I can still remember the year 1960 in my second year class aged 6, in which a female primary school teacher in Hollins Head Street Methodist Primary School in Chorley, Lancashire, England. She called me out to the front of the class, to read from the blackboard. She had seen me lip syncing the words that she had written on the huge blackboard, along with the rest of my class mates. They were actually reading the words, I could not.
I stood there on the raised teacher desk platform, in front of the whole class. I was in sheer terror knowing I had lip sync’d the words, at nearly exactly the same time as the class. I had a very quick ear for picking up the sounds, my other class mates were saying! In my fright, I could not recite a single word and was stuttering in reply to her heated questions, regarding me mouthing the words along with the class!
The teacher in her frustrated rage and disappointment, thinking she had taught me to read, gave me a very hard slap, across my face on one side, then followed it with a good back hander, on the other side. The speed and force of this back hander nearly knocked me off the raised platform and into next week! When I got home from school that evening, I dare not tell my father and mother of the incident in class that day, or I would have gotten another one across the back of my head from my father! I was the eldest son and in his eyes, I was expected to do better. This was the 1960’s after all. Dyslexia was not well known back then!
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so I got the tee square across my arse and he’ll that hurt, can you imagine the surprise every one got……Rick
