FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL, GAMES AND DISILLUSIONMENT

Cuthbertson Street School as I remember it ... quiet and solid.

First day at primary school.  My mother led me into the classroom.  In front of every child was a tray containing sand and we had to draw shapes with our index fingers.  Miss Smith, our infant teacher, towered over us but I remember her as being exceedingly gentle and kind.  

The classroom was traditional for the time.  Everyone had their own sloping desk with a ceramic inkwell and a groove to keep pens and pencils from rolling down the desktop.  You could lift the hinged lid and keep jotters, sweets and other necessities in it.  We all faced the blackboard below which was a series of cards like oversized dominoes with coloured dots that added up to a number.  They were continually on view and the result is that all of become proficient in mental arithmetic.  Seven plus nine is sixteen, etc became part of our language, unlike children today.  We would chant in unison: "one and one are two; one and two are three; one and three are four ...

Multiplication tables were rote-learned by the same system in primaries 2 and 3: two ones are two; two threes are six; two fours are eight ... up to the twelve times table.  Of course, the metric system wouldn't arrive for quite a few years so we had the eleven and twelve times tables to learn.  Our minds were sharp and agile.  We knew not what we were doing at the time, but we did it.  Consequently, we all had a handle on guineas, LSD, furlongs, ounces, yards, hundredweights, pints, acres, bushels and oz (a system of weighing gold from the Italian onza). 

Every morning we said the Lord’s Prayer, there was no choice, and recited with hands reverently placed palm to palm in front of us.  Why we had to bow our heads I don't know:  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ...".  "Jesus loves me yes I know, 'cause the baigle tells me so" ... was another recited at home just the way I heard it and much to the amusement of my father..

Miss Matheson (everyone was a Miss then, and still is as far as I know ... all men were Sir) wore glasses and had a glass eye which was easily detectable because it didn’t move.  Once, and only once that I can remember, we listened to a BBC programme, something about sheep, then we were told to write a paragraph or two on what we had heard.  When we had all laid our pencils down, she took in the jotters, flicked through them and read mine out to the class.  As she read, I felt increasingly proud, but noticed that she was reading rather quickly and hardly taking a breath.  As she finished, she took a deep breath and said, “Full stop!”  The class howled with laughter and the pain and humiliation I felt was seared into my mind.

Another time this sadist told a friend of mine, Stanley Levy, not to trust me.   “He wouldn’t save you if you were drowning,” she said in front the class.  I was only about seven or eight years old and I told my parents (something I regret even now).  One of them, I can’t remember who, went up to the school to complain.  I think a few of the teachers didn’t like me because I was a bit of a smart ass and, well, a bit of a joker. These emotionally disturbed teachers had a way of homing in on anyone who was different, deprived, in despair.

A little lady, Miss McPhee, wore a full length skirt and shrieked a lot.  Instead of putting our hands up we had to stand on the chair.  This was the source of great hilarity in the class.

Once in class a boy along from me started kicking the underside of his desk and little Miss McPhee tutted away and looked up angrily.  She realised quickly, though, that the boy was having an epileptic fit.  She took this in her stride and sent someone to call the nurse who was always on hand being resident in those days.

My Uncle Len, my father’s brother whom I mentioned before, was also a teacher in the school.  He was a great laugh and everyone liked him.  One day, he showed us a film then ran it backwards.  This was something no other teacher would think of doing.  We all screamed with joy when we saw a boy putting the peel back on an orange and another diving backwards out of the water and onto a spring board.

He did belt me once, for chaining a girl to a post, although I may have been led on by another boy, and it did hurt.  More about him later.

The tawse or Lochgelly (named after the place it was manufactured in Fife) was used quite liberally in our school; and often unjustly.  Truancy was unheard of, except on one or two occasions; and discipline was harsh.  

I was given the name “Harry Boy” after my uncle’s nickname.  One day, coming out of the school gates, Billy Rogers the coalman’s son, and his gang were waiting for me.  He was much older than me and seemed about twice the size.  With his steel capped toes, he kicked me on the shin and I collapsed, more in fear than anything else.  A woman driving by saw me and took me home.

When it came to play, there would be a line of boys, perhaps only two or three to begin with, with their arms around each other’s shoulders all marching in time and shouting rhythmically, “Who wants a game of cowboys and Indians?” or “Who wants a game of cops and robbers?”.  When enough boys had joined the line the game began. 

Another game was ledgie where you had to throw a ball against a wall, aiming for the chamfered ledge about one foot from the ground, then catching it without its hitting the ground on its return.

Dodgy ball and rounders were other games we played.  We also had tig, high tig, low tig, and ...just tig.  the girls had skipping of various sorts where they would have all kinds of established moves like cross over hands and double caw; or a long rope where various girls took turns to jump in. This was sometimes complicated by the use of two ropes swung in opposite directions.

We were as fit as ferrets.