DO you remember the impromptu skiffle performance in the cookery room at Woodnook Secondary Modern School, Accrington, seeing Elvis in his film Jailhouse Rock at the Prince's or the adventures of Staithes holiday camp, way back in the fifties?

Well, Margaret Wareing does and she's set it all down in a new, brief autobiography, entitled Teenage Recollections, which follows an earlier book remembering her childhood.

Margaret, who now lives in Blackburn, began her secondary education in 1955, in Form 2B, presided over by Mr Smith and wore the blue house colours of Priestly, led by Mr Frankland.

Among her friends were Maureen Smith and Brenda Hargreaves, whose parents owned a cooked meat stall on Accrington market.

Margaret lived with her family and several greyhounds in a two-up, two-down house in Richmond Street. Often, the dogs helped supplement their income, winning races at the local greyhound stadium.

In her writing, Margaret tells of her fear of swimming and gymnastics taken by teachers Mrs Broadley and Miss Sutcliffe and relives the tale of making apple balls in her first cookery lesson with Miss Stanmore, which turned out as hard as iron.

She went on: "We also started attending dances on Saturday nights at Springhill Methodists and then Christchurch School, beginning to take an interest in boys and putting make-up on in toilets, so our dads wouldn't know!"

Teddy boys were something else to shock their fathers when the friends enjoyed rock'n'roll at Jo Morts!

Margaret remembers the time Lonnie Donegan was top of the hit parade with Cumberland Gap and she recounted: "One day while under instructions to tidy out the larder, the idea to form our own skiffle group caught on, so while miss was out of the room, and with Diana Hayes and Carol Buckley standing guard, we let rip, using the metal dolly tub, potato mashers and pots and pans, singing at the tops of our voices.

"Such was the level of noise we didn't hear the warning that miss was on her way back! We were all ordered to go to the head's office and lost house points."

In the summer of 58 after they left school, the students all went off to holiday camp in Yorkshire, which was nothing like the Ritz and where the food was back to the time of Oliver Twist.

There were other schools there, too, and it quickly became a Lancashire and Yorkshire competition, which did get a bit vicious. After one particular netball match the girls were locked in their hut as punishment.

Said Margaret: "The lads let us out so we could sneak off to the rock'n'roll night in the village.

"During the evening we not only enjoyed fish and chips, but also bottles of beer and cider from the local off licence - until all the teachers emerged from the quayside pub!"

l Next week, Margaret follows her father into Mullards, as she begins work as a teenager in 1958.