Selby 1940s

A Memory of Selby.

During 1943 we were evacuated to Kelfield after being bombed out in London and Manchester, being an RC our nearest RC school was St.Mary's in Selby. My sister (older by 2 years) I was 5 used to walk from Kelfield to Selby every day to school, we were able to get a bus back at 3.30 pm every school day (the last bus). On the way to the bus terminus in the square we used to stop of at the "Maypole" grocery store to buy three pennyworth of broken biscuits, money was short then, Dad was away in the Merchant Navy on North Atlantic convoys. The girls in the Maypole in later years 1948-1951 era used to put whole cream custard biscuits in our bags. My sister and myself must have consumed large quantities of biscuits but never got fat, it must have been all that walking to school. I cannot recall any of the teachers names, who were mostly Nuns armed with big heavy black rulers that were brought down on your knuckles if you were deemed not be learning at the Nuns required or perceived speed. Talk about "Being cruel to be Kind" they certainly took the biscuit! but guess it never did me any harm, I'm still here to tell the tale, even if I have got flat knuckles. We left Kelfield and the Selby school in 1951, but I remember the floods of 1947, when we were transported by army DUKW to Cawood so we could get to school, how cruel was that! no consideration for the young. They nonetheless very happy times for us children, but a possible nightmare for mother, but of course we did not realise that until we ourselves became parents, only then realising how hard it must have been for parents during the 40's and early 50's era.

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