Storytelling Sunday - It's contagious

It's storytelling Sunday over at Sian's again and she's suggested 'Too Cool for School' as a theme.  Well back in the 60s when I was at Primary School, I don't think that 'cool' had been invented! My story today relates to something that happened when I was about nine.
 

I loved school, couldn't wait to get there in the morning and volunteered for anything (my proudest moment was being noninated the person responsible for collecting the silver milk bottle tops off our playtime bottle of milk. My job was flattening them down to send off to Blue Peter as they were collecting them to raise money for a guide dog).  So it came as a bit of a surprise to my mum when one night I sobbed my way to bed saying that I was not going to go to school the next day.  I was tucked up in bed, given a glass of warm milk and gentle questioning as to what had happened.  I didn't want to talk about it.  I just wasn't going in the next day.  Or ever again really.  I finally fell asleep, woke up the next morning and agreed to get dressed but I was NOT going to school.  Had breakfast, brushed teeth, had my glorious ginger hair put into fashionable bunches above my ears, pretty ribbon tied round them,{the bunches, not my ears} cardigan put on and sensible Clarks sandals buckled up.  But I wasn't going to go to school.  Mum explained that I had to go and that whatever it was that had happened, could be sorted out.  A firm grasp of my wrist and I was propelled through the door and dragged reluctantly up the road.  Probably moaning all the way, it must have been a long journey for poor mum.

Arriving at the school, I held onto the gate and reminded mum that I wasn't going to go in.  Mrs Bishop (my teacher) came out to the playground to see what the fuss was about.  For a small girl, I had a remarkably loud cry!  Mrs Bishop and Mum unprised my fingers from the gate and took me into the school  where we all sat on chairs while they tried to figure out what the problem was.  Mrs Bishop could think of nothing that had happened the day before and nothing was worrying me about the work. 

After a while I had to admit to what the problem was.  I didn't want to catch a broken leg.  Well, I mean you wouldn't, would you?  A broken leg would have meant I couldn't go to the playground with my friend Nicky, I wouldn't be able to go on stage with the recorder group, and I certainly wouldn't be able to stand up for handbell practice.  What would I do at playtime if I couldn't hang upside down by my knees on the play equipment?  No, I absolutely did not want to catch a broken leg.

You see, back in the 60s, boys didn't wear long trousers until they went up to secondary school at age 11.  No matter what the weather was, they wore shorts.  With long socks in the winter and short ones in the summer.  So when the boy I sat next to in class fell off his bike and broke his leg, his plaster cast was not covered at all and I had convinced myself that if my skinny little bare leg touched against his plaster cast, then I would catch his broken leg.  I'm pretty sure I saw mum and Mrs Bishop share an amused grin as they assured me that it couldn't happen, but just to keep me happy, Mrs Bishop would suggest that he sat at a different desk on his own so that he could stretch his poor broken leg out.  Happy in the knowledge that my legs were safe, I skipped along to class. Giving Robert H a wide berth as I passed his desk - just in case!