Of Different Times

by Agnes Kirkwood

  When we visited my Granda one day he showed me a lovely brass tea caddy that was shining like gold and on the front it had an engraving that read A GUID CUP O TEA NAN my Granda told me that as soon as I get married it would be handed down to me because I was her namesake. I often wonder what happened to it and where it ended up.

  Across the road from the Blocks stood the only pub in the village called the Goth. What I remember most about the Goth was the bowling green. We’d sneak under the hedge after school and collect little bits of chalk from the gullies around the edge of the grass. I still don’t know to this day what the chalk was there for (Who Knows?) Sometimes we would hide in the hedge and watch them play. To us it was like giant marbles. My Auntie Kate and Uncle Pat used to play a lot, and every year they’d have a championship match, which they often won.

  My dad told me before the Goth was built, the men of the village had to walk a good two or three miles before they could have a pint. The Goth seemed to be the heart of the village, and pumped so much per cent of its profits back into making it a happier place for the miners and their families to live. A few of the things the Goth put money into was the village pipe band which won a few cups in its time, a library, a football team, snooker, darts, bowling green and many more. I suppose the village owes a lot of loyalty to the Goth for the service it gave to our past ancestors, and the making of a new community all those years ago.

  I hated Sunday nights. It turned my bath night which I never liked anyway, into one I really loathed. Especially on a nice summer’s night when all us kids were playing games on the drying greens, or there and there about. One by one the dreaded voices off our mums echoed across the blocks to us. It’s funny but as soon as the name-calling starts it made you uneasy because you knew your mum was going to shout any minute. Then you’d hear the dreaded sound, ‘Nan, William in here now.’ It made me cringe every time I heard those words; I can still hear them in my mind now. That was it, my two days’ freedom were gone, and when going to bed all I could think about was having to face another five days of torture before there was another two days off.

  If school then, was like the schools now, where the children could communicate to each other, I would have loved to go every morning. Then, we were never allowed to talk or laugh, unless we were laughing at whoever the teacher was punishing for something or another. I’m sure that was part of her miserable nature. She never once talked nice to me, or anyone else come to think. A boy sat at his desk one day staring out of the window daydreaming, which we were all guilty of at one point. She crept over to him, grabbed him by the ear and forced him in agony out of the classroom to stand in the corridor until home time. That boy cried with his hand on his ear until home time. I could tell he was in agony, did the teacher worry? No, she never gave him as much as a glance. Thinking back, that was bullying, she wouldn’t get off with that today.

  Thinking of the infants’ classes today with little kitchens, computers and varieties of books, etc. So completely different from when I started school. If we were seen with a toy or comic of any kind in the classroom, they’d be confiscated and that would be the end of them because you’d never see them again. My teacher had the gift of knowing if you were hiding something in your desk, I’m sure she was psychic.

  We used to get the Dandy and the Beano delivered. One day I took the Dandy to school because I didn’t want our William to get it before me, as I was always last to see it. I put it in my desk as soon as I got in the classroom; it’s not as if I was caught reading it, which I couldn’t do anyway, I just looked at the pictures and made my own story up to suit them. As the teacher walked up and down the passages she stopped at my desk. I froze, and leaned on my desk, which she angrily swiped my elbows off. I immediately folded my arms in case the dreaded ruler came down. I looked up at her face which looked like an angry old witch. I must have looked guilty as she stared at me.

  ‘What do you have in that desk?’ she shouted.

  ‘Nothing, Miss,’ I quietly answered, with a dry mouth and shaking knees.

  ‘Open your desk now,’ she demanded with a look that would frighten any army.

  As I opened my desk, Korky the Cat, a character from the Dandy stared back at me. She took the comic from the desk and demanded me to get out to the front of the classroom. I spent the morning staring into the corner of the room. The worse was to come, when I got home, I got a hiding for taking it to the school in the first place. I never saw that comic again.

  I soon learned not to cry for anything and settled into a safe routine, like sitting on the chair with straight back with arms folded keeping hands away from that dreaded ruler. If caught talking, you were made to place your index finger over your lips until she told you not to. A position I was in many times with sore knuckles. I don’t think those type of teachers would survive in this day and age.

  I’ll never forget the day one of the boys threw a stink-bomb. It landed under the piano in the corner of the room. Of course we all knew what had happened so we all sat with anticipation trying to hold a straight face, which is a hard thing to do when something is so frightful and funny at the same time. At last our teacher gave a sniff and realised something was adrift. At first she thought one of the boys had farted and shouted, ‘What boy has let off wind?’ When nobody answered. She lifted the dreaded ruler and banged it on the desk with such a thud it was like a gun going off. Suddenly the wanting to laugh changed to a scared fear, especially within seconds when the smell got so bad and she finally realised what caused the terrible stench. She was absolutely furious, her face was red with fury and her eyes were like that of a wolf when staring at its prey ready to pounce.

  ‘Will the boy who threw that disgusting thing get out here right now?’ she shouted.

