Good Work

I am dividing up my books into five categories:

• those I really treasure
• those which are too dilapidated or unworthy to give away
• those which I will give to special people
• those which I will donate to the library
• ones I don’t know what to do with*

 I am hanging on to the first category and pitching the second. The library is getting a number of unused cookbooks, books on quilting (never quite got the hang of that), fifty years worth of gifts, novels and all the books you buy but are really only good for one read. It’s amounting to quite a lot. I don’t want to do it, but it is time. An advantage of having grandchildren grow older is that I know their interests. So last week I could give Ben a book on Shackleton and the Endurance. A few weeks ago I gave Patrick a book that looked like this:

It is one of several similar editions I lugged across the Atlantic and kept with pride. Or nostalgia? An end of year school prize which was awarded to two or three pupils in each class. If you were going to receive a prize on Speech Day, you were notified in advance so you could chose a book you wanted and it could be bound in blue leather and embossed with the school crest and its motto “Onward Ever.” I forgot to photograph the volume of “Nicholas Nickelby” I gave to Patrick, so I photographed the one I received the following year, “The Pilgrim's Progress.” (So impressed was I to be receiving an award that it never occurred to me I was supposed to read it. Never did manage PP.)

The bookplate inside looked just like this,  signed by the Head Mistress and annotated “Good Work”, but the form was IIL not IIIL. I was dreading how to answer if Patrick asked about the form designation.

Let me explain: after passing the 11+, we went on to Enfield County Grammar School where we were at the mercy of a streaming system. So for the first form we were democratically known as I A, I Alpha and (I think) I B. The cream began to rise to the top and at the end of the first form about a third of us were told we could learn Latin (shades of Winston Churchill.) Hence II L, leaving behind II A and II B. At the end of the second form, the two latter classes were divided into III S (Spanish) and III DS (Domestic Science.) One of my best friends was ignominiously put into III DS, and realizing quite correctly that she was destined for more than cooking cauliflower cheese, she went on later to the Open University and earned a degree.  So on to the end of the fifth form, when V L was split into VI B Arts and VI B Science, and passed on the following year to VI A Arts and VI A Science (the creme da la creme destined for university and teacher training college). And those poor souls who made it to V S and V DS has the chance to enter VI B Secretarial.

I was dreading explaining all this to Patrick, but he didn't ask. I always used to justify this dreadful way of damning all but the brightest to a self-defeating streaming system by claiming it was part of a plan to make up quickly and efficiently for all the educated men and women lost in the war. It was, I believe, the result of the Education Act of 1944. Children were ruthlessly streamed. We paid a nominal sum for milk and the infamous “school dinner.” The blessing for me was that my university fees were paid, so I suppose it was good legislation, but these days I feel a little awkward explaining it. I do feel guilty, but at least I had a great education.

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* As for the books in this category, the ones with gripping titles like “From the Gracchae to Nero” and “The Latin Subjunctive”, they will join the much greater collection owned by this house’s librarian, and a decision will be made at a later date.