We all were at Lapage Street Secondary Modern School, or Ecole Rue laPage as we jokily called it. Eleven-plus was this exam kids used to take in junior school. It was crucial, because it more or less decided your whole future. Pass eleven-plus and you qualified for a grammar school education, which meant you went to a posh school where the kids wore uniforms and got homework and learned French and Latin and went on trips to Paris. At Grammar School you left when you were sixteen to start a career, or you could stay on till you were eighteen and go to university. Fail eleven-plus and you were shoved into a Secondary Modern School where you wore whatever happened to be lying around at home and learned reading, writing and woodwork. You couldn’t get any qualifications and you left on your fifteenth birthday and got a job in a shop or factory. Not a career: a job. One of the rottenest things about being an eleven-plus failure was that you knew you’d let your mum and dad down. Everybody’s parents hoped their kid would pass and go to the posh school.
