Down Memory Lane: 19 June 2009

Jun 19 2009 by Mae McEwan, Irvine Herald

WEDNESDAY of last week was our local historical society’s monthly meeting and we had a retired primary school teacher as our guest speaker and, boy, did she not take us back in time as she spoke of early school days.

Most of the members are more or less the same age group as myself and as this particular lady had in fact taught two of my grandsons at different times, you can well imagine her talk of school days differed greatly from most of our members.

The method of teaching has changed so much over the years, hasn’t it? We had no pretty casually dressed young mums teaching our classes as the kids of today have. Although our teachers were sedate (or at least we thought they were) they were all good looking single lady teachers at Montgomery Street School.

I have often said that was a misnomer as the school was at the corner of Church Street and Cochrane Street, but that was what they called it.

The school was actually named after the Christian poet and hymn writer James Montgomery but as we had Bank Street School and Loudoun Street School obviously us weans tagged on street as well to our school name. Of course, that was before the two schools, Loudoun and Montgomery, were amalgamated into one.

It always saddens me to know that so many people in Irvine today are not even aware that those two schools ever existed, and they were imposing buildings at that time.

Thankfully we still have a Loudoun-Montgomery School in Ayr Road today, so very, very modern with computers and all that compared to our slates and pencils etc, etc.

And to think that a new generation will grow up in Irvine and never know that Bank Street School ever existed. I know the flats there look lovely from outside and I’m sure they will be 100 per cent more modern and efficient than the house we lived in in our early married days just across the street from them. That saddens me too because as well as my mother going to Bank Street, so did my two daughters.

Back to my historical talk on school days, as I said, most members are my age and the talk amongst us when we had our tea was of our school days during the war years. Gas masks, air raids, air raid shelters, wardens, our dads getting called up to the Forces, and so on. We were well down Memory Lane right enough.

So my memory has gone back down my memory lane school days when the country was at war and I’m going to refer to another one of David Cairns’ books “Scotland 1939.” It is edited by Brian D Osborne and Robert Craig and published by the Scottish Library Association in 1989. You may remember I have quoted extracts from newspapers from this same book before, but this week I’ll quote some “Teachers’ Notes” from it.

“Children are introduced to their cultural heritage and are helped to compare and contrast their life with that of people in other times. They begin to understand some of the ways in which the past can be reconstructed through the use of source material and to appreciate the importance of evidence and its use in making judgements about events.”

That’s from “Learning and Teaching: The Environment and the Primary School Curriculum. Scottish Education Department 1984.”

Then they go on: “Historians employ a range of skills which help to define their discipline: Using and analysing a range of source materials. Pupils should be helped to analyse both primary and secondary accounts and to detect, in particular omissions, the personal standpoint of past writers and the use of emotive or figurative language.”

“The above quotations demonstrate the importance of source materials in pupils’ involvement and what has been called exploration of their past environment. Use of historical sources was traditionally regarded as an activity conducted at a relatively high level, demanding both advanced inferential skills and the necessity to place what was inferred in the context of previous knowledge and understanding. Of late however, good language teaching, including such activities as cloze procedure and prediction exercises, help pupils understand their heritage.”

As I said, this book was published in 1989 and what a comparison then compared to what our long ago teachers would have as hand books.

Reading over what I have just quoted I have to say I found those teachers’ notes to be utterly pedantic, to say the least.

For example, I noticed the word “cloze” as in cloze procedure and I have to say I don’t know what “cloze” means. Of course I referred to my dictionary to no avail, then I looked up an even larger one, still no reference there so I’ll have to ask my grand-daughter who is a school teacher, if she has ever heard this word. But 20 years ago she was still a schoolgirl so we’ll see.

Is it my rose-coloured spectacles again or were our computerless school days not much better? At our meeting, memories were exchanged about how on a cold winter’s day we had our wee third of a pint bottles of milk put on top of the class radiators to thaw them out.

Some could go even further back to the days of Horlicks being served to pupils. I know I was in that category as I remember my very first teacher, Mrs Gibson, giving all us weans hot Horlicks in wee mugs. By, it was guid on a caul morning.

