I remember having to travel to school by bus not an actual school bus you understand but a clapped-out boneshaker of a service bus and I remember our class teacher a wizened wicked old woman called Miss Knowles who handed out little slates and chalk for us to write on them and occasionally gave us real paper and ink and pens with scratchy nibs but who spent most of her time patrolling the desks and rapping our young knuckles with a big wooden ruler and I remember in the dining hall another wizened old witch who would rap our knuckles this time with a soup ladle if we didn’t clear our plates and I remember Mickey Donnelly who all the teachers called an idiot and who smelled because he came from a poorer family than ours but who had a shock of curls and the biggest warmest smile I had ever seen and who was my best friend with whom I played amongst the grit and coal dust at the back of the playground and came home filthy as a result for which I’d receive a clout along the ear and I remember spending a weekend collecting rosehips for the Black Babies and bringing them to school in a brown paper bag on the Monday morning and being told to take the bag to the classroom where Mr Glass the headmaster taught the Primary Sevens but having to wait in front of the class because Mr Glass wasn’t there and fidgeting with a beetroot face until the bag burst and the rosehips spilled all over the floor and getting down on my knees to retrieve them while the big boys and girls laughed their heads off and Mr Glass turning up red-faced and angry and giving this tiny five-year-old with a lisp the strap in his anger but the worst thing I remember is when the school was closed for the day and the outside toilets were locked and us out-of-towners had to wait in the playground until it was time to go for the service bus which was always late and peeing myself because there was no toilet to go to and returning home in a pair of blue knickers lent by one of the big girls and receiving another clout along the ear for that. Oh, yes, children, I was scarred for life, for sure.
All this prissy talk about the Scottish Government’s standardised testing of Primary 1 pupils – “The children will be scarred for life,” some critics have protested – has had me thinking about my own Primary 1 days in 1955 and 1956. So here, written in the style of James Joyce, are some memories of those days. Compare and contrast, children. And offer my apologies to Mr Joyce if you happen to run into him.
I remember having to travel to school by bus not an actual school bus you understand but a clapped-out boneshaker of a service bus and I remember our class teacher a wizened wicked old woman called Miss Knowles who handed out little slates and chalk for us to write on them and occasionally gave us real paper and ink and pens with scratchy nibs but who spent most of her time patrolling the desks and rapping our young knuckles with a big wooden ruler and I remember in the dining hall another wizened old witch who would rap our knuckles this time with a soup ladle if we didn’t clear our plates and I remember Mickey Donnelly who all the teachers called an idiot and who smelled because he came from a poorer family than ours but who had a shock of curls and the biggest warmest smile I had ever seen and who was my best friend with whom I played amongst the grit and coal dust at the back of the playground and came home filthy as a result for which I’d receive a clout along the ear and I remember spending a weekend collecting rosehips for the Black Babies and bringing them to school in a brown paper bag on the Monday morning and being told to take the bag to the classroom where Mr Glass the headmaster taught the Primary Sevens but having to wait in front of the class because Mr Glass wasn’t there and fidgeting with a beetroot face until the bag burst and the rosehips spilled all over the floor and getting down on my knees to retrieve them while the big boys and girls laughed their heads off and Mr Glass turning up red-faced and angry and giving this tiny five-year-old with a lisp the strap in his anger but the worst thing I remember is when the school was closed for the day and the outside toilets were locked and us out-of-towners had to wait in the playground until it was time to go for the service bus which was always late and peeing myself because there was no toilet to go to and returning home in a pair of blue knickers lent by one of the big girls and receiving another clout along the ear for that. Oh, yes, children, I was scarred for life, for sure.
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