Monkey in the Making

No not THE Monkey, but this monkey.

Taking a drive around my old stomping ground, on our way to pick up Ri from a friends, we passed my old Primary School, Harlands CPS. This 'old' (actually still relatively new, & pretty much brand spankers when I was schooled there) place brings back a lot of fond & fun memories. I spent 2 years here, years 5 & 6 & because I joined the first intake at the school, I became part of the first years 5 & 6 at the school & one of about 18 children who had that privilege (as close as you're gonna get to 1 to 1 tuition these days!).

The teachers were great & quirky in their own little way, as they always are, & I met some really nice people there who I'm lucky to still call my friends today (even though at the time when I arrived they did take the mick out of my Yorkshire accent!). And those beautiful bright royal blue & yellow uniforms, how could I forget those!?

It's set in a very green, picturesque, friendly estate, a place where I spent many happy times, running around, playing football with friends, riding my bike, walking Ozzie.. all the joys in life.

It's a pleasure to see when passing by & I will always remember Harlands fondly.

While we're on the subject, a couple of memories that do stand out from my time there..

Being the weighing machine & tannoy-speaker system at a train station in a school play we did (it was a comedy, Airplane style humour - brilliant & genius!) I held my nose to give the tannoy character a real depth & believability (the crowd lapped it up) & whilst as the weighing machine, at the railway station, a whale steps on the scales (you can see where this is going), & I say, 'This is a railway station, not a whale-weigh station'.. pause for laughter;

A group of us making a top hat out of cardboard - it was coated in a rich purple material & for some god-for-saken reason, I don't know who suggested it, it had a piece of material at the back dangling down to protect the wearers neck from being sun-burnt (still a mystery why it hasn't yet caught on!?!?);

I also made one (who needs two) slipper out of cardboard, & covered it with horrid flowery curtain material (no sun guard though this time, shame);

And finally, one that makes me always smile, listening to the original War Of The Worlds soundtrack in class & drawing pictures to match the audio (still got that drawing somewhere - it's a masterpiece!), not quite sure what it was meant to teach us, but it was bleedin' good fun!

History lesson over. At least that's part of the autobiography written.