Of Different Times

by Agnes Kirkwood

  One night we went to a place down by the Smithy to a field that had a fairly large hill, leading to a little stream at the bottom, we took it in turns to free ride down with our legs out stretched to the side. As I rode down on my final go I couldn’t turn the bike quick enough so straight into the stream I rode hitting the largest boulder there. Apart from getting soaked, the front wheel buckled and punctured. Not knowing that when a bike has a puncture you’re not supposed to ride it.

  We rode and wobbled all the way home on a flat tyre. When the coast was clear we smuggled it back into the shed, and ran away to play. The next morning my sister took her bike out the shed and noticed the state of the bike straight away; I was sneaking a look out the bedroom window to see the commotion. She propped it against the shed and ran indoors, screaming and accused me straight away.

  I could hear my mum run upstairs with my sister following her so I jumped back in bed and pretended to be asleep. Mum woke me up screaming,

  ‘Did you take her bike out the shed last night?’ Of course I denied it.

  ‘No mam why would I do that, when I can’t even ride a bike.’ I said, acting sleepily. My sister looked at me very suspiciously but I played a good part, I stared back innocently.

  ‘Why do you always blame me?’ I said, she stared at me with tight lips then just turned and followed my mum out the bedroom door frowning. Dad went mad with her that night because she should have made sure the night before to check the tyres, and most of all he went mad at her for missing half a day’s work.

  Did I feel any guilt, not at all, it felt like payback time for all the domineering she done to my brother and me in the past.

  That year my granddad took ill, so mum spent nearly every night visiting. She’d go on the seven o’clock bus and come back on the nine o’clock bus. My brother and I were old enough so we didn’t need my sister to babysit for us, so we could play out till mum came back. A couple of times I remember my sister went to the plaza dancing and dad wasn’t home from work, so I looked after the younger two till dad got home, but I didn’t treat them the way my sister treated us. I let them play out till dad came in at about eight and then they got washed in the sink for bed and was asleep when mum come home. If it was weekend and no school next morning dad would play games with them in the house like hide the button, or I spy with my little eye, the kind of games my mum played with us when we were younger, they were always fun so I used to join in.

  One day I was playing in the garden with my little brother and sister, and mum was hanging her washing on the line. My auntie came running up the path and told Mum Granddad had taken a turn for the worse, I could tell there was something seriously wrong. They both got the next bus and headed for Grans. Sadly Granddad died and was buried that same week.

  Mum took his death hard, she didn’t seem like our mum anymore. Even when we were squabbling or falling out with each other it was as if she was oblivious to the racket going on all around her. Before Granddad’s death we’d get a slap on the head to bring us to our senses. I hate to say this but, I’d sooner have that slap than the ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude she was portraying whilst grieving then.

  I’ll always remember my Granddad. A big tall well-built man with snow white hair, I can still vision him sitting on his usual armchair at the side of the fireplace, a pipe in his mouth creating an aroma around the room which was very pleasant. He always had his walking stick at his side with his hand resting on the top, his bonnet latched onto the back of the chair. It was weird after his death not to see him sitting there, and sad to see my poor Gran sitting opposite facing an empty chair.

  After the school’s eight weeks holidays which seemed to go on forever, we knew it was time to return when we got new clothes. But by this year the war was eight years behind us and everyone in our village seemed to be better dressed and was better housed. This time we had a uniform, a black skirt with a royal blue blazer and blue beret to match the blazer that had a yellow tassel hanging down the back, I never saw any girl wear that stupid beret after the first day.

  We had to travel by bus to the new school, but we were all given a free bus pass. I lost mine the same day at school, and didn’t have any money for the bus fare home, so on the way back my pal and me had to share hers, which meant I had to move further down the bus so she could pass it on to me. Now that was a nerve-racking experience if ever there was one, because if we got caught the conductor would have thrown us off the bus and confiscated her pass. It took two weeks to get a replacement and we had that to go through every morning and every night, luckily we never got caught.

  At first it was a novelty having to travel by bus, especially after six years in the same school and hardly ever leaving the village, but the novelty soon wore off in the winter when after the bus ride we had to walk about a mile in rain hail and snow to get to school.

  The first day I walked through the gates, the size of the school gave me butterflies in my stomach. Kids from around the Stirling area who were aged eleven and over had gathered in the playground. Not that I counted but, there looked as though there were thousands of us. We hung about the playground for ages wondering what, and where we’d end up.

  All of a sudden a very loud bell ran through the air. Everybody went silent looking around not knowing what was happening. When the bell stopped, a voice came over the tannoy telling us all to gather at the main door. The school janitor came, opened up the door and ushered us all into the main hall shouting,

  ‘Girls at one side, boys at the other then quietly wait for further instructions.’

  The hall was huge, it must have been six times bigger than my old school hall. It had wooden bars all around the walls reaching up to the ceiling, which was as if the walls were made of ladders. A large stage at the bottom of the hall was full of teachers standing around in a half circle looking down on us. One woman stone-faced as if she hadn’t quite learned how to smile stood at the bottom of the stage with her hands clasped in front of her watching us, making sure we all behaved. I understood her to be the Headmistress of the School.

