old school memories

I was asked about my memories of school and this is what poured out I always thought I had poor memories of school... I really have very few memories of my school days.

 

 I went to a Catholic mixed infant school in a Victorian building next to the Church built on a "gallows hill" so we were all convinced the building was haunted. I seem to recall outside toilets as well as indoor ones. School dinners were formal, we sat at tables of 8 and had a three course hot meal with a teacher at the head of each table (some nuns). There wasn't a uniform in the infants but we did all wear red berets or caps for the boys. Smells are always evocative aren't they-paste, crayons, damp. The juniors was next to the infant school and had a separate playground with a lovely banked garden where red hot pokers grew among other delightful plants and flowers and shrubs. The head of the juniors, which was all girls was the very formidable Mother Mary Mulburger who changed her name to Sister Margaret at some point. (I am sure there's some ecclesiastical reason for this change as she also traded in her full length gown for a knee length skirt.) .

 

 If you were well behaved and achieved top marks, she allowed you to walk through her garden with her after lunch when she would describe the types of flora in their Latin names. There was a grotto in it and a Shrine to Our Lady which you had to stop before and say the Hail mary. Needless to say i was one of her more frequent companions, though she terrified me.

 

 I was also allowed to arrange and tidy the books in the library and serve teas to teachers at break time as well as count the tuck shop money after every break. At some point I was also sent allowed to hear the younger girls read as well as those in my class who were struggling. And so my numeracy, literacy, teaching and waitressing skills were well honed buy the time I was 11!

 

 I remember a hard potato snack that we sold in the tuck shop-what was its name...potato something. Oh and Waggon Wheels which seemed huge and very american ( I was a great fan of westerns-remember Lancer and Laramie and laredo?) I wanted to be a cowboy and live in Arizona. I remember very few of the girls in my class except for my very best friend, Joan who I still write to now and again. And I most certainly remember the first black girl I ever spoke to. She came to our class in year 3 from St Vincent and her name was Sonia Morancy, she seemed very exotic.

 We had lots of Polish girls and later on an influx of Irish girls. The uniform i do remember because my older sister made mine and my younger sister's for us. In fact she made most of my clothes. I am the fifth of 6 and there's ten years between me and my older sister, and my three brothers were even older. 

The uniform was a red beret in winter and a straw hat in summer, the dress was red and white check in summer and winter was a grey tunic. Every day at midday the Church bell would toll and we would all have to stand up like robots and recite the Angelus which I can still do now over 40 years later! Actually it is odd how much I remember now! 

 

The 11 plus had been abandoned in Preston the year before I was 11 so we all went en masse to the nearest Catholic comprehensive school which was a new building with its own chapel. We walked to school always, in all weather- about half an hour each way. I can't say I have any strong feelings about secondary school, I know now I didn't achieve my potential as was typical for girls in the 70's. I was always top in science, maths, english and geography but didn't do well in O levels because I had discovered Northern Soul and Steve who is now my husband. My teenage years revolved around northern soul discos in Preston and Blackpool where me and a succession of athletic boyfriends tried to outdo each other in stamina, acrobatics and under age drinking! 

 

I was a school librarian and ran the school magazine for a while. The English teacher was a Mr Ward, he was irish, had a moustache and smoked a pipe. He used to beckon Joan and I with a "come into my room girrrllls" on a regular basis when he would get very very close to us. On one occasion, when we were having an English lesson in the library the boys contrived for the door handle to fall off trapping Joan, myself and three other girls inside with Mr Ward.

 

 We climbed out of the window, walked across flat roof and shimmied down the fire escape in order to get away from him. The rest of the class were out in the corridor in paroxysms of laughter. It's some thing you never forget. 

 My O level maths teacher used to set work then spend the lesson in the store cupboard smoking and drinking. We all failed Maths apart from Joan whose clever brother coached her. Three of us girls took Physics O level and we all failed. The teacher happily ignored us for two years, allowing us to sit at the back and listen to Radio One while he bestowed his knowledge upon the boys. 

 Summers always seemed hot and dry, we spent our breaks lounging on the grass trying to get rid of the milky hue of our northern skin.  My favourite activities at school were socialising with girl and boyfriends, hanging round the greenhouses to chat to Stephen, writing poetry and short stories, playing guitar, singing in the choir, and acting. One frequent occurrence that sticks in my mind was the evacuation of the school because of "bomb threats." I know we were led to believe these threats were Irish, but from whom? Loyalists I guess and we had a lot of Catholic refugees from northern Ireland. So I left St Thomas More in the late 70's to go to sixth form college with a handful of friends. There was a choice of two Catholic sixth forms, both attached to private convent (boarding and day) schools-I chose Winckley Square because it was where my mother went. 

 Those few of us from the Comps were treated by the nuns there as second class students. Even though Joan and I showed huge promise we were never invited to the special coaching classes for Oxbridge hopefuls. Both of us did far better in our A levels than most of the longstanding Convent girls. I left there with 4 A levels and an extra O level and was happy to have a place at Hull University to take European studies. When I discovered Philip Larkin was the librarian, just before I got my A level results, I convinced them to let me onto the French and English course instead. I left preston at 18 and never went back, I still don't visit that often and lost touch with lost of my school friends apart from some old boy friends who I talk to on facebook.