11+

Whilst I was being educated at Keyham Barton, Maureen had passed her 11+ and went to Plymouth High School for Girls which was a very distinguished Grammar School with a very high academic achievement over many years. I wasn’t aware as she was just about starting there when I was born. Much later I discovered that there was a little local difficulty when she made clear that she was not going to go to Notre Dame, the Catholic Grammar. I can imagine the impact that must have had coming from a strong Catholic family not to go to Notre Dame would have been some talking point in the Catholic fraternity and probably would have involved in some discussion with Canon Gaynor who,if nothing else, was a bit of a truant over matters of Faith.
Surprisingly it was always Dad who seemed to be the one who was most forceful about church and the faith generally. He was the convert who became a Catholic on meeting Mum and marrying her. Mum was from a large Irish family with a matriarch mother who had 14 children many of whom died as infants and a little further on we’ll cover all the family tree. But I can understand there would have been an issue around this. Maureen’s wishes prevailed and as I found in later life once she makes a decision there’s nothing going to change it.
I suspect that a good education without all the religious content was really what she wanted and there was the other issue which I only gradually became aware as I grew up,that was how overprotective Dad was towards her. Of course as she grew older and made new friends there were occasions when she would catch the bus into town to meet up. Dad would insist on knowing what time bus she was catching home and if any boy she’d met escort her home, it must have been quite a shock to find Dad waiting for the bus to arrive.
There were no phones as there are now, and anyway we didn’t have one at Admiralty St so if you said you’re going to be on a certain bus you better just be on it or panic would ensue. I do recall whilst I was supposed to be in bed asleep, the heated discussion after her arrival back home on some occasions. Maureen always held her own though and where I would just get a wack she seemed to be able to handle Dad pretty well. Whether he ever realised that I’ll never know, but if I tried to follow the same path it always went very wrong, interpreted as being insolent usually resulted in a sharp pain somewhere.
It must have been in the 1950 General Election when Michael Foot was defending Devonport that Nye Bevan came to Plymouth to support his friend. Not only was the Devonport Guildhall packed to the rafters, but the square totally filled as well outside. There were arrangements put in place so that those outside could hear the speeches so broadcasting speakers were put in place. The local Tory ladies filled the front row apparently to heckle Nye, but he thrived on them all his life and provided humour to the evening. Maureen already active in the Labour Party moved the vote of thanks at that meeting, thus starting her political life.
By the time I was taking my 11+ Maureen had moved to London to work and that changed the way our life felt at Admiralty St. It also meant that I was under more scrutiny than before and needed to be careful not to fall foul of house or religious rules.