  After what seemed to be a lifetime, the Headmistress climbed up the stairs onto a stage situated at the front of the hall waving a file with all our names on, and said we had to follow the teacher that held up a sheet of paper as she called out our names. One by one she shouted names, this went on for ages.

  My pal and I were hoping we would be in the same class, and not separated. When it came to our names we were very relieved to find we were. It felt funny having a Headmistress in charge, she sounded better than our old Captain any day. When we were all gathered together the teacher took us over to her classroom which was in a prefabricated building at the bottom of the school. Seemingly our Form Teacher was the Domestic Science teacher for the whole of the girls at the school, and would have to go to her class every morning to get our marks and religious education. As we walked into her classroom we saw the huge long wooden tables down each side of the room, teacher’s desk was situated in the middle at the top, with a large blackboard fixed to the wall like a huge black picture. All down the middle of the room were about six large cookers each with six gas rings on top and double ovens in each. Along the bottom wall stood six large porcelain sinks. We spent all our first day in her class getting all the rules of the school, and making our timetable for the week. It felt funny sitting in the classroom with only girls. The second day was a day I will never forget, our first period after assembly was English, and as we made our way into the classroom we all scrambled for the best desks, we waited for the English teacher to arrive.

  When she finally walked in holding a pile of new books then faced the class, my pal and me looked at each other and nearly fainted. The teacher was the woman at the bus stop after our visit to Wallace Monument who took us in, and made us wash before giving us refreshments. The teacher didn’t seem to notice us, and went ahead introducing herself, then asking us all our names. The lesson was all about getting to know each other, and I was relieved th
at she didn’t recognise us all cleaned up in our new school uniform.

  That was wishful thinking. When it was time to leave the classroom we all marched out in single file. Once outside the classroom door we both looked at each other and sighed.

  ‘That was luck, she never recognised us eh?’ but before I received an answer a voice behind us said, ‘Did you two girls get home safe that day after your mishaps?’

  When we turned around it was the teacher with a little smirk on her face.

  ‘Yes miss, thank you,’ we said in unison, with huge embarrassment.

  She was a great teacher, the best one in all my school days. She also took us for Maths, History and Geography.

  The gym teacher was a scrawny little woman, always rushing about, and blowing the whistle that was tied around her neck. I never seen her without her whistle, we all called her Dixon, after Dixon of Dock Green, a famous television program about a policeman. The first time she took us for sports down to the school field, she marched us past a class of boys who were changing classrooms, they were all whistling with big grins on their faces at us with our navy blue shorts. We tried to hide behind one another, but the teacher blew her whistle and told us not to be silly then waved us on like a scout teacher. She told us that we were lucky because it was only the previous year all girls had to wear navy blue knickers and she persuaded the Headmistress to change the gym code to shorts. The amount of times she blew that whistle in that one hour gave me and all the girls a headache.

  Through time I liked her because she made us laugh just by the way she dressed. She always wore a pair of culottes that looked two sizes too big, her skinny little legs stuck out the bottom like two matchsticks; it gave us all the giggles watching her as she demonstrated and joined us in the exercises. We had a netball team and she used to take us to compete with other teams and referee us, our ears were ringing listening to her blowing that whistle, half the time she blew it for no reason at all. We even had a plan to try and get hold of her whistle and remove the pea inside it somehow, but she never ever took it off during lessons for us to even try.

  All the lessons were different from what we were used to, unlike the junior school where we were stuck in the same classroom all year round with the same teacher for everything. We were always on the move from classroom to classroom for different subjects. Another teacher I liked was the science teacher he was nice and most of all he treated everyone the same, if he told you off for anything it was because you needed telling off, and half the time he let you off with murder. We looked forward going to his class just for the freedom of speech, because we could ask him anything and he would take the time to explain in detail until you knew the answer. Also he turned every lesson into an amusing demonstration about whatever subject we were learning at the time.

  We now got Cookery which we never got at the juniors, once a week we had to take the ingredients for whatever we were cooking. The cookery teacher was our form teacher, she was a nasty piece of work, who had her favourites and neither myself nor my pal one of them. We automatically used to hate her pet pupil and played some nasty tricks on her. She was always dressed immaculately with never a hair on her head out of order. Her white cookery apron and headband were all starched and pressed perfect, as everyone else’s were crushed through being at the bottom of our bags. She had a hen basket that she would bring all her cooking ingredients cover ed over with an immaculately fresh ironed tea towel. One day when she was asked to go on an errand for the teacher, we tied her cooking basket to the table leg When it was time for us all to take out our ingredients out all eyes were on her as she bent down to pick up her basket. She flew against the table and bumped her head, when the teacher rushed over to see what had happened she asked who the culprit was but luckily no one gave the show away. We all got banned from Cookery that day. Yippee!

