Of Different Times

by Agnes Kirkwood

  Also the most famous games of all Tig, which I see still goes on today. The chosen one would run after somebody and tap them shouting tig then run away fast before they tapped you back, making it their turn to try and tig somebody else.

  Hide-and-seek, speaks for itself. One of the many games I remember was kick the can, a gang of us would place a can on the ground and when the searcher chosen placed his foot on it he closed his eyes and counted to a hundred in the five times table, the rest of us would run and hide, it was a bit like hide and seek but if you were seen and made it back to the can and kicked it before the seeker you were safe.

  Playground games you never forgot, nor the games we played in the streets. I doubt if the kids of today will have good memories of their childhood when they grow up, sitting alone at a computer, or sitting and watching television all night. Oh how things change, I often wonder if it’s for the good.

  There weren’t many cars then, only on the main road that used to run right through the middle of our village. When we were bored and the weather was not too bad, we collected car numbers as a pastime, we sat at the edge of the main road and every time a car passed we wrote its registration number down in a notebook, something that would be impossible to do nowadays, too many cars.

  When it was the dark nights we all seemed to gather around the streetlights in gangs. We’d tell ghost stories, and just have a good laugh. My brother and me always seemed to be in the same gang, we’d be in the middle of an exciting tale when the dreaded voice would shout ‘Nan, William, get in here now.’ We always seemed to be the first every night to get shouted in by our mum, and we had to go straight away or face the consequences. If it was Sunday she’d have the bath all ready for us because that was bath night, ready for the school on the Monday morning. There was no instant hot water then, the hot water all came from a boiler situated at the back of the fire, and it took hours to heat. All the other nights we sat in the sink to have a wash. Bearing in mind the sinks then were huge porcelain ones compared to what they are now. When you got too big to fit in the sink you sat on the worktop with your feet in the sink.

  I hated Sunday nights, it wasn’t necessary the bath I hated, it was all the rigmarole that went after it, the brushing your teeth, now that was a necessity I hated, because then all the toothpaste we used was powder and came in a tin, it always seemed damp with what I thought was slavers as everyone had to dip their wet toothbrush in to collect the tooth powder.

  Mum used to give us a spoonful of cod liver oil on a Sunday night, and then give us a sweet after. I can still taste it whenever I think about it. It was the vilest taste I have ever tasted in my whole life. Yuk.

  Also the getting your hair washed, and then combed with the finest teethed comb you’ve ever seen, it was called the dust comb, and it hurt like hell.

  The dust comb was mainly to see if there were any lice in your hair, I used to dread it in case mum found any. If she did you were doomed to that dust comb every night. Worse of all you had to sit all night with a horrible liquid called Sulio on your hair, the most horrible smelling stuff which was enough to gas you, never mind kill lice.

  Every six months the village nurse would to come to school and check everybody over. Every class took it’s turn with six at a time going to the first aid room. Girls always seemed to go first. We had to strip down to our vest and knickers then one by one she’d take you in and go through your hair to see if there was any sign of lice. She also checked your tummy, look in your mouth, check your weight and height, and everything was written down in a book. Going to the nurse wasn’t so bad, in fact it got you out of the classroom for a change.

  I remember one girl in our class who wasn’t very lucky. As we waited our turn in the little room at the side of the nurses’ quarters we thought the girl in front of us was taking longer than usual. As the door opened she walked out wearing a scarf on her head. We wondered what had happened to her. Later when we found out that she had lice, and not just one or two, she was crawling with them so much that she had to have her hair shaved off. She had to wear that headscarf until it grew in again. I actually felt sorry for her but I was warned not to go near her, in case I got lice and carried them home to the rest of the family. I’m not saying that I have never had them, because one Sunday mum found them when dust combing my hair and of course we all had to be treated and have the smelly Sulio on our hair.

  The thing that used to worry me most, was when the dentist came to school. We always knew he was due when we got a form to take home for our parents to fill in. It was to give the dentist permission to treat you if needed. Now that was scary for any child, especially me who has a phobia for needles. When I knew he was coming I never slept the night before he was due.

  I remember the feeling of sitting in the big chair, being hoisted up with a foot pedal, prodded about with a metal prong as the dentist looked through a mirror on a stick thrust into my mouth going around every tooth in my gums. I was terrified every time I went to him. Luckily I never needed any treatment, not like some of the children that used to come back into class with a hankie full of blood held to their mouth by a scarf tied around their neck like a Mexican Bandit. If I needed treatment and had to have an injection in my mouth I definitely would have ran away, there’s no doubt about that. Today, I am still terrified of going to the dentist.

  The street lights seemed to be the meeting places at winter nights, especially Halloween, when we used to dress ourselves up in the weirdest costumes ever imaginable, like tramps, and witches. The most favourite one was to dress up as Charlie Chaplin. The whole reason for dressing up was so you were unrecognisable.

