Three years have lapsed since the WW2 had ended.
Gregory’s education improved to such an extent that he passed his eleven plus exams much to the surprise of his teachers. His exams had been delayed by the war and he took them at twelve years and ten months. His transfer from a Secondary Modern School to a Grammar School was as dramatic as being almost impossible to comprehend, for a start, the journey was twice as far from his home as the old school.
At the age of thirteen he joined the Cubs and then the Scouts and learned many things like being prepared for the unexpected and on many occasions that sort of thing happened. His introduction to sporting events such as running, high jumping and the long jump on special school sports’ day was to be his time for winning. He ran the 100 yards race and won, he also won both the high jump and long jump. There were no cups or shields in those days, just a pat on the back with the words ‘Well done my boy!’
His football days were over since the nasty accident he had sustained at eleven when he wished he had never stopped a penalty in such a dramatic way and a new sport had come to the fore. Cricket was going to be his game, apparently he was a natural when it came to bowling and wasn’t too bad as a batsman and he usually went in, in fourth place of the batting order. Gregory created a new record of hitting the ball over the school roof which landed in the quadrangle and a plaque was placed where the ball landed. This record broke the cricket bat in two and if more than six runs could have been taken Gregory could have run up at least 50 before they could have retrieved the ball!
He wasn’t really prone to illnesses or mishaps and boys will be boys as the saying goes but he had his fair share of everything that was going round. A mysterious illness that caught him unawares and he had to lay on his back with his head in a cushioned vice for what seemed like an eternity and missed out on going to the circus with some friends and many other outings. He had poisoned knees where he was introduced to his first wheelchair experience and after sliding down a seesaw in the park had to have a doctor at the local hospital dig a wood splinter out of his bottom which was really painful. Their was an bicycle incident when his foot slipped off the pedal and went into the front wheel and the front brakes jammed, he did a complete somersault and landed heavily in the framework of the bike with a dislocated right arm that was agonising. Yet another visit to the local hospital and a long wait before being taken into the operating theatre.
Gregory’s early life was still taking a toll on accidents as on nearly every outing he would fall into the lake at Danson Park. Climbing trees appeared to be one of Gregory’s pursuits and it always was a tree by the lake and crawling along a branch that overhung the lake was most impressive to his current girl-friend, but as he always lost his balance, to make it look like he meant to do it he changed his attitude on the way down into a dive. Many times he tried not to look too wet when his parents saw him come in. Somehow it never worked and he would be admonished for his stupidity.
What with the town being rebuilt after the war ended and Gregory reaching his tenth birthday that same year, it was a celebration of sorts – a decade in Gregory’s life when so much had happened and what was to lie ahead might be exciting. There appeared to be a lull in England. Rationing was still ongoing and not much could be bought in the shops. However the anticlimax of everything that had happened in everyone’s life was still making people on tender-hooks looking for something that was not there anymore and wondering whether it was safe to go out.
Gregory flung open his door to life and visited his favourite haunt, the local park, although this time he would not be climbing trees. On a certain day they were dismantling the Gun Emplacement situated just inside the boundaries of the park and he remembered one sunny day during the war when he and a few other boys and girls were caught out when an air raid warning went and they had to seek shelter under the camouflaged Gun Emplacement and the guns were deployed. It was a noisy and frightening experience, never to be repeated. Gregory seemed to be totally deaf afterwards for about two hours. He never told his mum.
Saturday morning cinema club for young boys and girls was one of his favourite outings to see the plight of ‘The Perils of Pauline’ usually tied to a Railway Track waiting for her hero to arrive to rescue her. He always wondered what would happen if he never turned up? This was the serial and every week she was tied to something and once she was being tied to a conveyor belt being carried towards a circular saw. The films shown before ‘The Perils of Pauline’ were ‘Tarzan’ and maybe ‘Lassie’ plus a few cartoons.
Other excursions of enjoyment for Gregory were two visits to the local swimming pool in the park every week where he learnt to swim and dive. It was a magnificent structure consisting of three swimming pools, infant, junior and adult. There were two outstanding waterfalls. The main pool was just three inches short of being an Olympic sized pool with diving board complex at the deep end.
Gregory met his first ever serious girlfriend Patricia. His head was really turned by her beauty and he always wondered why he had been lucky enough to have such a lovely looking girlfriend. On looking back and raking his memory cells of that time, it was always in the swimming pool or the park that they met. It was after a walk in the park one sunny Sunday afternoon that she informed Gregory that it was over and that she had met someone else, a policeman. She told Gregory that she was going to marry him, she also told Gregory that her Mother only had one leg and that she thought that he would not understand that situation. Gregory wondered why Patricia thought that he would not understand and that it was an unusual excuse to make.
Not being given the chance to discuss the issue, it was with some reluctance that Gregory said goodbye to Patricia and the strangest thing of all was the longest goodbye kiss he had experienced from her. Gregory thought at the time, was she having second thoughts or just teasing him, ‘This is what you are going to miss for the rest of your life.’ Gregory’s question was answered it was of course the latter. It was Gregory’s first experience of a being dropped like a stone.