School in the Summer: A British Detour from Grade 3

A memory of uniforms, stinging nettles, and finding a home away from home.

Most kids dread the idea of school in the summer, and I was no exception. But one summer, instead of swimming pools and cartoons, I found myself sitting in a classroom in South Oxhey, England. It turned out to be one of the most unforgettable and oddly wholesome detours of my childhood.

A Summer in England

My mom was a teacher, which meant she had summers off. Every year, she packed us up and flew us across the Atlantic to visit her parents in England. They lived just up the road from the Carpenders Park train station, in a neighbourhood just south of Watford.

That summer, when I was in grade 3, my brother and I were enrolled at St. Joseph’s School in South Oxhey. Since the UK school year follows a different calendar than Canada’s, classes were still in session while we were on summer break. We weren’t just visiting this time. We were stepping into a different life.

School When You’re Not Supposed to Be in School

As a Canadian kid, it felt a little backwards. Everyone back home was done with classes, and here we were starting all over again. But somehow the timing worked out. We arrived during the best part of the school year.

There was a school play (I think it was The Pied Piper or maybe Three Blind Mice—I was a mouse, even though I hadn’t rehearsed). There was track and field day. There was a trip to the London Zoo. My cousin was enrolled too, and that made it feel even more like an adventure—something the three of us could share, even though we lived in different parts of the world.

New Routines and Little Moments

The curriculum felt more advanced than what I was used to, especially in math. The school uniforms were a first for me: a yellow golf shirt with grey shorts. It was strange at first, but it made the whole experience feel official. We weren’t just guests. We actually belonged there.

The kids also looked different. In Canada, just about every boy had some version of a mullet—short on top, long in the back. But the boys at St. Joseph’s all had neat, modern-looking haircuts. At the time, I thought it looked sharp in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Looking back, their haircuts would still fit right in today.

And then there was the school lunch. Everyone ate it. That was new to me. At home, you brought your own lunch from home—usually a sandwich and something crumpled from the snack drawer. But in England, we lined up and ate a hot meal together. I don’t remember what the food tasted like, but I remember how normal it felt to everyone else, and how different it felt to me.

There are little memories that stick out in vivid, weird detail:

• Kids hopping the back fence to sneak off and watch Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

• Running barefoot into the gym for the school play and stepping into a puddle of baby pee

• Getting whacked with stinging nettles after the other kids taught us how to pick them without getting stung. I’m still not sure how that worked. Maybe they just had tougher hands than we did.

We made good friends that summer. I wish I could remember all their names, but a few still stick with me.

The Pull of Place

Years later, when I returned to England with my wife, I took her on a walk through the same parks and paths I remembered from those visits. Even though some of it had changed, I found myself trying to show her not just where I had been, but why it meant so much to me. England doesn’t just live in my memories. It lives in me.