My Biggest Influence Writing Competition Spring 2013

My Father
Vivienne Seakins

"You're just like your father!" my mother would yell at me in moments of extreme anger and frustration. How would I know? My father had been killed in a tragic accident when I was just eight months old. The coroner recorded a verdict of 'Misadventure' after a tree fell on him, crushing him, in the violent storm of 16 March, 1947. Yet the thought of being like him was vaguely comforting. I knew I looked like him because I had seen a few faded black and white photos of him with his Royal Air Force comrades - the same shy smile and fair hair, I liked that. The sturdy hips and legs - not so keen!

He gave me my name, Vivienne. He had been a great fan of the glamorous, talented actress Vivien Leigh. Unfortunately I did not grow up with any of her assets. Three weeks after he died I was christened. Apart from official documents like my passport, my name has never been used. The 10-year-old boy who taunted me about it was walloped for his pains, although I came off worst having been propelled by him into a brick wall on my roller skates, the scar on my forehead a daily reminder.

His absence had a profound affect on my upbringing. My mother took me to Wiltshire to live with her mother and youngest brother. I was very happy playing out with the two little girls who lived nearby. Sixty years on the three of us are still the best of friends. But when I was seven I was sent to an orphanage in north London. I remember my mother leaving without kissing me goodbye. Mostly no names were used there. I was Number Twelve. '12' was sewn on to all of the ill-fitting clothes I wore over the next four years. My beautiful plaits, so long that I could sit on them, were hacked off and my hair fashioned into the shape of a pudding basin. I was the first to find the body of an abusive teacher who committed suicide by jumping off the chapel roof. I learned to be cautious about who to trust and to hide my emotions. But most importantly I learned to stand on my own two feet, be independent in word and deed, to fight my own corner.

Having passed the 11+ examination I had high hopes of attending the local grammar school, hopes quickly dashed when I was incarcerated in a convent boarding school. The RAF paid the school fees. The children were a mix of victims and bullies; so were the nuns. The next five years were spent usurping authority, breaking the rules, being as subversive as possible. I smuggled in cigarettes and unsuitable books, which were hidden up the chimney to thwart the nuns' frequent searches of the dormitories and bedrooms.

"Sandra Crook, you are a thoroughly bad influence on the other girls," was a familiar accusation! Punishments, psychological rather than physical, were doled out on a regular basis. Although threatened with expulsion on several occasions, sadly I was not released until I was nearly 16. The lessons of the orphanage were reinforced. I learned to be patient (like my father), to work hard (like my father) to counteract the abysmal standard of teaching, most of all to relish and enjoy freedom.

I did eventually get to the local grammar school - a day school, with boys! A wonderful two years and three A' levels later I was convinced that children deserved a better time at school than I had earlier been subjected to. I decided to train to become a primary school teacher. At college in Portsmouth I met my husband. We have been married contentedly for 45 years. My mother's initial reaction, when, aged 19, we phoned her up to tell her we were engaged, was, "I think you are both extremely foolish", then she slammed the phone down. Her main objection turned out to be that "he is just like your father".

My teaching career spanned 36 years in Hampshire, the London borough of Brent, the Island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, Warwickshire, and a year's exchange in New Zealand. My father worked in India from 1937-1942 training Indian ground crews in aircraft maintenance. He was a Warrant Officer, and, although he was offered promotion, he declined to take it. He loved his hands-on job. As a deputy head I thought about applying for headships, but loved being in the classroom. I did not want to become an administrator. My mother put this down to lack of ambition, "just like your father", but it worked out for me too. And in retirement? I wake up in the morning and want to hug each and every day.