’clock. Metamorphosed. All twisted, dripping long threads of hot melted plastic. Furious. She made me pay.

Custard? Always last. Waiting for the milk to boil. The rest of them. Going home. Missed the bus whilst my milk was frothing away. Rising angrily in volcanic mode before exploding. Laying the white enamel top of the cooker with a hot brown skin.
Underneath. Milk everywhere. Regularly at 4 o’clock. Every time. Me. Back the next morning. Early bus. Cleaning the cooker to the silence of an empty school.
P.E? useless. Class teacher: "Margaret, why are you always absent on a Thursday?"
I wised up. Cleaning the cooker and P.E? Where was she coming from?

Time to leave school. Interviews. Decided to be a secretary. "Copy type this." She came back for it ten minutes later. Blank paper. Still hadn’t worked out how to unlock the machine.
Scrutinised again. Serious business man. Looking for competence. "I really wanted to teach," I told him. Interview immediately curtailed.

My anxious parents. Sent me off to make very posh raincoats. To be a machinist in Liverpool. Interview. They sat me down. Sample fabric. "Here. Stitch this," she said. Then came back. The machine still rattling. Wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t turn it off. Fabric trailed the floor strung to miles of twisted cotton. Ended up eating cakes in Reeces’.
Last resort. Very high class lingerie shop. Local. Just a bus ride away. Interview. Threw my "o" levels at him. Got the job! Relief! Liked the bus conductors! Best part waving at them from the shop window whilst collecting up all the busts and bodies. Awkward things. Had to undress them. Kept falling out of the narrow cupboard as I struggled to pack them away for the weekend. All rigid. Uncooperative. Kept getting caught in the sliding doors. Every time! Kept missing my bus home.

‘Had enough of this,’ I told him. "You’ve got "o" levels," he said. "I’ll have a word with the Bank Manager next door." ‘I really wanted to teach," I said. He didn’t bother.

Parents. Now desperate. "Library. Try the library." Very nice Chief Librarian. Got the job. Finally started my working career.......... ......... continued at www.margarethendersonsmith.co.uk