Of Different Times

by Agnes Kirkwood

  As I sat at my desk full of self-pity, willing finishing time so I could go home, thinking I’d tell my mammy and daddy about her, and they’d be down at this school giving her a good telling off, Ha, wishful thinking; what a laugh. No doubt about it the teacher was like a church clock with a different face for each direction, not only two faced, but a split personality like Jekyll and Hyde, nice around our mums, then turning into an old battle-axe as soon as they’d gone. My brother was right after all, school was like hell; with our teacher being the devil.

  When the bell rang I was so relieved I ran home all the way without a stop. Mum asked me how I got on. ‘I’m not going back there, that teacher’s worse than Mrs Kelly.’ (The old lady who lived next door, who was always telling us off for making a noise on the landing.) ‘She tells us off for nothing, and makes us sit there on them stupid wee chairs listening to her yapping a load of rubbish.’ Mum just grinned and told me to eat my sandwich. When I’d finished I remembered what mum said, so I ran into the bedroom and took off my school clothes and folded them for the next day. I was ready to run out the door and play when mum grabbed me by the neck of my jumper and frighten the life out of me, ‘Where do you think you’re going, and where’s your school clothes?’ I looked at my brother whom by that time was sitting sniggering at the table with a look on his face that told me I had done something wrong.

  ‘You told me I had to change my clothes when I got home from school, well I have and I’ve folded them as well, honest.’ I answered with ignorance.

  ‘Well, you can just unfold them and put them back on again because it’s only dinner time,’ she shouted. Needless to say I was forced back to school that afternoon in tears.

  I couldn’t wait for Friday to come, that first week was the longest week of my life, I relished in self-pity, and to make matters worse my brother kept reminding me I had ten years of this hell to face. ‘Why can’t my life stay the way it used to be before all this grief?’ I thought, and I didn’t want to be able to write my name, or to read a newspaper like my dad, or add up my money like my mum, I could quite easy recognise how much I had by the look of the coin, not that I ever got any. It wasn’t fair I thought.

  At the weekend mum took me to visit my granny who lived about five miles away in a little village called Airth; situated across the River Forth from Kincardine. My Uncle Jimsie (my mum’s brother) lived across the road from granny, and when we arrived he was in his garden sitting on his garden bench with Auntie Annie waiting for his pigeons returning from a race and was due back soon. It was his hobby and he lived for them birds. My mum stopped to have a chat so I asked if I could wait with them as I didn’t like sitting in the house listening to my mum and Auntie Barbara who lived with Gran; because her husband got killed in the war so she moved back home with Gran and Granddad, and when they got together they’d yap on with poor old Gran sitting in the chair not being able to get a word in edgeways.

  ‘Your Uncle Jimsie doesn’t want to be bothered with you.’ Mum said, but to my relief Auntie Anne added

  ‘No leave her here Minnie; she’ll be fine, if there’s anything Jimsie loves is yapping about them birds, she’ll come to no harm here.’ I sighed with relief and sat in the garden with him for ages.

  Auntie Annie gave me a glass of milk and a biscuit. Uncle Jimsie showed me all the different types of birds he bred. He had was a massive wire netted aviary with trees inside as well as large sheds with about four windows each with a landing loft. There were bright yellow canaries, all different colours of budgies, and all different colours of beautiful little birds, and he knew the name of every one. When the pigeons were in sight I had to go in the house beside my Auntie Annie and watch from the window because they might be afraid to land if someone strange was there. He had a handful of pigeon peas and was calling ‘peas, peas’ for them to fly into the loft. As soon as they did he got the pigeon’s ringed leg and clocked it in a sort of clocking-in box, to time what time the pigeons got back. The one with the earliest time won. He showed me all his cups and certificates and I could tell he was very proud of them. It was a very interesting afternoon, and I often went over to see them when visiting Gran. Uncle Jimsie was a very clever man; he could recite every one of Robert Burns’ poems, and was booked every Burns Night at different venues to read out Burns’ poems as they carried in the haggis. Auntie Annie asked me if I liked school. I told her I hated it, because the teacher was horrible. She told me not to worry, things would get better once she drummed discipline into us; Auntie Annie was wrong, things never quietened down, and the teacher got worse as the year went on. I hated my first year at school.

  When it rained, the ground outside was turned into a slurry mess of coal dust and muck. I’d amuse myself indoors then by making woollen bobbles out of mum’s left over wool by wrapping it around the cardboard milk tops I saved from my school milk. Mum did a lot of knitting then and I used to help her wind the wool into balls as she ripped it from another garment. In the forties wool was sold in hanks, so when mum bought new wool I’d loop the hank in two hands whilst mum wound it into balls. Any spare left over wool she’d give to me to either learn how to knit or thread and wind through the milk tops to make woollen bobbles. Of course my brother William had to join in and make them too, so that caused arguments over who got what colour. I think it was because he was only two years older than me that we argued a lot. Although we had a sister Wilma who was five and a half years older than me, we never played with her, being the eldest she thought she had the right to domineer us, so I was always closest to William. There was no such thing as privacy or secrecy in that pit house, but what else could anyone expect, there was five of us living in one room where you cooked, ate, washed and slept, which caused us to live on top of each other.

