I looked at him and waited nervously, I was terrified he was going to tell him, then he replied, ‘Who does Stirling Albion play this week da?’ Whew.
By the time I reached nine years old, I was brainwashed into educated schoolwork. Things were getting more serious as far as schoolwork was concerned, like Writing, Maths, and Reading, we were responsible for bringing our own pencil, and the exercise and reading books we were given had to be covered, and we were not allowed to use newspaper; it had to be either wallpaper white side out or brown paper used for parcels. If you did not have your own pencil, or your books were not covered properly you got the strap, if you were late for school assembly, the teacher sent you to the headmaster.
Now it wasn’t the first time I had to visit the headmaster, usually you knocked at his door and the voice from hell would shout ‘Come in,’ then you were on your own with a note from the teacher. That was a different experience altogether. I’ll never forget the first time I went to the headmaster’s room for being late. There were about twenty other latecomers standing in a queue in the long green glossed painted corridor in silence. After a nerve-racking wait which felt like hours, I probably counted every mark on the wall to pass the agonising time waiting for the headmaster returning from assembly.
When he appeared he’d walk past us all waiting in the queue, with hands clasped behind his back. The noise of his shiny army boots thudded as he slowly marched past us giving us all eye contact that would frighten the enemy into submission. Then he would disappear into his room. We all looked at one another. As I stood in the queue I racked my brain to think up an excuse for being late for school, but that was a complete waste of time, as nobody got the chance to tell the headmaster why we were late. He appeared holding the dreaded leather belt with big tongs at the top, my heart missed a beat. The sweat collected on my forehead like condensation on a glass window pane. He made us all stand facing the front with our hand outstretched, then he would make his way down the queue and strap us one by one, each one of us throwing our hands under our armpits as soon as the belt was on the next victim.
The strap was the biggest deterrent from doing anything wrong. Some of the teachers were really strict, and would send you to the headmaster for the least thing, and that always meant the strap.
I remember my first introduction to the strap; the boy sitting at the desk behind me pulled the ribbon out of my hair, and threw it over the other side of the room. Remembering my mum’s warning of giving me a clout for losing my ribbon the day before when I went home without it, I immediately jumped up and made a dive at him. I was in the middle of laying into him when the teacher pulled me off him and sent us both to stand in front of the classroom. After a long lecture she took out the strap and gave us both two strokes. I don’t know what was the worst the lecture or the strap, I remember sitting at my desk with my arms crossed and my hands in my armpits, then as soon as playtime came I ran home to tell my mam.
As soon as I told mum why I had ran away from school, she screamed at me to get straight back, and that I deserved everything I got, so after a clip in the ear I had to make my way back to school, and face the humiliation and the sneers from the rest of the classroom. I was punished with my first taste of having to do one hundred lines, ‘I must not run away from school.’ I think that has a lot to do with me being a fast writer today, it was all due to the amount of lines I had to write at nights. I must not talk in class. I must remember my reading book. I must not chew in class. I must not fight in the playground. I could go on and on.
If I had my time back over again I would be a little bit more discreet, like some of the others. It was always me who got caught; I guess I was not sly enough or maybe just plain stupid.
I used to think our teacher was psychic, even when her back was turned whilst writing on the blackboard, she knew who spoke or threw something without even turning around. Even if you changed your voice thinking she’ll never know it was me, but she would shout your name out and tell you to get out and stand in the front of the class, all that without turning around. Clever.
I remember one teacher in particular, I’ll just call her Mrs Gray, she was great, she gave us a treat every night if we were good, half an hour before the school bell rang, we would clear all our desk, and put everything away ready for the next day, then she would read us a story for the last half hour whilst we waited for the home bell to ring. I’ll always remember when she was reading the book called Heidi to us, it was so exciting, and I couldn’t wait for the following night to see what happened next. One day a boy threw a rolled up piece of paper at a girl and it hit her on the face, the teacher caught him and sent him to the headmaster with a note from her, needless to say he came back with his hands tucked under his armpits. That night we never got our story, instead we all had to do an essay on good behaviour in the classroom. The entire classroom ignored him.
Next morning he came in with a black eye. Teacher asked him what happened. ‘Fell off my bike miss.’ he replied. We all looked at each other knowing it was a lie.
Things weren’t always ordinary. I remember the day my other little brother was born, he was absolutely gorgeous with thick dark hair and skin like porcelain. When he was old enough to sit up, he’d sit contently in his pram and smile excitedly when he got eye contact with you. We all loved him to bits. One day I came home from school and he wasn’t in his pram, when I asked where he was, my mum told me he was in his cot upstairs and she was waiting for Dr King to come. The doctor had a look at him and told my mum he only had a cold, we were all relieved, but he never seemed to get any better. Despite mum sending for the doctor a few times he seemed to get worse. Then one day I arrived home from school and Auntie Kate met me and my brother at the door and took me to her house with my young brother and sister.
