Veronica's Bird

by Veronica Bird

  That night, my first night away, my first time with a bed to myself, a first for sheets and a pillow, warmed by hope, my pillow as my Teddy. I said goodnight.to the teacher who was close-by in case of emergencies such as a fire. I almost reached up my arms to kiss her.

  I slept.

  *

  A bell went off in my head causing me to ascend rapidly through multi-layers of sleep.

  I stared at the strange patterns on the ceiling before recognition returned.

  Muffled grunts crept over me from either side. Sniffs and tears told their own story. We were told to wash in a communal washroom (which is still there) before going down to breakfast where, unbelievably, I had cereal and scrambled egg on toast. My stomach was full for the first time I could remember. I was told the school had its own orchard from which we would be getting apple pie for lunch…. with custard!

  While scraping my plate for the last remaining morsel of egg I saw another girl smile at me. It was a sort of a sign saying: ‘I think I like you.’ I smiled back determined to say something to her at lunch as we could speak during mealtimes. Her name, I learned that day was Sue and our friendship remains cemented together for life.

  There has never been a time in my life when food could have been a subject for discussion with friends, just as we did for timetables and choosing team leaders. Food was now exciting; I would plan for the next meal, savouring the simple but delicious dishes in my mind.

  It was extraordinary to my way of thinking. We could fantasize on what we might be having for the meal and my mouth learned to salivate as we talked. Lunch, for example, always included a pudding, following a different choice each day of a main course. There was always a change of menu to liven up the day. I would raise my nose like a mole to the air as I reached the corridor leading to the dining room, making me out to be a lioness downwind of a gazelle, already drooling as I recognised that today was going to be Lancashire hotpot followed, with a bit of luck, by sultana sponge pudding…and custard. Nothing was ever left on my plate, not by school edict but by sheer enjoyment the meals brought to me.

  At tea-time, I learnt something else which would have been quite incomprehensible at home. Tea might consist of a banana, jam and cheese with fresh bread. What was astonishing was that some pupils would place their cheese and jam on the same piece of bread as if it was quite natural to mix the two together. The banana would then be eaten at the same time, some shortbread perhaps to complete the day, allowing me to go to bed every night with a full stomach.

  With a bewildering array of rules, instructions, procedures and guidelines to pick up on – we were expected to know them all in a very short while – there was one area where I was not such a dummy. Ackworth was a Quaker school founded in 1779 on behalf of the Religious Society of Friends. Because of my weekly visits to St. Peter’s back in Barnsley I was more than familiar with church services. This allowed me to come to terms quicker than many with the tenets of Quakerism, accepting the Silences and the Expectant Waiting which were a part of all Quaker Meetings.

  On Sundays, after the Meeting, we had about an hour and a half to ourselves before lunch. Then there came another silence imposed on us known as the Siesta for the afternoon. The stark contrast with my previous life, now a million miles away, made me realise how lucky I had been. I could have failed, only to find myself crossing the road, avoiding traffic as I set out for church evensong.

  There were three exeats, when parents could take their children out for the week-end in each year, leaving the rest of us, as we ate our own tea, wondering what they might be doing. I knew neither of my parents would come and collect me and to be truthful, I had no desire to go home. I could hear the joyful shouts of ‘Hullo, Mummy!’ and ‘Hullo, Daddy!’ across the carpark. That was not going to happen, so, to counter any mood of pessimism, I began to fill my Saturdays with sport. I had known for some time I could run, I had an eye for the game in hand and I wasn’t afraid of going into a scrum to extract the ball. It brought noise and action to what otherwise might have been neap tides which formed the week-ends. There was no sport I did not try and no sport I did not excel. (Sorry to be so full of myself on this but I needed to achieve, to shine). I simply revelled in the competitive spirit of the games, where I was not only equal with my fellow team mates but often above them. I led in Hockey, Netball, Tennis and Rounders. With our own swimming pool, I found new freedoms, a new independence. There was to be no copy of the repeated homesickness of my friends. Homesickness implies there is a desire to re-engage with the comforts and love of home. Of course, it would have been nice if one member of my family had come to cheer me on, especially when I scored the winning goal in netball just as the whistle blew – a Johnny Wilkinson moment – to find a very pleased sports teacher demanding to know ‘…. how on earth did you manage that?’ I could have burst with joy.

  Flashes of long-term memory include a vision of games stopping, annoyingly, when the River Went broke its banks and flooded the fields much to my exasperation. A fire at the school managed to slip into the local newspaper with the expected parental alarms, but no-one was hurt and work went on as normal. Those days were when there were many fewer helicopter parents to vent their spleen on a school when their children might have got their feet wet for half an hour. These, and many others were the colours in my rainbow and I wanted it to go on forever.

  The tuck shop, a mecca in our world, was located on the opposite side of the road to the school entrance; in bounds if we just went to the shop, out of bounds if we departed from the line which connected the two. There, for a few pennies you could buy iced buns and home-made cakes and I would imagine the tiny shop lived off the school. Today, it is gone, just a house now, and no doubt there is a sophisticated shop inside the school, catering to the needs of its diverse population.