Did you notice I said “Mrs” Gibson? It was rare to have a “Mrs” back then and to this day I don’t know if she was a married lady, a widow or if even this was a courtesy title to infant school teachers. Now, of course, it is the norm but all these years ago teaching was a profession and young ladies entering this didn’t get married all that often.

Our speaker on our historical society afternoon had brought a strap from these years that she had borrowed and it was a much fiercer one than any I had seen over my school days. What a tawse it was!

We say now getting the strap didn’t do us any harm, but all of you will have your own views and I’ll go back in time to being, I’d say, about seven years of age and being out on the floor with about eight other pupils. Remember folks, being “out on the floor” meant you had been either good or bad.

My crime on that occasion was that I had forgotten to take a handkerchief to school that morning and I have to say that was unusual for me. I stood there in that row as child after child got asked why they hadn’t brought a hankie as we were told – a fresh one each morning. The ones before me in the row all replied: “My mammy didn’t give me one, miss.” My turn came and I was all upset as each child got one of the belt, so I replied: “Please miss, I forgot to ask my mother for one.” “An honest child,” said, if I remember correctly, one Miss Dowie and the other wee ones in the line all cottoned on and answered the same as me. No, I didn’t get the belt that morning, but would you believe that to this day I always have a clean handkerchief in my handbag or pocket.

We could get the belt for chatting in class, getting too many sums wrong and for really misbehaving in the playground and I’m glad to say, if I remember correctly, I only got the strap twice in my school days.

Outside toilets at school on a cold winter’s morning were also remembered. In Montgomery School I spoke about ours there. They were in a separate building next door to the sheds in the playground, there wasn’t a handle or anything for you to flush these toilets. Every now and again water would run through those wee toilets and it was just your bad luck if you happened to be on that wee toilet when this happened. Many a wean had a wet derriere I’m sure and I speak from experience.

Drill outside in the playground, us wee lassies all had our navy-blue knickers on every day but we just did drill in our ordinary clothes. It was only in secondary school that we took off our gym dresses for PE. Physical Education our drill was now called.

Our games at playtime. Even today all these years ago I still wonder who determined our “seasons.” We had skipping rope seasons and we would take turns at ca’ing the rope, one at each end, and the remainder of those who had decided to join in would jump in, in turn.

Then all of a sudden we would be playing beds. I’m sure we had beds marked out in the playground but thinking back, I wonder how it was allowed. We weren’t allowed outside the school gates at playtime, I know that, and we certainly wouldn’t have chalked the pavement in Church Street either.

It was a different story in our streets at home because Scott Road had had a very few houses built at one side of the street quite a few years before that scheme was completed.

We lived at the top end across the street from the first ones so our house actually looked out on a smoother road than the ones further down. So it was ideal for beds because our peevers ran better on this surface than further down. To make it even better there was a street lamp there as well so we could even play beds on the darker nights.

In the icy weather there was always a first class slide there and many a good night was spent on it. I don’t ever remember any of our neighbours ever complaining about any noise we made when we were playing outside on those winter nights. Our parents could look outside the windows and see where we were.

Then it was changing scraps time, for the boys it was changing cards time. At that time different brands of cigarettes had different cards inside. My brother would have various sets of football teams, trains, coaches and many different sets of cards. Just like the girls’ scraps, if they had a double they would change it for one they didn’t have so they could make up a set. Happy days.

Conkers had their turn for girls as well as boys and many a wee lassie enjoyed a game of “bools” as much as her brothers did, I know I did.

And of course, pocket money was talked about. I told them about visiting my granddaughter’s class at St Mark’s Primary School and some of the children were telling me they got £10 a week. Most of my friends were amazed at this until I also mentioned the wee tale I related to you about four poky hats costing £8. That put things into perspective I can tell you.

One wee thing I forgot to mention was when we played beds we all had a super peever made by someone we knew who worked in the Bottle Work. Dark green glass they were and boy, they were great for sliding up and down the beds.

Were those no’ the days?