A Schoolboy Friendship and the Strap

By Clive Allen

I came to live in East Newcastle in February 1941 as a result of my family being twice displaced from London where I was born; the first time at the beginning of WW2 in September 1939 to South wales though we soon returned to London during the so called phoney war period, only for we to be moved again when the German air attacks intensified.

Prior to and during those early months of WW2 my father worked for a mining engineers with premises in Victoria Street in the city where for safety during air raids staff would go down to the cellars until the al clear was sounded.

One day during such a raid when most of the staff had gathered in the cellars, my father who had been delayed was making his way down the down the several fights of stairs when a bomb crashed through the roof, continued down past my father and exploded in the cellars, killing seven of the staff and injuring several others.

Fortunately my dad was only slightly injured though severely shocked and covered in dust, so that when he came home my mother thought that he had been run over by a bus.

This tragedy resulted in my father being moved to the Newcastle office of the company and subsequently I started at Chillingham Road Infants School with the September 1943 intake.

I soon made good friends with a local boy attending the same reception class and we played together outside of school many times.

Once when we were seven years old we decided to go for a walk which took us up the whole length of Benton Road and on to West Moor a distance of some five kilometres at which point we decided that we were tired and couldn’t continue.

A phone call from my friend to his dad brought rescue via his van and I was soon delivered safely back to my parents, who by this time were getting quite anxious over my long absence.

This friendship lasted several more years until an incident in class during my last year in Senior School when our class teacher was Mr Osborne and I sat right at the back sharing a desk with another boy.

During on e late morning period my desk mate began flicking ink-soaked paper pellets at me, which provoked me into responding in kind.   We were both quietly immersed in this contest when I noticed that my friend sitting several rows from me had his hand up. “Why is he doing that?” I thought, so that when our Master asked him what he wanted I was stunned when the reply came “Please sir Clive Allen’s got ink al over his face.”

“Why did he have to go and say that for?” I muttered as my desk mate and I were called to the front of the class where we were soon punished with six strokes of the strap to our right palms that left us smarting in pain.

I don’t think my friend had any malicious intention when he brought Mr Osborne’s attention to my condition but my desk mate was all for inflicting retribution on my now not so popular friend, by punching his lights out.

I didn’t respond and I heard later that when my desk mate caught up with him no punches were exchanged and the two became good friends.

Later that year both my desk mate and I passed the eleven plus entrance examination to the Heaton Grammar School while my now more distant friend gained a place at Rutherford School in the West of Newcastle.

Attending different Schools limited chances of reconciliation and in subsequent years it was only through third hand accounts that I learned anything of the course of his life.

Then it seems that a lasting friendship requires contributions from and allowances made by both parties, and nurturing with frequent shared experiences, the better the better.