  The tricks we used to play on the form teacher, makes me feel ashamed of myself. We’d switch the cooker off that contained her cooking, or switch her oven off if we were baking, put salt in the mixture when her back was turned, I could go on and on but when I look back I cringe at the nasty way we treated her, and I feel guilty. The worse trick we ever played was to another girl who got praised at how good she was at baking. On exam day the teacher informed us we were making a sponge cake without looking at a recipe. So off we all got started, when we had made our sponge mixture we had to put it in a baking tin that had our name chalked on the bottom and put it in the oven. We watched to see what oven this particular girl put hers in and made our way to use the same one. But at the same time I sneaked hers out and made out I had forgot to check it underneath that my name was on it. My pal stood in front so no one could see me as I smuggled a piece of soap underneath the mixture and give it a stir before placing it back in the oven. When all our cakes lay on the table for the teacher to judge, hers looked the best, but when it came to the teacher tasting it, she took out her handkerchief and spat it out. I’ll never forget the look on the girl’s face. Although I laughed, I actually felt sorry for her.

  Another subject our form teacher took us for was Domestic Housewifery. The school had a little bungalow that consisted of a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. It was used for teaching all the girls’ housework like making beds, cleaning kitchens, washing and ironing. As if I didn’t get enough of that at home. As soon as the teacher left us we had a ball, using the bed for a trampoline, mucking about then in the last twenty minutes we’d all scurry about getting things done before teacher came back. When she returned she used to be pleased with what we so called had achieved, with everything spick-and-span.

  Our form teacher also took us for Dressmaking and Knitting, I used to hate Knitting at school it was boring. Socks and mittens were all we knitted at school. Done on four needles and using the thinnest of wool, so your knitting never seemed to grow. The only things we knitted on two pins, were plain squares, which we all did, then they were sewn together to make blankets for charity.

  We also had sewing, which I liked because I used to spend hours when I was younger making doll’s clothes when it was raining outside. My mum said it was the only thing that kept me quiet.

  I’ll never forget when we made a summer skirt. We had to bring our own material to make what the teacher called a drindle -skirt. I remember I brought a white cotton material with blue polka dots on. I loved making that skirt, because we were allowed to use the sewing machines, and although my auntie had one I was never allowed to go near it, so it was the first time I ever used one. A sewing machine was one of the first things I bought when I got married, and when my daughter was born I made all her clothes, also my nieces. I used to love making pretty little dresses.

  When I was twelve my little sister started school so she had her own little school pals in the same street as us, which meant I had more freedom, what a relief, it was heaven. No more had I to try and sneak away before mum asked me to take her with me. She used to cry for the least thing and spoil my games, and when I told her off she would burst out crying ‘I’m telling my mammy on you.’ My mum used to say her eyes were too near her bladder. Every week a woman came around the doors collecting donations for the Gala Day, as she came to our house mum made her a cup of tea, she was part of the Labour Party and was one of the committee, and dad often had meetings in our house, so mum knew her well. As they both sat at the kitchen table having a chat with their cuppa my young sister ran in crying,

  ‘What’s wrong?’ mum asked but she couldn’t tell her for crying, so the woman asked kindly; just to get her to stop crying, ‘Did you know if you cry you can’t go to the Gala?’ Well that made her worse, there was no consoling her. She hated that woman with vengeance after that. Whenever she was playing in the street, and saw the woman doing her weekly rounds she would run in the house screaming; she was terrified of her for years.

  It wasn’t long before we were on the move again to a four bedroom house so my big sister could have a room of her own. It was in the same street but
at the other side of the circle and just down the road. In fact the back garden was back to back with the house we left on the main road five years previous. I remember all our belongings were carried over and left in the front garden while we waited for the other family getting their belongings out of their house. It took a lot of getting used to. No more did the railway run past the bottom of our garden, which my pal and me missed it was like the gateway to adventure land for us, instead it took us about half a mile to get back on the line to take us to half the places we played. But one thing pleased me, I no longer had my older sister dominating me and my younger sister; we had a big double bed between us.

  The stairs in our new house were all open with no cupboard underneath, we missed having a cubby hole as we called it, because it housed all the bits and bobs that was only used occasionally, like old toys, shoes, rubbing board and much more. My parents had a bedroom downstairs, and under their bed got used for storing things like boxes of what my dad would call good rubbish that he would not let mum throw out, stuff that was too good to put in the shed outside. I remember we had a huge wooden bagatelle game a large wooden board which had nails all around numbered holes. It was played with marbles and you had to pull a spring that sent the marble around the board and fall in the nailed hole, and the person with the highest score won. One rainy Saturday, my mum threatened us not to make a noise because dad was in bed after working nightshift, so we decided to play bagatelle, so off I sneaked into my parent’s bedroom and very quietly got the game from under their bed. When the rain stopped, mum told us to put the game away and get outside to play before we woke dad up through arguing over who was cheating. Every time my brother and me played a game, whether it was snakes and ladders, draughts or worse of all when we played a simple game of cards, we always seemed to end up coming to blows. Later on when it was time to come in, mum shouted dad to get up as dinner was ready. He jumped out of bed and let out a mighty roar, I won’t write the words he shouted, I’ll leave that to your own imagination. He hobbled into the kitchen absolutely mad like a raging bear, shouting