A childhood experience

I couldn't believe my eyes. They were throwing children out of the third floor window! And I was next but one in the queue. Not a queue for bread or meat or bananas, but for being thrown out of a window.

I was eight years old, it was 1949 and my first evening at Hillgrove Preparatory Boarding School in Bangor. I'd never experienced anything like this before. With mounting horror I saw one little boy go to his fate meekly enough, pushed out by two burly teenage girl prefects. But the boy in front of me, about my own age and new here like me, screamed, 'No, no! I don't want to go!'

They fastened some sort of belt round him and tried to heave him out, but he clung to the sill, still screaming. One of the girls thumped his fingers, using her fists like hammers. With a cry of pain, out and down he went. Then it was my turn.

They pulled me up onto the sill. Through the window I could see all the other pupils congregating below, including those who'd been pushed out. They didn't look hurt. The headmaster, in black gown and mortar board, was barking orders through a megaphone.

'Come on, Anita. Buck up, child! Get a move on!' came roaring out of that thing in a posh English voice. I hated his drawing attention to me like that. All the faces below were staring up at me. The two big girls had put the straps round me and were shoving me over the sill. Terrified, I clung on like the previous boy, but was too shy to scream.

They prised my fingers off the sill, one by one. I had no option but to climb out. To my relief the straps round my chest held me firmly. I wasn't going to fall, after all. I hung over the abyss, my feet clamped on the wall.

'Walk down!' cried the girls. 'Walk down the wall!'

I'd never heard of abseiling. How could I walk down a sheer brick wall? I stayed where I was. Nobody could reach me here. Good. What was a fire practice, anyway? They'd never had one at my previous school. Now the Headmaster was bellowing through that megaphone again.

'Anita, just put one foot after the other and walk down slowly and steadily. Slowly and steadily. Come on now, we're all waiting. There are others waiting their turn.' Bet they're not in a hurry, I thought. I relaxed a little and the voices above and below me seemed to die down and go far away. I looked around, beginning to enjoy my high vantage point. The school grounds had tall trees, bushes, little paths that disappeared into promising wildernesses. This could be a good place to play, if they left me alone to explore.

I leaned back and began to walk down the wall. It was easy – I was just beginning to enjoy it when I reached the ground and someone took off my harness.

I turned to the Headmaster. 'Sir, can I have another go?'

He glared at me in disbelief while everyone laughed.

ends (500 words)