Thornleigh Salesian College 37-39 

A tough discipline school regime,  --  each  teacher had their own form of punishment like hitting upraised finger ends with the thin end of a ruler; pulling the hair from the back of the neck upwards; hitting boys down to the ground. 
It did however stimulate the memory of French irregular verbs. and Latin declensions.. 

Caned by headmaster of Thornleigh along with other miscreants for some misdemeanor. (I put an exercise book down my trouser seat beforehand to minimise pain.) I seemed to be acquiring a tendency to collect a variety of misdemeanors, wherever the school. 
On the plus side I shared the “Victor Ludorum” Winner of the Junior school athletics events accumulating most points i/c 100yds, 200 yds, relay, long jump, high jump. And won a real gold medal. Completely obsessed with Athletics;- buying spiked running shoes, corked hand grips and borrowing any library books on Olympic Games. 

3 Boyhood heroes come to mind:- 

1. Paavo Nurmi -The Flying Finn long distance runner 1928. 
2. Sidney Wooderson –The English miler 1937 
3. Jesse Owens, The Black American athlete who defied Hitler’s Aryan race supremacy and made a record not yet beaten:- Won 4 Gold Medals at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 100 metres, 200 metres, Long Jump, and 4*100m relay all in 45 minutes. 

I also devoured every issue of comics –The Hotspur and The Wizard. In 1938 I physically overdid the athletics obsession and developed a type of Rheumatic fever and was in bed for a few weeks. I was however able to listen to the England v Australia 5th test at the Oval, when Len Hutton got 364 runs and England got 903 to win the match but draw the series. 

In 1939 Dad got a job with a printers in Yeovil, so we moved there; I changed school.  The printing Company went bust, 
War Broke out on Sunday 3rd Sept 1939 when I was playing cricket. 

Dad got job at Westland Aircraft and part of the time worked in Bath, and  Martock and then back to Yeovil. 

The impact of this move on my life was considerable:-. 
At first it was the sheer joy of playing cricket on actual grass instead of black cinders;