A well read gurl featuring Nancy in the Sixth

 Some hobbies or interests you may have reflect or may only of been possible in or possibly after a specific era such as following the "space race" or more recently using various forms of online social media that simply wasn't an option for this boy.

Reading though not without it's difficulties such as being dyslexic and having a limited vocabulary was however on of mine not least for being portable plus able to paused and resumed at will which in that era advantages over tv and movies.

We were fortunate to have in upper juniors a male teacher with a passion for literature, Mr Rangecroft, who apart from having us read, also read aloud in class to us cos it was and still is the case reading is seen as more a girls thing which as a boy I can tell you isn't something you want to be associated with!

One book we loved to read was  Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner  a German author who wasn't very popular with the Nazi's which was set in pre-war Berlin where being raised by his Mother alone Emil is sent to Berlin to give to his Grandmother her salary but encounters a man, Max Grundles along the way who gives him chocolate that sends him a sleep and when Emil wakes up the man and his money has gone.

The story is his adventure with other sometimes shady children trying to track down the man and bring him before the police

Another transitional book was Ian Serrillier The Silver Sword. It is the story a boy called Joseph in German occupied Poland who gets into serious trouble at the school after he turns on its back one of numerous pictures of the German Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler that gets him sent to a Prison Camp where breaks out of.

The story is about his family and other children caught up in the war and brutal Nazi treatment of the Polish people.

As well,  I thought it's time to return to our book series, Nancy at St  Brides/Maudsley and its heroine.

Originally written in 1935 it is a little more modern than the earliest adventures although we are still very much in a twentieth century mind set where girls would just wonder around woods by themselves with just a bike.

This picks up from The Best Bat although that was a mini novel and sees Nancy and her chums return as they thought to would be the Upper Fifth having taken their School Certificate examinations (a kinda precursor to the British GCE O levels people before 1987 took in the Fifth Form - aka Year 11 in post 1990's terms showing competence in the "Three R's" and other subjects ready to leave school for further study or employment).

I say that because we learn though family circumstances some who would of been in the Sixth left for overseas Colonies of our Empire such as South Africa, some to gain employment needed because their families faced lack  and others won scholarships to colleges and this meant the Sixth for this term would have precisely seven pupils which wasn't viable.

The Head Mistress, Miss Hale, sees actually her Fifth forms are unwieldy with rather more pupils than desirable and decides to move up those more academically capable in other respects mature members such as Nancy to the Sixth.

This is where the story proper begins because on the same day Nancy got moved up to the sixth she was promoted to a vacant prefectship triggering much trouble at Maudsley, their day school.

We learn about Clemency Walton's long standing jealous of Nancy that was triggered by a big misunderstanding that was not discovered until terms end and this jealous came to a head when the games committee proposed to make Nancy the captain of Cricket, this was far more than she could bear.

By the use of school gossip, not least the idea that an offer to play for the Lady Foresters cricket team had been accepted and to whom did play against Maudsley when in fact Nancy had not more for getting between work for the Guildry, Clemency manages to divert this honour -a mere formality given her cricketing and captaincy skills - from Nancy to herself.

But this isn't all in this story of jealousy running amok for Nancy had been down to play for an important school match encounters Ryllis Rutherford also of the the Sixth in something of a scrape offering her the use of her bike only not to make the match and facing being accused of 'cutting' it.
Clemency seizes her chance aided by the Second Form teacher who is the only other person with the final say on the team selection who is out of action with a cold, for malicious action to remove her from one selection and to call for practice sessions in away that Nancy would not of know and to which it would be easy to belittle her.

In the midst of this there is a scholarship -the Woodford-Leigh - for organ playing to which Nancy and Clemency are practising that requires a suitable instrument to practise on for  examination.

Clemency swaps days to use the organ at St Ninians church with Nancy which would be fine other than several stops of it were damaged which naturally upset their organist Mrs Patterson apart from requiring repair. 

Because of the day it occurred on, all involved conclude it must of been Nancy as the swap was only agreed between the two girls before Bijah, a junior, who had attended thinking she'd hear Nancy playing saw Clemency but fell asleep and was rescued by Mrs Patterson makes an unplanned intervention.

It was a chance remark by the new junior schoolgirl  while taking tea with Mrs Patterson talking about her dog, that she know Clemency was playing that very day that unmasked Clemency's refusal to own up and let Nancy take the blame for something she was not responsible for.

Clemency is demoted not just for her use of a rumour she knew not to be tested to get Nancy removed from the cricket captaincy and even for selection but even as a prefect for her underhand ways.

The sorts of issues are not even today untypical of school life or indeed in other fields where we observe others work against people either making unfounded accusations or letting them stand because however wrong they are (and they know it) it suits them to let it happen and not hold out for what is true.

The moral lessons set I feel still stand in Twenty-first century Britain.