  We never had pumpkins then, we used to go to the farm and pay tuppence for a turnip, the farmer would let us pick our own, they were all heaped up like a huge pyramid and we would climb all over them taking ages choosing the biggest roundest turnip we could find, take it home and carve out all the middle for our lantern. The middle of the turnip never went to waste because mum used to cook along with the potatoes for dinner that night.

  As soon as the darkness fell we’d get dressed up in our home-made costumes, blacken our faces with soot from the chimney. Not like the kids today going to the shop and buying a costume. Shame, they don’t know what their missing. We used to go around the houses and ask if they wanted any Guysers, if they said yes, you had to do your party piece, a song a dance a poem or just stand there giggling letting everyone else in the gang do the act, we always made quite a few bob on Halloween night, and loads of sweets and fruit, which we’d share at the end of the night.

  I remember going to my Auntie Kate in the next street, all excited because I wanted to show her my costume, she never even opened the door, and we all knew she was in. I never thought she was one of the houses we used to call a miserable old fuddy-duddy. Sometimes we had a Halloween party with apples and nuts floating in water in a tin bath, we called it dunking. The idea was to put your hands behind your back and try to catch an apple or nut with your mouth. In the kitchen every house had a pulley a wooden type clothesline that your mum would dry the clothes on in the winter, it was hoisted up and down with a rope pulley. My dad used to tie scones covered in black treacle from it and we had to put our hands behind our back and try to grab them in our mouth blind folded. That was a great laugh, our faces used to be covered in black treacle, good job mum put a headscarf over our hair.

  We had toffee apples, which mum made, and if we were lucky marshmallows to roast on the coal fire with a fork and dad would tell us stories about the ghosts in the dormitory at Dunblane Military School where he was brought up as a lad, made up stories I’m sure. Hairy Paw, and Jenny Green Teeth. Huh! After he got you scared out of your wits he’d shout, BEDTIME so we went to bed terrified.

  After Halloween we’d go round the doors collecting wood and anything that people wanted burning on the bonfire, we had to keep our eyes on it in case the kids from the next street stole our collection of firewood. But to be fair we used to try and steal the
irs as well. The bonfire was the occasion for all the adults as well; Mum used to make treacle toffee in trays then break it all up and put it in bags for us. We would have fireworks, and sparklers, and of course the usual boys going about planting jumping jacks and bangers behind you so that when they went off frightened the living daylights out of you. The atmosphere was terrific. We used to put potatoes under the ashes when the fire died down; the skins would be burned to a cinder but inside they tasted like nothing else on earth. Fantastic!

  Every now and then, a show would visit the school, and if we wanted to go we had to pay a week in advance. On the big day of the show, if you could call Punch and Judy, or maybe a magician or something to that affect a big show, it was hardly the Palladium, but it was better than sitting at your desk doing maths or some other boring subject.

  Like all the communal school events, it was always held in the gym hall, and every class would march in rotation in single file to the gym hall, where we’d sit on the floor with our legs crossed the whole way through the show, and if you shuffled you were at risk of getting a splinter up you backside.

  It’s funny that everyone seemed to have a bad cough when the whole school assembled in that hall, and the lads would have dares for letting off wind. One boy from my class as I remember was caught doing just that, raising one hip off the floor and twisting his face in pressure, he was noticed by one of the teachers and frog-marched by the scruff of his neck to the headmaster’s room, where he spent the entire show time on his own in the dreaded corridor awaiting the headmasters return from the show. Later when we were all settled back in the classroom he returned with his hands tucked under his armpits and the grin on his face had turned into a look of agony.

  Highway safety used to come to school nearly every year, although there were hardly any cars in our village the main road to Stirling was sometimes busy, if you could call it that with a few vans lorries and buses.

  The safety lesson was brilliant. The whole school stood out in the playground which was marked out with pretend roads and signs. Then it actually showed someone in an accident running across the road without looking and a car bumping into him. We all let out a scream when the car hit him knocking him to the ground, but when the victim got up off the road, we all realised it was playacting. The lesson was all about looking right, left, then right again, the lesson went on all afternoon; it was a lesson that stays with you all your life.

  Our headmaster used to be a captain in the army, he was very strict, and had to be addressed as captain. Every morning when the school bell rang, we had to line up in single file creating a line per class starting with the youngest. We‘d stand like soldiers with our hands outstretched while he walked up each line inspecting our hands were clean and our shoes polished, even a button missing from your coat or jacket or a boy in need of a haircut, anything he thought needed rectifying, he would send you home to get it seen to. It didn’t matter if half the lads had patches sewn on the backside of their trousers or patches on the sleeves, which by then were few and far between now because every family had been in the same boat at one time or another, except for one or two of course.

  One boy in our class had a button missing from his jacket and the headmaster shouted,

  ‘Get home and get a button on that jacket, then report back to me in one hour.’

  The boy thought he was being big in front the rest of us and answered in a cocky attitude,

  ‘My mum hasn’t got one to sew on sir.’

  The headmaster bent down held his ear and shouted in it, ‘Well, I’m sure if you look around this playground you will find one, it doesn’t matter what colour it is just find one, take it home and get it sewn on, Right?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ the boy shouted.

