Coronavirus diary, Sunday 26 April

The Prime Minister will be back to work tomorrow after three weeks recovering from Covid-19 with momentous, literally life or death decisions to make - soon. Is it safe to make life a little easier for people getting tired of lockdown, anxious to get back to work? We will see. 

The Act that started state education

One of his most important decisions is whether to let at least some children go back to school. Banning most children from going to school five weeks ago was the first time for 150 years when the law made schooling compulsory was broken - by the government.The Elementary Education Act of 1870 followed by a further act in 1880 meant children from five years old attended school until they were ten and then attained the first School Certificate.This was changed overnight five weeks ago due to lockdown. Now, Mr Johnson is being urged to get children back to school as soon as possible. Parents are worried that their children's education and careers could be jeopardised by months of make-do-at home lessons. Students are equally concerned over crucial exams being deferred and uncertainty over university places.

These are very natural concerns but are they justified? I can only speak from my experience and perhaps that of my generation that suggests the effect might not be as drastic as feared. Most teenagers in 1939 had their schooling interrupted in some way for months, even years. Mine certainly was. In four years I had four moves, and three different schools. At the outbreak of war I, like most children in London, was evacuated. My school moved to Hampshire but I went to my Aunt Flo in Splott, transferring to Cardiff High School. Then came the 'phoney war' period with nothing much happening that persuaded  masses of children to return to London. My move came almost overnight when bombs fell near my new home. I joined the South West London Emergency Secondary School on Clapham Common, just in time for the Battle of Britain and the London blitz. I spent most daytimes in the school shelter and nights in our Anderson shelter in the garden. For months I learned nothing. 

Cardiff High School for Boys

When my mother became ill the family moved to Cardiff and I rejoined Cardiff High School. I sat my CWB (Central Welsh Board) exam in June 1942 after a night spent under the stairs during an air raid. Somehow I passed. A few months later I started work on the Penarth Times and went on to a modest but interesting and rewarding career. I am sure that I must have been one of the millions of wartime British youngsters who overcame the frustration and difficulties of interrupted education to have such careers, many more illustrious than mine. Freddie Laker, Colin Davis, David Attenborough, Eric Morecambe, Patrick Moore, Mrs Thatcher, for example. Not forgetting the Queen.

PS: my son Robert recalls learning about the 1870 Education Act during his time at Cardiff High School in the 1970s. The legislation was commonly known as Forster's Education Act after the minister responsible for it. Two years later, Forster oversaw the Ballot Act that introduced secret voting, ending the days when landlords could intimidate tenants. These were just two of the landmark changes during William Gladstone's first government, 1868-74.