She told us my little brother had gone to heaven, I was devastated. That same night my Uncle Fred came and took me to his house to stay, which I had been quite a few times and treated it as a brief holiday but this time it was different. I slept with my cousins, like before, two at the top of the bed and three at the bottom, they told me stories to take my mind off my little brother, but I remember crying myself to sleep. My uncle’s house was situated across the road from the church and the gable end looked on to the cemetery which was built on a hill and went up in layers with about six steps up to each layer. You could see the whole cemetery from the upstairs landing window. The day of the funeral, I sneaked to the top of the landing and sat at the window watching. No women or children were allowed to go to funerals in them days, but through my uncles window I watched the procession of men going up the cemetery path with my dad leading the way carrying the little white coffin in both arms that my little baby brother was in. All I could visualise was him lying sleeping then going underground never to come up again. I broke my heart. For weeks when I said my prayers at night, I told God we needed him more than the angels; if Jesus brought him back, I would be good for the rest of my life.
Things were not ordinary anymore after my little brother was gone, Mum took it bad and it took ages for her to be her old self again, not that she ever forgot him because until the day she died at the age of eighty-one she never missed the anniversary of his death, burial, or especially his birthday, she would say on that day, ‘Our little John would be such and such an age,’ every single year after his death without fail.
My character seemed to change for a while as well, not that I noticed it at the time, but all of a sudden I got into more fights with people I was playing with. I remember playing with one girl in our street, and I accused her of cheating, so we started fighting and because she was losing she got a hold of my hair and pulled it that hard that I felt it leaving the roots, so I grabbed hers and did the same, when she ran away crying I was left standing there with a handful of hair, but I suppose she had a handful of mine.
That night we were all sitting at our dinner when someone knocked at the door. It was the girl’s mum with a handful of hair in her hand which she claimed ca
me out of her daughters head, and I was responsible for pulling it out. Mum shouted me to the door. As I stood there looking at the bald part on her head mum got a tight grip of me by the top of my arm.
‘Did you do this?’ she shouted.
‘Well, she did it to me, so I did it back to her,’ I cried, but my words went unheard.
I remember getting a good hiding and being sent to bed. I lay in bed that night feeling sorry for myself.
What hurt me more than anything was the fact that I also could feel a bald patch on my head which hurt, but because I never cried, nobody listened to my side of the story, and that hurt me more than anything.
As the weeks went by I missed my little brother. I cherished the memory of his little giggles, and the tugging of my hair when I bent my head into his tummy and blew raspberries. The hurt healed slowly as time went by, and his memory will stay in my heart for as long as I live. During the heartache my family was struggling with then, another day automatically comes to mind; and I won’t forget that one in a hurry either.
I was sitting in the classroom listening to the teacher giving us a history lesson, when another teacher came in and whispered something to her. By the shocked look on her face I knew was something wrong. As soon as the other teacher left, our teacher stood in front of us and made us pay particular attention.
‘Children, I have a very sad announcement to make to you all.’
We all looked at one another wondering what was coming next.
‘The King is dead,’ she said. ‘I must ask you all to go to the cloakroom, gather your coats and very quietly without running walk out of school. Once outside the school I want you all to make your way home with some respect of the news we have just received.’ I automatically thought it was Dr King, and felt really sad. It didn’t seem that long since he was in our house attending my baby brother before he died; now he was dead as well. It was only when I went home and told my mum the reason we were sent home was because Dr King has died.
‘No hen, it’s not doctor King that’s died it’s the King himself,’ she said.
I remember being relieved at the time, for some reason.
Shortly after my little brother’s funeral, dad went with mum to visit Gran. I desperately wanted to go with them, but, dad put his foot down and said none of us were allowed; which I can now understand because they wanted to spend some time alone at my little brothers graveside.
Afterwards, whilst mum was chatting with Gran and Auntie Barbara, dad noticed Uncle Jimsie sitting on his garden bench smoking his pipe. He made his way down to sit with him. Uncle Jimsie escorted dad all around his aviary showing off all his birds and racing pigeons. He asked dad how we were all coping with the loss of our little brother, Dad told him how hard we kids were taking his death, and especially mum, who he found it hard listening to her cry every night.
Uncle Jimsie gave dad a beautiful green and yellow budgie to give us. He thought it would take our minds off the situation. Not having a cage, he put it in a cardboard box with wire netting over the top, and dad carried it all the way home on the bus.
I remember the next morning when we came downstairs and saw it for the first time in a basic little cage that one of the neighbours lent dad until he could buy one of our own. Next day dad came home with a lovely big cage for us, and when he put the budgie in it for the first time it jumped on the perch and started chirping straight away.
We all loved him and called him Joey, we taught him to say his name and teach him sentences like, ‘Pretty Joey’ and ‘Joey’s a pretty boy.’ Before long he could talk like an old man, in fact we had to cover his cage with a sheet when we had visitors because he used to come out with things like, ‘Joey’s a little Bugger,’ and ‘shut that pig’n door.’
One day Joey was having his usual little fly around the living room when my cousin came in and left the door open. Before we could close it, Joey, flew out the door. We ran outside and looked up at all the roofs and cables to see if we could find him, but there was no sign of him. We were all devastated, and spent hours in the nearby woods calling his name expecting him to land on one of our shoulders, which he usually did when we called him; but to no avail.