  Real freedom was found in another form. I would often play in Away matches at other schools which were not always with boarding pupils. Having this urge, perhaps necessity is a better word, to win every time, it became interred within my bones to the extent it has remained with me all my working life.

  Like exeats, we had annual events such as an Open Day which was combined with Sports Day. Parents were as competitive as their children, propelling them on as they craned their necks over the white-washed touchlines, their voices hoarse with excitement, yet wondering why such a diminutive girl was so capable of passing their own blonde-haired daughters. It had only been a year earlier, that dark day, when I had wanted to forget, when I did not have a pair of shoes to run in, and stayed at home while my friends ran ahead unchallenged by me, to pass the finishing line. That day I had screamed in my head, ‘…it isn’t fair.’ And of course, it wasn’t fair, but it was life, and I was fast learning. If you wanted to get on you had to grab it by the scruff of the neck and hold on to it.

  I wanted to prove that despite my accent, which was already beginning to soften, as words were becoming more rounded, and my etiquette somewhat improving, I could be as good as anyone else. The school had an annual ‘posture badge’, quite literally an award for being able to sit upright at mealtimes, better than all others. Such an ability, or otherwise, as a slacker, was monitored by the mealtime teachers who sat up on their dais enabling them to look down on the chattering masses, most of whom were attempting to stuff their mouths as full as it was possible, while discussing the latest events in Girl’s Own paper at the same time. The teachers, meanwhile, would take note of those girls whose back was the least round-shouldered. The badge for some reason was only awarded to girls (we were split 220 boys and 220 girls) and that year I won, to my absolute delight. It may seem ridiculous that such a small event gave me so much pleasure but it was an accolade awarded to someone who had never received a hint of praise before in her life.

  Friends were beginning to look up to me and show me respect, despite my reputation for coming from an area of Barnsley as rough as ferrets bedding. I wanted to write to my mother to tell her, but knew she would be embarrassed to a
sk a friend to read the letter out, so I left it, filing it away to tell her at the end of the term. There was a determination always to do better, so much so that Spanish became a top subject. At the same time, lessons like dress-making proved to be very useful later on in life when on a very tight budget in the police force.

  Sports meant ‘colours.’ A colour was awarded to those who excelled in a particularly sport. The colour was added to your tunic so in the end, along with my posture badge I looked like a Girl Scout. A friend lent me her tennis racket and clothes as she hated the sport. I took them gratefully and achieved another colour that summer.

  In amongst all this whirlwind of sport and leisure we had, of course, lessons. These were concentrated in the morning and afternoon as usual but homework was a monitored affair each evening, with a teacher supervising our efforts. Work also went on into Saturday morning before the welcome release onto the sports field. With Spanish came Biology, Domestic Science as it was then though Maths did not fare as well with me possibly due to the teacher. I had to work harder than most, for I wasn’t as bright as many in my year. My reports often…. well usually, spoke of ‘Veronica has difficulty in grasping the facts,’ truisms which have remained with me all my working life. Veronica’s own belief was to have to work ten times harder than others just to keep alongside her friends.

  There were disciplines I had never heard of let alone grasp and digest. I found myself interested and devoted to learning, so much so I must have appeared as a trifle sanctimonious, even a bit holier-than-thou to many in the class. I don’t recall any exacting disciplines being applied while being taught at Ackworth although they must have been there.

  You may have kept in mind my first friend, Sue whom I mentioned earlier? Sue had become a good buddy and told me, a lot later in life, she had got up to stunts at Ackworth. She had given no indication of the shenanigans she was involved with which were going on under my nose and I found it difficult to believe even when I was told years later. It was not being a ‘goody-goody’, it was the dormant fear of being disciplined at home, a root stock buried very deep. It was so ingrained I steadfastly refused to involve myself in ‘japes’. She told me, when she was in the Sixth form, which meant her dormitory block was the furthest away from the main school, she would regularly walk around the village at night in her slippers and go to Wakefield at the weekend. Janet, a girl who won a scholarship at the same time as me, was so naughty her parents were summoned to the Head Mistress and told she would be expelled if there was another transgression. She knew she was in a strong position for she was a very bright A-stream girl. I remained in the C-stream.

  With my head down, working hard, winning at sports, I was promoted to Form Captain at the end of my first year. Despite my background, the Head Mistress saw fit to appoint me, possibly, or more likely probably, to boost my self-esteem. Whatever the reason, she selected me. Miss Sadler was one of those enlightened teachers who could see further than an academic mind in a pupil. Not that she was not God. Do you remember those school days when you knew there was a red line, as clear as if it had been drawn on the floor in red chalk which you never crossed? Sure, you pressed up against it from time to time as attempts were made to explore the boundaries of your world which held you in. It all boiled down to respect. She, and the overall Headmaster, Mr Lindley, were respected at every minute of every day for they were always judged to be fair in their edicts. If we transgressed it was because of our own stupid fault. Thus, they were the major deities in my daily world; with glimmerings of my past home-life still sitting like an incubus on my shoulders, it was not difficult to do as I was told.