  Of course no one moved we all looked at one another innocently, including the boy who threw it. Teacher was absolutely furious and made us all march out to the playground, and there we stayed, all giggling until she returned with the headmaster, making us shut up straight away as he was a scary person, much more so than the teacher. We were all frightened of him. He marched towards us with the fearful leather strap slung over his shoulder and made us all stand in a row.

  ‘If the boy responsible for this devilment action does not come forward I will strap this whole class,’ he shouted in anger. Again nobody spoke, and as we all stood in silence for which seemed like hours, he angrily pointed to the gate which led to our homes.

  ‘Get out of my sight the lot of you, go home and I will see you all in your classroom in the morning,’ he shouted at the top of his voice

  We all ran out the school playground cheering. With the houses in the blocks being so near he probably was afraid to strap us all in case he was seen from one of the windows. He kept his word next day. The culprit never owned up and we all tasted the dreaded belt.

  Of course every classroom had a bully and mine was no exception. It’s funny that the only boys’ names I remember was the rowdy ones. One boy springs to mind in my first year at school. His name was Tommy Smith. Which I have changed He had five brothers, two sisters, and his family were well known in the village. He was a horrible lad, tall, skinny with wild hair, his face always looked dirty, and his clothes looked too big for him, handed down from his big brother who was two years older than him. I don’t think his parents disciplined any of their kids, so what can you expect when the whole of his family were what my dad used to call good-for-nothings? Tommy’s dad was what you’d called work-shy. When I was young I thought he worked in the pub because anytime I saw him it was either going in or coming out of the Goth. The whole family was well known as cadgers. The reason for that was when one of the Smith kids knocked at anyone’s door, it was either to borrow a cupful of sugar, or something or another. Tommy thought because he was the oldest boy in the classroom he could fight us all. He was a horrible child who bullied everyone for months; the whole classroom was terrified of him, including me. He had his own little gang that followed him everywhere he
went, joining in his nasty pranks. He sat behind me in the classroom and would pull my hair and throw things at me when the teacher wasn’t looking. He seemed to enjoy tormenting us girls and gave us hell in the playground spoiling our games. He tormented us nearly every day. One day he tripped me up as I ran along the playground playing trig-chase with my friends. I fell and skinned my knees and elbows, and the blood was running down my legs onto my socks. When the teacher asked what had happened, I was too frightened to tell her the truth in case Tommy and his gang beat me up after school, so I told her I fell running. Things were so bad that none of my friends told teacher either, like me they were all frightened of him.

  I got to the state that I told my brother William about him, expecting him to give him a good hiding, but all he said, ‘If you want him to leave you alone you have to fight back.’

  ‘I can’t fight him, he’s older than me,’ I shouted getting agitated with him. He poked me on the chest with his finger as if he was angry with me for asking him to help me.

  ‘I can’t hit him for you, if I do he has older brothers that will only gang up on me, and I’m not getting into all that. You have to do it yourself. It doesn’t matter if you win, just make sure you hit him so hard it hurts, then he won’t risk hitting you again. So the next time he torments you, just make a dive at him and batter him before he has a chance to hit you. You can’t go through every day asking me to defend you, you’ll have to stand up for yourself.’

  I listened to him, but to be honest I thought he was trying to wriggle out of helping me, like he normally did. He was only helpful to me when he wanted something off me, like the time I got two shillings from Mrs Ferguson across the street for cleaning out her hen run and collecting all the eggs for her, and he wanted shares. Or on the other hand, maybe he was just afraid of him too.

  As my friends and I were happily playing skipping ropes one day in the playground, It didn’t take long before the bully boy was at it again. Tommy and his cronies came over to us grinning like Cheshire cats. My stomach turned over like a huge wave inside me. I knew by the look on his face he was about to disrupt our game. As I stood in the queue waiting my turn to jump into the turning rope I looked at him and noticed the devilment written all over his face. I could feel my blood boil as I waited to see just what he had on his wicked mind. True enough as soon as I jumped in he put his foot deliberately on to the rope and spoiled our game. I could take no more, I flew into a rage and made a dive at him. His face showed complete shock as he fell to the ground. I kept punching him so he didn’t have a chance to hit back and ended up giving him the biggest hiding of his life. He started to cry and my friends and all his cronies laughed at him. All the girls shouted that he deserved everything he got. He never called me any names after that, neither did his cronies, I think they got the message that it’s not always the oldest that was the best fighter. In fact from then on, no one let him bully them again, and certainly no one ever bullied me again. That was my first ever fight I remember and was lucky to win, but it certainly wasn’t my last, and no I didn’t always win, but I gave as good as I got.

  Three o’clock was home time for us in class one, and four o’clock when you reached the second class. Although I couldn’t tell the time, through the window from my desk I could see the large clock on the gym wall, and for some reason mastered how to tell when the hands were moving towards home time. That large hand on the clock felt like it took hours to get to the twelve, and when it did it was the best sound in the world. The teacher would make us stand at our desk, then starting at the first row we’d march out the door like little soldiers along the gym hall, into the dreary corridor until we reached the main door that led to the playground. As soon as we reached there we scattered shouting and laughing glad to be out of the torture chamber.