  With that sorted the headmaster still gripping his ear, marched him out of the queue to go and look.

  It was just like being in the army, every time he passed us we had to salute him like a soldier. He treated us as if he was doing a roll call.

  Even on non-school-days if any tales reached him, he would deal with the situation when school resumed. I say that because one Saturday morning I was involved in a fight outside the newsagents with another girl from my class over something or nothing. It couldn’t have been that serious because I can’t remember what it was about, anyway, someone must have reported us to the headmaster because, on the Monday morning, we were both sent for and given the strap for causing a nuisance in the village, and for giving the school a bad name. How could you give it a bad name when it was the only school in the village? That wasn’t all; we had to go to the janitor’s room, get a pail and pick all the rubbish that was lying about the playground.

  Looking back, he certainly was a unique character, that’s for sure. I mean, what school had a headmaster who walked around the playground looking for chewing gum? (We did!)

  One day I was happily playing, and when the rest of the girls went quiet I quickly turned around to see what they were staring at, and he was there, looking at me in particular.

  ‘Are you chewing gum?’ ‘No sir,’ I answered, keeping the gum at the back of my mouth. ‘Open your mouth,’ he shouted bending down. Nervously I opened my mouth as he squinted inside, ‘Well, what’s that sticking to your back teeth? Get to my office at once!’ When I reached the dreaded corridor there was about a dozen waiting. After a few minutes about another ten arrived. When he finally marched in we were ushered into his room. He took out the dreaded strap from his drawer and walloped it across the desk. We all jumped with fright, it was like a gun being fired right next to our ears.

  ‘So you lot are responsible for covering my playground with bubbly gum eh?’ We all jumped, and shuffled back as he came to the other side of the desk facing us. His eyes contacted every single one of us in turn before he continued. I remember thinking, why doesn’t he just give us the strap and get it over with?

  ‘I am not going to waste my energy by strapping you lot today.’ We all sighed with relief, until he told us. ‘No, I have a better punishment for you lot. Every one of you will go out there armed with a scraper and scrape up all that bubbly gum of the ground, and I mean every single blob because I will personally examine it. Now get out of my sight.’

  It was obvious that he was picking scapegoats to clean the bubbly off the playground. Why didn’t he just ask for volunteers, not that he would have got any I suppose he was spreading a warning to all bubbly gum chewers not to drop it on the playground in future. Crafty, eh?!

  To be quite honest, I think some of the schools today could do with a headmaster like him. And God help them if they did.

  My children have been on ski holidays to France and different places with school, even my grandchildren have been on adventure holidays, animal parks and historic museums and so on, but we never had any outings or holidays not even a trip to a museum. The only trips I remember is the nature walks through the woods collecting leaves to press in books; never to be seen again. It certainly never taught us anything, but we used to enjoy it. We thought it was a great adventure. Off we’d set in single file to the wood situated just behind the school wall. The way teacher gave us a guided tour explaining nature in all its glory made it feel as if we were in another world, and not the wood we had blindly played in so many times before. It was like being on safari. We collected all shapes and colours of leaves from trees, where birds chirped and sang to each other, we climbed trees, out of the reach and site of the teacher of course we looked for insects and creatures under the dead wood lying about. It all created a jungle feeling, and walking on a carpet of dead leaves from years gone by rustling under our feet, we saw the occasional squirrel scurrying up the trees. Yes, it was free and very memorable, and the best thing about it was we were out of the classroom, and away from all the school work. Those days were few and far between but when the teacher mentioned we were going, we were happy.

  In the Miners’ Welfare Hall, they used to show films for the children every now and then. It only cost coppers t
o get in, and the films were nearly always Cowboys and Indians and were always very noisy. The chairs were laid in rows and all the smallest kids would be escorted to the front, with the bigger ones at the back. On the back wall sat a table with the projector shining down a broad isle which ran down the middle of the chairs onto a huge white screen that hung on the stage curtains. I don’t think anyone listened to the story line, because there was a man that we all knew as old and retired from the pit went up and down with a torch telling the boys to be quiet, it made no difference, because as soon as he moved away they would start again. When the Indians attacked we would all boo them, and then when the Calvary came they’d be stamping of feet and loud shouts of ‘Hooray’ going on. The films were great and, inspired the boys to play with guns and homemade bows and arrows playing Cowboys and Indians. My pal and I along with lots of girls also joined in, it was great fun. I think boys games were more exciting to play than girls.

  The good old age of ten was the year things got more serious at school. It was time to get down to the nitty-gritty and get ready for the dreaded eleven-plus the following year.

  Instead of using pencils we did all our English lessons in ink, and when I say ink, I mean the type you dip a nibbed pen into, not like today when all the children are using biro pens which weren’t invented then.

  When it was essay time the teacher would ask one of us to half-fill the inkwells which were fitted into a hole at the top of our desks. The ink was poured into the inkwell with a can that had a long thin spout. Another child would distribute us all with what looked like a wooden pencil with a metal tip and a nib that was pointed with a split up the middle and shaped to fit into the metal tip.