  *

  It came as a shock, or perhaps surprise is a better word, when I returned home at the end of the first term for the Christmas holiday to be told by my sisters and brothers I was too posh to be talking to them anymore. Perhaps they were saying it in fun as they made frequent jokes about my burgeoning new accent. Maybe they too would like to have won a scholarship to a nice school, but there was, undoubtedly, a widening channel of water between us which I had to recognise even as we sailed into Boxing Day. I had been a loner before I left home and I remained alone for the rest of the holiday.

  Christmas in our family was not a time of exchanging presents. There was no more money in the house than in the summer. The only present I can remember receiving from my father was a chocolate wafer bar he held out in exchange for the bottle of whisky I gave to him, and that was fifty years into the future and nothing in between. What little money there was went into the Dove Inn’s takings as likely as not, so I ached for my return to the freedoms of the school. When I did, it was as if Christmas had never ended, for Sue talked incessantly about the number of presents she had received. She was not attempting to impress me, to show how well she had done, for in her world she assumed all the girls in her class received as many gifts. Elizabeth, another friend received letters and parcels daily, for her father who had been an Architect, had died very young. Her mother lived in the south and was unable to get up to see her. I expect the mother/daughter bond had been made the stronger and I could understand why she always had something in the post tray for her to read. Nothing is retained in my mind of anything being sent to me at school. There could not have been a wider gulf between us, but we remained good friends.

  But, I lie. I had quite forgotten I did receive one present each Christmas. It naturally, was very special to me. It reminded me there were good people out there to counter my father’s meanness. It was not just the present from my brother-in-law’s parents, it was the act of giving I treasured. They never forgot to include me, knowing, otherwise, I would receive nothing at all.

  To cover my essential costs, I was given a pound note at the beginning of the term to last thirteen weeks. This was for tuck and new shoelaces and ink. It was a reasonable amount for those days (about £24 in today’s money) but I had no experience of spending money and I would end up at the end of term with ten shillings and sixpence or thereabouts. A Kit-Kat then was about 5d (2 ½p) that’s the large four-bar, the smaller two-bar was half of that, what we called tuppence ha’penny. You could eat quite a lot of them if you so wanted but I have always hated going into debt and I never have. I remember I was also given a ten-shilling note from Fred’s parents, a further kind act, knowing how their son would have reacted if he had known. But, I was told to keep quiet about it, which I did and converted the note into four half crowns. One day Joan saw the money and, having messed up with the Sunday banking, had lost some money and accused me of stealing. I had to be very firm and insist she was wrong which, eventually she accepted, but the taste of the accusation remained in my mouth for a long time.

  *

  By the time the Third year had slid past in a welter of hockey sticks and swimming matches I had collected the title of Bedroom Captain, another strange term, like a youthful Privy Councillor or Master of the Rolls, maybe but considerable responsibility came with the handle and it was my job to ensure the dormitory was kept immaculate right down to the hospital tucks to the beds. (A long way from the duvets of today’s bedrooms, which hold just two girls). Again, you may think this a trifle, something we all did. So what? But, it was the second time in my life someone up the ladder had seen fit to make me in charge and I found I liked it. Responsibility is an amazing compliment to be given. How many times have dissolute, drifting teenagers lifted themselves out of the mire when given a responsibility over others? The Armed Forces have always recognised the success of promotion, and such an idea filtered down the ranks until it reached into my dorm.

  My new accountability rested surprisingly lightly on my shoulders; it permitted me to see the future. It was important for I only had one more year in the main school dormitory before, as all fifth-year pupils (the term ‘students’ had not yet arrived on the scene), I would move out to accommodation further from the main buildings. It was a case of, the older you became, the more responsibility you were given, or perhaps trust would be a better word. And I
wanted to be trusted.

  As the year ended, we clubbed together, amassing an enormous sum based on sixpence each, so we could hold our annual Midnight Feast which we all assumed, in our cabal, to be a deadly secret – cross your heart and hope to die – stuff. But, everyone, including the school cat were fully in the picture and knew when we were meeting, being no other than the bewitching hour, well, twelve that is. Then as the chimes subsided into the blackness of the school grounds we shook and shivered with excitement. We would cosy up to each other, munching biscuits and eating cold baked beans, while whispering, rather too loudly about what we had planned for when we eventually left school. For me, as the clock struck the hour I gazed closely at my knees, tucked up to my chin as I tried to fathom out what I could do to break the bonds of family when I finally left the sixth form. But, at the time, I was very happy with life.

  The end of year dance was the same. I had learned to dance with the boys in the school which meant looking your best and trying not to stand on their shoes which had been polished like a guardsman’s boots. Do you remember patent leather dance shoes?

  It was school which brought me the first happiness in my life. It tended to obscure other thoughts, so, like an ostrich in a sand pit I never saw the gathering storm.