  At the end of the Blocks every year came a huge travelling marquee tent where they held a gospel. All the kids in the Blocks used to go there and sing; I suppose it was a novelty then as nothing exciting ever happened in the Blocks. I can remember it clearly, the songs were not our usual church hymns it was a lot more fun than the ones we got in Sunday School. In fact I don’t think us children related it to religion it was like a concert to us as we would mime with our hands as we sung. One I still remember to this day, and used to do the actions running one arm over the other repeatedly, was;

  Running over, Running over, my cups full of Running over,

  Since the Lord saved me, I’m as happy as can be, my cups full of Running over.

  I remember one particular gospel visit when the man who was in charge claimed he could cure people. The only people who stood up for the gospel speaker to cure were complete strangers to the village. Nobody in the Blocks volunteered, and I wondered why; because there were a lot of men who had injuries from the pit or had really bad coughs. It was only when I grew older I realised the people who did volunteer travelled around with the Gospel at the time. Like the man who had a crutch and was unable to walk, then after the speaker put his hand on his head and prayed to God to heal him he all of a sudden threw his crutch down and walked shouting ‘Hallelujah!’ I suppose there are still a lot of groups like that today going around preaching the gospel.

  I soon realised that being at school and being at home, was a different kettle of fish. As the year went on, the discipline got stronger and stronger. It never took much to rattle that teachers cage. A little giggle, or look at the person behind, made her bang on the desk with the dreaded ruler making all us kids nearly jump out of our skin.

  The equipment was very basic in our school, and left a lot to be desired. There were no computers or calculators; not even as much as an abacus. Our calculator was a tin of coloured counters, and the way they worked was simple. The teacher would stand in the front of the class and ask questions like,

  ‘If I had three blue and six red counters how many would I have altogether?’

  The only sound then was the rattling of the counters as we laid them all in a row and try to be the first to put our hands up w
ith the answer. To me it was a game of tiddlywinks trying to pluck them into the tin in boredom.

  I laugh to myself when I think of the first time we ever got gym. None of us were prepared. We were taken into the hall and told to take our shoes and socks off, then because we had no shorts we were asked to take our clothes off down to our underclothes, boys to underpants, girls to knickers. We all looked at each other in disbelief, but the look on her face convinced us she was serious. Not to forget it was soon after the war and clothes were sparser then than what they are now, but we were all in the same boat. Our parents did the best they could as far as clothes were concerned. Boy’s underpants in them days were made of white cotton, and when worn came just above the knees. But, the underpants worn in our class that day had a style of their own. They were long and baggy with little skinny legs sticking out of the bottom. One boy stood crying because he didn’t want to take his trousers off, When the teacher noticed him cowering in the background she walked over and stood next to him with hands on waist she bent down to equal his size and shouted

  ‘This is no time to act shy, you cannot possibly do gym in them trousers, so get them off at once or I will personally take them off for you.’

  He dropped his trousers and stood there naked from the waist down. He quickly pulled down the sleeveless jumper he had on as a vest and tried to hide his private parts. The teacher turned and shouted for him to pull them up again; which he immediately did. As everyone laughed the boy stood crying and shivering. I remember he had lots of brothers and sisters with the oldest being about fourteen.

  We girls were no better dressed than the boys. Some of the girls stood there with missing elastic in their knicker’s legs causing them to fall halfway down their thighs. We all looked at each other scared in case the boys would laugh at us. The lucky ones that actual wore a vest had more holes than a string one. There weren’t many kids wearing vests, and the ones that had them were hand-me-downs. I must admit I was lucky and always wore a vest, hand-me-down of course but never the less whether it was too big or too small it was a vest. I also wore what we called an under jersey as well, an old jumper with the sleeves cut out, it was to keep our chest warm; so mum said. In later years I wore a liberty bodice, a garment of the past that kids of today have never heard of.

  I can’t speak for other schools but our school was very strict then, I’m sure anyone that attended it will agree. The teachers let you off with nothing. If you got caught talking, even if it was to ask a simple thing like borrowing a rubber or pencil, all hell let loose. You were made to stand in the corner of the room facing the wall until she felt fit to let you go back to your desk. If you were caught yawning you were shouted at for not getting to bed early enough to get enough sleep, and sometimes she would send you out in the cold corridor to waken up. The only time the class got off with giggling, was when we were laughing at something she said or done when punishing someone else.

  One day one of the girls asked the teacher if she could go to the toilet and she blatantly shouted, ‘Indeed not, you should have gone at playtime!’

  The girl started to cry and wriggled about on her chair and pleaded.

  ‘Please miss I really need to go to the toilet because I’m bursting for a pee.’

