I remember going into what was called the Infants on my first day at school. The classroom had its own entrance from the playground, as well as connecting with the rest of the school, so all the newbies were isolated from the rest until they got used to it. The teacher was called Mrs Reeve and she had curly hair, glasses and looked like an old lady.
I remember sitting down at a table and putting my brand new stiff leather satchel down on the chair next to me, so no one else could sit there. Then I watched everything.
Many of the kids were crying. There were two girls that clung to each other and howled, which reminded me of a cartoon I’d seen. I briefly considered crying before my Mum left, but didn't.
The chairs and table were all me sized, and so were the loos, when we were shown them, I really liked that. And the little bottles of milk, with a straw. We had little mats with them, which smelt funny. (Oilcloth, this was before plastic everything)
I wanted to investigate the Wendy house, the wooden child sized kitchen in the corner and the large toy box, but didn't dare just yet.
We had the first reading book, with a picture of Janet and John on the front, I think on a blow up horse? in swimming costume. It was called Here We Go. I could read it, Here is Janet, here is John, run little dog, see the ball, sort of thing, until there was suddenly a huge long word in the middle (aeroplane), which was a bit of a shock.
This was in 1960! And sitting down to think about it, I remember lots more, including kids' names and all the teachers. I remember things like fetching Martin Blank a clump round the head for sucking my favourite rag doll's head and making it all wet (yucky boys) and being dragged off to the Headmistress, Mrs Gofton. That was scary.