11 plus year (1977-1978)

1978 – eleven plus – a very miserable year for me for several reasons.

Grange Hill started in 77 – and it scared me because I thought I’d go to a school like that. One story of the toilets being covered in blood at Prince Rock. I was convinced I’d fail the 11 plus. Parents kept making me sit fake 11 pluses – obviously in the end I passed well and went to the top academic school in Plymouth.

we had an unusually cold winter which set my Dad off: "don't panic" and stuff about the new ice age a coming. 

Movies:

1978 – Lord of the Rings – animated; and probably connected to my mum coming home with LOTR paper back one day - and ecouraging me to read it. I don't know if she ever read it or why she thought I should. It was good that she did though as it was probably the first fantasy book i ever read, might as wll start with the best and work down. Close Encounters of the Third Kind - think it was out around Christmas. My other Aunt Ann was really in to it and sang its praises. Me and my Dad  had been bonding with UFO stuff for a while now. I'd even seen one and he hadn't, which was a shame. 

In 1978 I started cycling to my grandparents house in Whitleigh and listening to Noel Edmonds breakfast show on Sunday morning.

Mum always took us to Grans on a Wednesday afternoon on the bus - Grandad drove us home. Then after I started school we did that in the holidays only - maybe in evenings after school, but not on the bus. At some point i got the bus up there by myself (or with younger sister). It's where all my memories of sitting at the top of the bus, pretending to drive and looking down the peep-hole at the driver.
By this time however, with a bike, i started cycling the 5 miles out there by myself.

I stayed out there in the summer - a week maybe - because it was next to the country it was like a holiday.
Not sure when i discovered Noel Edmonds on the radio, or how. Maybe through my aunt. But I liked the gentleness of the show, if not the music so much. It actually might have been because of the Swap shop that i listened.
Anyway - i thought it was funny and interesting.

Modern version of Famous Five which I associate with a holiday in Salcombe in Hilda's cottage. We were there when it started - or near enough.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078611/episodes?year=1978&ref_=tt_eps_yr_1978 - a year or two earlier I'd been there with the BB. So I knew the town fairly well.

In 1978 however, I had my final ever BB trip, to Indian Queens, near Newquay - we were at RAF St Mawgan's air show on 16th August 1978 (a wednesday?) - shortly before i startedat SHS, and Martin Lee was going - i already had him down as someone to avoid.

not sure about the date but maybe around 1978? 

And then we  had Scandinavian students - before that one French girl and after - maybe a couple of years later we had a male athlete who liked pasties and the Clash.

The top picture shows our first Scandinavian student with my Dad - yes we used to take them on family trips with us - and I'm pretty sure she was called Jette. She was a bit of a tomboy to my disapointment, however, she did wear a dress on her last day, so there's that.

Hello Scandinavian student number 2, meet Scandinavian student number 1. There was a short overlap. Number two was much more of a girly girl, however, I can barely remember her.