Jack just barely made it in time – –

I was thinking about my late teenage years when I was finishing my apprenticeship as a painter and decorator in the late 1950s and into the early 1960s.

I mentioned this in my post last week and about going to a dance.

But much more interesting were my weekly drives in my first car for twelve miles to the neighboring town, where I attended advanced classes and which opened the path to my eventual college career.

Those advanced classes took place in the evenings once a week and in what once had been an elementary school. It now housed P&D students (all young men) and hairdressing students (all young women) – use your imagination – –

One of our instructors was Bob, and he had a lovely ability to adapt words that became much more useful – a favorite of mine usually went as follows: “Jack – will you replentish the bucket?” He meant me to re-fill a bucket with a generous amount of water. For him the color magnolia was Mongolia, and caramel became Carmelite (an order of nuns). He was a very knowledgeable and patient man, though, and we all loved him!

There were only four of us studying for the advanced exams, so we were allowed to use the instructors’ office as our private space. It had a radio, and we always tuned to ‘Radio Luxemburg’ because back then the BBC had the only station in the UK, and they refused to play pop music. So my first experience of hearing the Beatles was on that radio tuned to RL.

After the class finished I would head to a local pub in the town, where there was a weekly jazz club that ran on the same night, and they often had folk song intervals while the band took a break.

It would be fifteen years later that I would bless having that qualification, which made me eligible to become an instructor/teacher/professor and which now provides me a generous pension!

Come back next Wednesday for more from Jack