Flaxley Road

A Memory of Selby.

We moved up to Selby from Swindon in 1960 and I went to Flaxley Road. Apart from having to lose my west country accent in double quick time in order to survive, I was put in Miss Reid's class which was a big shock to the system. Boy, was she loud and scary! I remember the daily "times tables' recital and how angry she got if you made a mistake - dishing out corporal punishment almost on a whim.

One particular embarrassing episode I suffered was when we were doing a colour blindness test, the one where you have to say the number you see on the cards (I believe they are called Ishihara cards) made up of dots of different colours. I didn't know at the time, but I am red/green colour blind so couldn't decipher the numbers on the majority of the cards. So, not wishing to be the odd one out I just said the first number that came onto my head, much to Miss Reid's growing annoyance. The whole class was laughing and I wished the earth would swallow me up. I had nightmares about that for years.

Miss Reid aside, the other teachers were great: I passed through Miss Hingley, Mr Perry and Miss Hutchinson's classes and then moved on to Read School in Drax before moving to Selby Grammar in '67 when it became co-ed. Happy days (mostly)!

Robert Cooper