Must do my Homework

Must do my Homework ©

Michael Casey

When we are kids we have homework, I did not know what to write today, and as I pondered whether or not to add another piece to the thousands, yes thousands, it stuck me I could write about homework. Are you still doing homework? Or have you passed that age? My small daughter starts her Exam year next week, while her big sister goes off to University with just my story Lech, Boris and Gregorgi Check it Out for company. So can you remember doing homework.

My brother had left home and I was in the homework room, the Middle Room all alone for my Exam year, just as my small daughter is. So there are parallels between us. I never used to do homework on Friday as it was the end of the week, then Saturday was for rugby, so Sunday would come, and that meant being an altar boy and then hitting the books.

I would have done even better if only I’d hit the books more, a little bit often is the trick. Same for dieting and sex, though a diet of sex might be tiring and put you off hitting the books. You have to be self disciplined, but the phone down, put the video games away. In my days we rejoiced when Channel 4 arrived, we only had 4 tv stations when I was at grammar school, so the number of distractions were far less. We didn’t even have a telephone in the house when I grew up, and mobiles had not even been thought of.

So you sit down in front of your desk and start studying. We had a family day out to pick a desk for my brother to study at when he passed the 11plus, 6 years behind the eldest brother. So I the smallest of the Casey brothers inherited that desk. 4 brothers and 2 sisters plus a cat and a dog and a house full of lodgers, not forgetting mum and dad. We were encouraged to study hard, do what you like but do your best, Oxford and Cambridge were reached, and my sister became a teacher.

Latin of course was the hardest subject, do 40 mins was the command by Mr Procter the Latin and Careers teacher. Join the army SPQR and invade Gaul, and give Asterix a good slap, I seem to remember him saying, after he tortured us with the Ablative Absolute. It took the 2nd hour of double Latin before one of the future Doctors worked it out, was in Prasad? The Greeks tired by the war, went home to watch the football on Match of the Day. And yes you had to do double the 40mins so you could present enough to the Latin teacher, dancing would have been so much more easier.

You’d go to the kitchen for a well deserved drink and a doss before returning to the homework room. You’d stroke the dog before going back to do Physics. For Physics we had a great teacher so I actually enjoyed and passed it. Though once we were doing something about pressure, and why boots had studs on. There were 5 questions but I didn’t think and put the same answer down each time. Studs are for grip, but if you have a flat surface there is no grip into the playing field. Something from 45 years ago, I’ve learnt from my mistake.

Then mum would scream come for the dinner, always chops and potatoes and some vegs, the veg I never seemed to eat. I did drink all the milk in the house, so I was sent down the road to get more. We didn’t always have a fridge, so our Minton tiles were our cold store, 4 bottles of Children’s milk,and2 bottle of Tea milk every day. I think dad took some Tea milk in a bottle to work because by the Furnace anything else would curdle.

Back in the middle room, the homework room you just had to learn 20 words and phrases for the morning’s French test, Mr Notzing was probably the greatest teacher ever, though at the time we had other ideas.So I paced backwards and forwards plucking my eyebrows. After 30 mins I knew the French but had no eyebrows. So my sister painted some on for me and nobody noticed. I got full marks in the vocab test too. The 2nd day the lads noticed,but as I was the biggest person there nobody dared tease me. It was a Chemistry experiment I said, a few weeks later a man on the school route actually gave me a Chemistry set.