  There was no such thing as mums waiting at the school gates for us, not that we needed them there, because the Blocks were right next to the school. I couldn’t wait to get changed and get out playing. My pal and I raced to see who was ready first to call for the other. We’d go to what we called the tip to see what we could find to play with. We’d explore to see what people had tipped from the night before. It was a great place it wasn’t like the rubbish tips we have today, there were no bin men tipping household rubbish there, oh no, this was a place where people discarded things that they had no more use for, like old pots pans, broken furniture, and all sorts that they could not burn on the fire. Today fly tipping is illegal and comes with a heavy fine. It always seemed to be when it got dark that people would tip their unwanted goods so no one would see them. The only bins then were large metal dustbins used for putting the hot ashes out of the fire into. Scraps of food that the farmer’s pigs would eat went into what we called the swill bin. Rubbish that could burn went onto the fire.

  The fire in the house was dampened down at nights and bellowed back to life in the morning, then remade about once a week. The fire was the most important thing in the house; it was people’s life-line. They depended on their fire for heating, cooking, cleaning, washing, the burning of all rubbish. A large black kettle sat on the hob at all times full of boiling water for our needs. Rolled up newspapers were used alongside firewood for kindling the fire, and kept in one of the brass boxes that stood at each side of the hearth fender. The other brass box housed all the shoe polish, brushes, black lead cleaner and tins of wax furniture polish, and when it was cold outside my brother and I used to sit on them to keep warm at the fire. In the corner of the chimney breast a huge coal scuttle sat that held coal for the fire and was filled up every morning from the coalhouse built under the concrete stairs The fire range had to be cleaned every so often with black lead polish; which was a long tedious job for mum but it had to be done, or it would rust; so mum always said.

  I remember having a bath in a large zinc bath that was kept under the bed, but when it was mum’s day for the washhouse I would have a bath in the boiler tub, then I’d be carried up the concrete stairs to our house. I used to hate that because all the boys used to laugh at you. But there again it happened to them as well.

  My dad used to have greyhounds which he kept at the bottom of the drying greens in a large wire netted run which had a hut at one end for the greyhounds to live in. He’d take them to greyhound races and enter them. They had to be exercised and trained as well so, he would take them to a spot about a mile away with a lot of other men with their dogs, and they would have a little flutter between themselves. They had an old upside-down bike with string tied around the tyre-less wheel, then tie an old rag on the end of the string with the scent of a hare on it and take it a long distance away. The men would all stand in a row with their dogs with the rag behind them, then the man whom the men paid to work the bike contraption wound the string in, pedalling like mad with his hand. When the rag passed the dogs they ran after it as if chasing a hare, the winning dog’s owner then won the bet. It was a way of training and exercising the dogs ready for the big races at the greyhound tracks, and most of all it was time in the fresh air for the men after working down in the bowels of the earth all week. It took dad out of the house a lot, between greyhounds and housing meetings my mum spent many a lonely night in them days. One day when dad came back from the races he brought one of the dogs upstairs to the landing outside the door and tied it to the railings while he nipped into the outside toilet which sat between the two houses. My mum hated them greyhounds and would never allow them into the house. When I heard my dad outside I ran out all excited because I had just got a new kitten off somebody whose cat had kittens and she wanted homes for them, any kittens that didn’t get a home got put into a sack and got thrown into the River Forth. As soon as I got outside the dog grabbed the kitten by the neck and tossed it in the air, killing it instantly. I was devastated and my mum went absolutely berserk with dad for bringing the dog upstairs to the landing in the first place. I don’t know what was the worse, losing the kitten or the feud between mum and dad over the whole instant. They never sp
oke to each other for days meantime the picture on the wall of their wedding day had a sticking plaster over my dad’s image through all their silences.

  When normality returned dad managed to get another kitten for me, so all was well again.

  Electric techknowledge was certainly on its way in our house, the day we got a new wireless. I remember coming home from school, our house was full of men; they were even sitting on the concrete stairs outside. I don’t know what they were listening to but whatever it was, it certainly must have been important enough for my dad to buy a wireless as money wasn’t that easy in them days. With no electric sockets in the house, the twisted fabric cable had to be plugged into the light socket on the ceiling, so the table was used as a platform to reach the high ceiling.

  The wireless was a godsend. I remember lots of programs we used to listening to. Dick Barton Double Agent, Double Your Money, Wilfred Pickle, Open the Box, Educating Archie and many more. Mum also benefited from the modern electric gadgets. No more did she have to heat the cast irons on the fire to do her ironing, she finally could afford a new electric one. That also had to be plugged into the one and only electric source; the lightbulb socket. Of course the ironing had to be done during the day because the lightbulb had to come out to make way for the iron to be plugged in. Her old heavy cast irons were cast aside and used as door stoppers for years. The modern electric iron made the weekly laundry a lot cleaner and much quicker, especially when the two lightbulb sockets came out into the shops making it possible for mum to iron as well as have the light on, so she could do the ironing at night when us kids were in bed.