95. 22.10.68 Letter to Child Care Officer from NCH Bristol.

Thank you for the report on this lad. I think an early visit to his school should be made in order to acquaint the Headmaster with his early difficulties and to seek the Headmaster’s advice on Child Guidance Referral. 

I think it is unlikely that the mother will raise this with the school until Philip once again shows signs of disturbance and she is unable to cope with him herself. Early referral could minimise possible difficulties later.  

MY ANSWER. With my mother working during the week, there was no time for her to arrange an appointment for me with a Psychiatrist or Educational Psychologist. So nothing more was done over the matter of seeking help for me. 

96. 21.10.68 Report of Child Care Officer on Visit to Philip’s Headmaster.

I called to see the Headmaster to enquire about Philip’s progress and to give him a little of Philip’s background.

Philip is in Form 1A1 an un-streamed class parallel with 1A2, the lower streams in the first year are 1B and 1C.

He has settled down and as far as the Headmaster could say, he was making satisfactory progress; he had not heard anything to the contrary.

Philip had not shown any unusual behaviour, although he is the only coloured boy in the school. He was going through the normal teasing and trials of new boys and he has stood up to them very well.

Philip is not likely to be medically examined until well on in 1969. The Headmaster feels that Philip should be given 12 months to settle in the school and to establish himself but if there are any problems of behaviour or on the academic side then he will seek further advice.

Philip was absent from school on the day I called; he had a slight accident the previous day having been hit near the eye with another boy’s ruler. It was thought that probably Philip had provoked the other boy, but no one had seen the incident. The Headmaster had made careful investigations.

I was able to meet Philip’s class teacher, the Headmaster’s wife. She reported that Philip was making satisfactory progress but that his writing was appalling. I told her about his jerky movements and his previous difficulty in coordination. She was concerned that Philip had not yet made any real friends apart from one boy in a more senior form. 

I left them to go on to visit Philip and his mother and said I would let them know if Philip’s accident was in any way serious.

The mother seemed very pleased and surprised that I had called.

Philip was at home with a cold but would be returning to school the next day. The bruise near his eye was only a minor one; he had not complained about it and it had given him no trouble. The mother told me that Philip seemed very happy at school. He had mentioned the teasing, but he had made light of it and seemed to have approached it in a very sensible manner.  

MY ANSWER. The Headmaster might have thought it odd to get a visit from a Child Care Officer rather than a parent. The Headmaster was a very traditional style of master; finding that one of his new pupils was in need of special treatment might have seemed a little strange.

The school was several miles away from the village and had the problem of no public transport between the two. We were taken by coach in the morning, and brought back in the afternoon. It was very difficult for any parent from the local villages to visit the school if they did not have a car of their own. Like most of my friends, their parents had never even seen the school, let alone spoken to any of the teachers.

Having been at the school for just over a month, perhaps my ability to get in any serious trouble had not really surfaced. The Headmaster noticed that due to my looks, I might have slight problems settling down; his view was that I should be given a year to see if any problems surfaced. If the Headmaster wanted regular reports on my activities, as I was placed in the form where his wife was the teacher, it could not have worked out better. The first report that could be given by my form teacher was that my handwriting was appalling, but I was making satisfactory progress.

I did have several friends. Although I was not really the studious type, running about games or playing with model cars during break time did not really appeal to me; in my mind, such things were not really part of senior school. Had there been the freedom to enter the library or some other practical way of passing the time, I would have been happier. Finding a boy from an upper form that seemed to have the same ideas as myself, it was easy to see why, during school time, I might not appear to be with my own age group. Once back in the village, our own age group tended to reform into one group except when a game of football was organised.

The Child Care Officer did not find that my eye injury was serious; that I seemed to be coping with the others teasing me, meant that little further notice was taken of that matter.  

97. 20.01.69 Report of Child Care Officer.

I called to see the mother and Philip and first had a talk with the mother on her own. She is not really happy living with the family in the village: she never seems to get any time to herself and she is very tied to the house, she longs to get back to the Isle of Wight where she and Philip could have a flat on their own. But, she added, this certainly could not happen yet; these were just her thoughts and hopes.

After a time Philip joined us; he is still jerky in his movements and this affects his writing. His main trouble is that he will try to do everything far too quickly and therefore is not thorough.

He has periods of being teased at school but he seems to be coping with this. I had the impression that, although Philip says he is quite happy at school, this is not really so; he is just making the best of a bad job. He still talks of his previous school at Harpenden and the things he would be doing if he were still there.

The day I called, Philip said he might be moved into the ‘B’ stream. He said that he should never have been put into the ‘A’ stream and he thought he would find the work easier and be happier. He explained the work would be the same but the pace slower.

The mother said she wondered about going to see the Headmaster and what did I think. I urged her to do this especially as she has not yet been to the school.  

MY ANSWER. It was quite true that we found the village life rather stifling. For my mother, looking after my grandmother meant she was almost as confined to the house as she had been when in London. The only real time off was on a Saturday afternoon, when she took a half-day off. The pair of us would go into the local town or possibly a little further for a change.

Life in the village was rather limited in activities. Although I was quite happy living in the country and was happy to explore on my own, the surrounding area meant that even walking a short distance there were several hills to climb up and down. For both of us the idea of a seaside town or village was an appealing idea, and one that was a firm possibility in my mothers mind for some future date. If I had been asked if I would mind changing schools again, I would have been quite happy with the idea. Although I was reasonably happy at school, for many of the written lessons I was always near the bottom of the form; friends in the ‘B’ stream seemed to have a much more enjoyable day at school. 
It was almost three years later, that my mother paid a visit to the school. 

98. 15.04.69 Report of Child Care Officer.

I called to see the mother and Philip.

Philip seemed very well and was enjoying his holiday. He had just been in hospital for three days for the extraction of two of his adult front teeth in his lower jaw; he had apparently injured these during his time at Harpenden. He has now made a number of friends amongst the boys in the village with whom he goes out to play. He has also been to the Swindon Baths as he is a keen swimmer.

He is a little more settled at school; although he had been placed 28th out of 29 in his class, the remarks on his report had been encouraging, ‘he worked hard and was interested’. However, Philip was rather worried lest he would be moved into the lower ‘B’ form next term. His deduction being that as five were to be moved up, then five would be moved down and he would probably be one of them.

Philip had been doing some oil painting and he had one of his little pictures already wrapped up to give me; it was quite a good effort. The mother said that his writing was still jerky but she thought it was improving gradually. Both the mother and Philip seemed happier and more settled.

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Continued

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