As days went by dad told us he’d never survive in the wilds because he was used to having food and water supplied to him in his cage. So as the days turned into weeks we began to except we’d never see him again.
That was until one day whilst mum went outside to the coal bunker to get some coal, when out of the blue Joey landed on her shoulder. Mum dropped the shovel and kept talking to him nicely, telling him what a pretty boy Joey was, Slowly she walked into the house and quickly closed the door.
When we came home from school we were so excited to see him in his cage running up and down his ladder ringing his little bell.
Another thing I used to look forward to was when we had singing lessons from the wireless. Violet Carson, Ena Sharples, the famous actress from Coronation Street was the hostess. We had to sing along with her, and she’d stop in the middle of a song and say
“Now children someone isn’t singing, I want everyone to sing,” then she would start again. “That was much better,” she’d say, I used to wonder why she knew someone wasn’t singing.
We also got history stories from the wireless. The room used to be silent when listening to stories about King Arthur, King Henry, and all the kings and queens down the ages. It was fascinating, much better than schoolwork. You can imagine the excitement when we were told the Queen was visiting Stirling Castle then coming to our school; Wow! A real queen coming to visit us. That was the main topic at school, everyone was so excited.
When the big day finally arrived the whole school was lined up along the side of the pavement in their best clothes. All the boys had to have their hair combed in a parting and the girls all had theirs neat as well. As we queued up along the pavement facing the main road, we were given little Union Jack flags and told to wave them when the Queen’s car arrived.
We must have stood in the freezing cold for over an hour waiting, when, finally the car came into view and we were told to wave our flags, which we did in excitement. Then, Zoom! The car just flew past us at forty miles an hour and never stopped, everyone stood there in silence; we never got as much as a glimpse of the Queen. What a disappointment.
Playtime as we called it had seasonal games. When the chestnuts were on the trees, it was conker time, my brother and I used to gather them when they fell on the ground, or climb the trees to shake them off. We’d take them home and sit for hours on the step outside breaking the shell open and putting the chestnuts on a tray, and then put them in a warm oven for a bit before putting them in a dark place to harden, usually under the bed. Sometimes the ones that were already lying on the ground were brown and only needed hardening up in a warm oven, they were the best but were very few and far between as they didn’t get long to lie before they were snatched up. Before they’d hardened up we’d sit for hours putting a nail through them, ready to string for play. The pastime of collecting, and stringing added to the excitement of the game. When you had a conker that cracked or broke others you played, it added to the excitement of the game. You might think it was a boy’s hobby, yes it was but with a brother like mine you just couldn’t look at him enjoying himself without joining in.
A favourite with us girls was two rubber balls in rotation, juggling them against the wall, and trying to get to the end of one to ten without dropping them. Each number was thrown in a different way but every ball thrown had to hit the wall e.g. one straight on the wall, two under the right leg, three under the left leg, four round your back, five up in the air, six thrown overhand, seven throwing the ball on the ground first before hitting the wall, eight hitting your chest with both hands, nine to clap your hands, and last if you were lucky enough to reach ten you threw the ball on the wall and had to do a full turn round and catch it. If you dropped one of the juggling balls you were out and would pass the balls to another girl for her turn t
o try her luck, we queued up for our turn in little gangs.
Then we’d have a skipping rope period, where we had a girl at each side of a large rope turning it; usually a piece of rope from our mothers wash line we’d form a queue, and one after the other would do a few jumps in the middle of the rope reciting together a poem made for skipping, then as one jumped out and ran to the end of the queue the next in line jumped in. I suppose it was good exercise.
Another pastime we girls had, scrap exchanging, we had a book, any old book would do, it wasn’t as if it was for reading, we’d place a scrap in each page and exchange books, go through every page and any scrap we wanted, we would place it at the top of the page like a book marker, then changed the scraps chosen if they were given the go ahead with the other person.
‘London Bridge Is Falling Down’, where we sang the song whilst two girls held up their clasped hands to create an arch for the rest of the girls to skip under, then they’d grab a girl every now and then to stand aside whilst the two left would be the ones chosen to create the next arch.
There were loads of games, but not restricted to the playground, we also played them in the street at home. There was what we called peevers or beds, what I believe the English name for it were hopscotch. We’d draw an oblong then split it into six, creating six squares numbered from one to six. Then we would throw our peevers into number one and kick it out hopping on one leg, then throw it into number two and hop with a kick of the peevers until it had gone all the way through number one without touching a line, if your peever touched any line, you were out. The idea was to complete all six beds to win. The peevers were usually an empty shoe polish tin filled with soil to make it heavy. I used to scoop the polish out so I could get the tin, until my mum caught me and gave me a clout,
‘I thought I was buying a lot of polish.’ she’d say ‘Now I know where it’s all gone.’ Then looking at my feet she added, ‘Look at your shoes. They’re like a couple of clapped out kippers on your feet, so the polish certainly hasn’t touched them.’
Of Different Times Page 11
