17

By this time all three of us were at the lovely primary school I told you about before.

When we first started there it was a split site school with the couple of years on one site and then up to a very old school building for the last couple of years. The school had been very keen for a long time to try and get the school onto one site, but the Local Education Authority hadn’t got the money to do it. It was realised though that I would find it very difficult to get around the building in a wheelchair. By this time I was finding it increasingly hard to walk and I had a tendency to fall over! The LEA surveyed the building and decided it would be too expensive to do the necessary alterations so they would put the school onto one site which is what the Head teacher and Governors had wanted for years. (Yes you have guessed it, the OSO was a Governor at the School by now!) So result! Every one was very happy. So the junior, the more modern bit of the School, was extended so the School was now just on one site.

The School was really good and we all enjoyed going there. As time went on I did find it more and more difficult to get around, but no one ever seemed to mind, or in fact really notice much. I had some really good friends and my increasing disability didn’t bother them, because, of course, of my devastatingly wonderful personality!

The main problem though, was the OSO, particularly at Christmas! You know how schools always like to do a show for all the parents and grandparents at Christmas? Well our school did some really fantastic shows, not just boring old nativities, but quite lavish productions which needed us to be dressed in fantastic costumes which of course all the mums made at home.

The OSO could only do shepherds!! Basically she couldn’t sew to save her life. She claimed she was allergic to needles and cotton and the very sight of them made her come out in a rash and throw up! She really was the limit. Fortunately her Mum (our Gran) was brilliant at sewing so she helped out. Mum was useless, she was the only mother who told her sons off for getting badges at cubs and scouts ‘cause it meant she would have to sew them on. When we went to Secondary school she had to sew the school badge onto out blazer pockets. We had to stand (or sit in my case because I was in a wheelchair by then) on the skew to make the badges look straight cause the OSO always sewed them on wonky.

When Roger and Alistair moved in 6^th form much later, she was supposed to sew blue ribbon all round the edges of the blazer. Some hope!!

So back to the school Christmas plays, she could only do shepherds because all she had to do was put a tea towel round our heads and send us to school in our dressing gowns. It didn’t look very good when I was supposed to be a firework one year and another year Roger was Joseph in Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Coat. The OSO thought he was Joseph, the virgin Mary’s other half! Yes, you’ve got it, she sent him with a tea towel!

Welcome to my world!

You see lots of people thought it was really hard for me having Muscular Dystrophy. In fact it was a piece of cake compared with having the OSO as a mother!