  The teacher wouldn’t give in and the girl wet herself, it was running down the classroom floor, when the teacher noticed it she went to the girl’s desk and dragged her to the door.

  ‘You dirty little brat, get out of my sight,’ she yelled.

  She made her stand in the corridor with her wet clothes on, of course we all laughed, but it must have been embarrassing for her. The teacher marched to the janitor’s room and came back with a mop and bucket and started to clean it up herself, of course we all held our nose to prevent the sound of sniggering – served her right. The best part was yet to come. The girl ran home at playtime, and her mum came up to the school like a raging bear to see the teacher. She marched into the classroom and threatened to punch her through the window. The teacher’s face was as white as a sheet and her attitude changed to that of a lamb.

  Looking back I understand the girl’s dilemma. When you’re only five years old and enjoying yourself playing games, having to stop and run to the toilet for a pee is annoying. I also had the habit of waiting until the last minute before running cross-legged, sometimes not quite reaching it in time. It was the same at school I was too lazy to go at playtime, as far as I was concerned that was my free time and no way was I going to waste it by going to the toilet when I didn’t need to. If the need arose in class I’d wriggle about in my seat until school finished then run crossed legs to the lavatory. Mum was always telling me off for leaving it too late, according to her my knickers were always filthy at the back.

  One day I had a massive boil on my bum. Mum told me it was caused by laziness at not going to the toilet when needed. It felt very painful, especially at school where I had to sit in a certain position to try and keep the pain bearable. I’ll never forget playtime, I was playing skipping ropes with the girls, where two of them held each end of a long rope and turned it in a circular motion. The rest of us queued up at the edge, then one by one jumped through the turning rope to the rhythm of a song we all sung. All was going well until the inevitable happened. My foot caught the rope and down I went, straight onto my bum. I wanted to scream as the pain brought tears to my eyes, but because I didn’t want any of the other girls to know I had a boil on my bum I gave the loudest false laugh to cover up the excruciating pain I was in.

  The walk back to the classroom that day was excruciating but worse was to come when I reached my desk and didn’t have the courage to sit down. I hovered about my desk and chair and pondered how I was going to sit. When the teacher noticed me standing she demanded me to sit, I started to cry making the excuse I fell and hurt my back. She wasn’t for having that, she marched up and pushed me onto the chair bursting the boil. I screamed with pain which made her angry. She got hold of my arm and dragged me to the door.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby, now get into that corridor out of my sight and stay there until you stop sniffling,’ she shouted. I did as she told me but once outside the door I ran home and told my mum who marched up to school and went straight to the headmaster. The headmaster sent for the teacher, who was all apologetic to my mum. She said if she knew the circumstances she would never had pushed me down (I bet). I was off school for a week with that burst boil and mum put a poultice on it every now and then. After that, I started going to the toilet whenever the need arose, I was terrified in case I got another boil.

  When I returned to school I expected the teacher to be a little bit kinder to me, but no she was worse, it only put another notch in the her hate slate for me. I believe that was what prevented me as a child to ask questions in class, or put my hand up to answer in fear of being wrong.

  Another time that sticks in my mind was one day when the teacher came to the boy sitting in front of me, grabbed him by the ear and drove him to the corner of the classroom. I was shocked because I didn’t see him doing anything wrong. Seemingly she caught him looking out of the window. She made him stare into that wall all afternoon with no peeping around. They say a child always comes out with the truth, I certainly did, trouble was, no one seemed to listen to me, even my parents thought I was exaggerating. Whenever I told them anything I was upset or angry with, they just told me she was doing her job in disciplining the children; personally, I called it bullying. I’ve carried those memories all my life and I certainly haven’t forgotten how cruel my first teacher was.

  My daughter-in-law is a teacher and I once entered her classroom, and the atmosphere was one hundred per cent better than it ever was in my school. The kids all respected and seemed to love her. Now me, I hated going to school in the morning; all I longed for was playtime and home time.

  Nearly every boy in our school had a nickname, some were handed down from their father’s nickname. In our street alone there were a few that I still to this day, th
ere was Kiltie, Toshae, Bootsie, Cuddy and many more. My oldest brother William was known as Wully, which I understand, also my youngest brother Jimmy was known as Jinx, as his name’s Jimmy, but the rest, I don’t know. Although my name is Agnes I always got called Nan, which I was relieved because girls with the name Agnes got the nickname of Ag or Aggie.

  Being called, Agnes Kirkwood, after my dad’s mother, now gives me a buzz, knowing the name has been handed down in my family tree in every generation for over a hundred years, probably earlier.

  I never met Gran, she died in her early thirties when dad was just a boy, so as an adult I’m proud to be called after her. It’s sad that I’m the end of that line, and the name will die with me, but no one seems to want to call their baby Agnes, and I certainly wouldn’t ask them to, knowing how much I didn’t like the name myself as a child. but that’s how life is now, children don’t carry family names down anymore.