Old Headmasters (Even Swindon)
Then there was Jimmy. Jimmy Bellinger.
Everybody knew Jimmy. He was one of the best. He was really strict, but he was fair. You could bet your sweet life, of you played a game with him and you’d done well, you’d get a pop on the back – he’d pay you somehow or other. He’d perhaps take you down for a game of cricket at the weekend or read to you on a Friday afternoon. That was Jimmy’s way of paying you – he’d read a book to you.
I remember once a book – the Clutch and Hand Brigade , I always remember it, he used to read us a book every Friday afternoon. But as I’d say, if you’d been playing up during the week or threw up or what have yer, he did punish you – no reading, it was extra work.
And then there was Miss Routeledge, Miss Nichols, there was a lot of them. I won’t bore you with that now.
I remember once, I think his name was, Jim would know him, course he would, Jimmy Dale I think his name was. Well, I told you before, Jim was a bit of a dab hand at football, playing for the Swindon Boys and one thing and another. Jim didn’t have any football boots. Somehow or other, he scrounged an old pair of old boots, ordinary boots – couple of bits of leather, cut them out, made some football studs, banged them in like, y’know and made his own football boots. Old Jimmy Dale, he see Jim, so say playing about in these boots.
“What’s up then lad, haven’t you got any boots?”
“Nah, can’t afford a pair of football boots”
“Well, rather than see Jim get chucked out of the team like, though want of a pair of football boots, the old kiddie he turned round, and you ask Jim yourself, he bought him a brand new pair of football boots. That was the first pair of football boots Jim ever had. Well, you wouldn’t find many of them doing that these days would you?
