Eleven Plus

by Christina St Clair

Overview

A touching story about an English girl's struggle for acceptance.
Lesley, the heroine in the story, longs to go to an elite girls' school, but she is a working class kid. After an excruciating interview with a snobbish headmistress, she is convinced there is something wrong with her.
The book is 120 pages in length. Cover art was created by Edwina Pendarvis, co-editor at Blair Mountain Press.

There are no illustrations within the pages.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940014538039
Publisher:	Christina St Clair
Publication date:	04/24/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	674 KB

About the Author

Eleven Plus is about class discrimination and is based on a real experience in my life.
Has anyone ever called you a hillbilly? Does it offend you to be seen in such a light--like Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies--a bumbling halfwitted son who is a subject of fun, just as are all of his family, from Jed to Granny. The respectable people of a posh community, Beverly Hills, look down upon them.
When I was a little girl, I was viewed as a London Hillbilly; it was undeserved prejudice.
I was born the daughter of two good hardworking people. My father drove a lorry and my mother worked in a shoe shop. They barely made ends meet, but we managed okay. We lived in County Council housing, the upper flat of a rambling former manor house with lots of nooks and crannies, damp ceilings, and a large unkempt yard.
My Dad understood the importance of education as a means to rise out of poverty and emphasized this to my brothers and I.
As a little girl, I loved to learn and loved school. When it came time to go to a Grammar School, which in England is a secondary school for kids from 11 years old to 17, I should have had my choice of any school because I'd passed an examination called the 11+ with flying colors.
But England was still very much a class-ridden society. The school I chose was one my Daddy admired and I wanted to please him. Little did I know that I was not "good enough," not because I wasn't smart or capable but because of the occupations of my working class parents.
Terrible Toes is dedicated to the memory of
my Dad and my Mum who were the best!