Warning… bullying
Primaries six and seven, the time that everyone started to become aware of differences between the genders.
Thankfully, we left Miss Allen and her tin ear behind at this point, moving upwards, literally, up the school. It was only now that I realised that with changes of teacher came the progression higher and higher, P1 had been ground floor, and now, thanks to the compressed nature of the school site, we reached the literal top of the school, and Miss Macleod.
Miss Macleod was a venerable institution within the school. She was approaching retiral, kicking and screaming, refusing to weaken. She’d been teaching as a young lady, before the Second World War. The school had a few famous FP’s and it appeared she’d known them all. As befitting her seniority, she appeared to have had the pick of the classrooms, and I agreed with her choice! We were suddenly in a classroom with a vaulted ceiling. There was no loft, our ceiling was a couple of layers of wood and slate from the literal roof! It had windows on three sides, and skylights in the roof. As I type, remembering, my image is of a Victorian built classroom, with more glass than wall 😀. Strangely, I don’t remember ever being cold in the classroom, but as the weather improved, the heat rose, and even with all the windows opened (via the trailing ropes up to the hinged tops, and the screw mechanism, which had a curved cog retainer drooping as it followed the arc). This classroom had the most sensational views over the North of Glasgow, but was accessed by one stairwell. Obviously that was dangerous, so as a bolt on, they had created a second exit… directly outside the classroom, there was an elevated corridor along the outside of the building… four storeys up?! AND to make it absolutely safe… it was asbestos! 🤣
This was premier league, and we had the teacher to match. She was a force of nature, a strict disciplinarian, who was a true old school educator. She didn’t suffer fools gladly, and would have been drummed out of the profession today for some of the things she said, cutting occasionally to the bone. Like Miss Allen, she wore her teachers gown most of the time, especially outside the classroom, but in lessons she relented, and became slightly more human.
Given her surname, unsurprisingly she came from Skye, and had a soft Highland brogue. She never said anything in Gaelic, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if that had been her first language. Facially, she strongly resembled the famous old actress (If you’ve ever watched a black and white film) Dame Flora Robson.
She had a face that could transition from forbidding to welcoming in a flash, and personally, I loved her as a teacher. She introduced us to competitive learning. Probably a concept outlawed now, but which actually did make sense from a teachers viewpoint. Every fortnight, we would have tests on the Friday, and once completed and marked, the results would be read out in order. The top student would start, selecting a back corner, to which they would transfer all their accoutrements from desk to desk, then second would sit next to them… and so on. It meant that the brightest students were furthest away from Miss MacLeod as they needed the least direct supervision, whilst those needing most ended up in the front row. Makes sense, but if you fell into the lower groupings, it must have been awful. Thankfully, I was always a “back row” pupil. As you’d expect the placings were generally the same, and were dominated by one particular boy, who is probably now a Professor of something. However, one particular cycle, I outperformed somehow, and was number one for a fortnight!!!! I was number six generally, so sat in the opposing corner, and we had the choice as to which corner was the prime. On this occasion, I could have remained where I sat, in the opposing corner as previous number six, elevated to number one, but I WANTED the traditional number one corner… back left as you looked from the blackboard! Ironically, it wasn’t the best seat, as I was already next to the class library, which I was devouring, but tradition is tradition, so I grabbed my “Rightful”… uh huh… position!! It was a nice fortnight, but next time round, I was relegated to something like number four, and never regained the lofty status! 🤣 I was absolutely fine with that, as my normal ranking had me sitting with Amanda, Ann and Joyce, and we were loose friends, so it was pleasant.
The school had two playgrounds, a large one which was the Girls, but P1 to P4 en masse shared it. The smaller one was the boys playground, for P5 to P7. The move from the “big” playground to the “boys”, was such a traumatic experience it nearly broke me. We had been used to playing tig, possibly complicating up to “chainy”, where “it”, had to hold hands with their first victim, but that was tame, as the max chain was three. In the boys playground, sissy rules like that were ignored, and you could find yourself suddenly being hunted down by a chain of ten or fifteen, and once they got you, they GOT you. British Bulldogs was another staple, and that was only prohibited when one boy cracked his skull. As is the norm however, it continued in the covered area, away from teacher’s eyes 🙄
I was thoroughly depressed at this move, and whilst able to just about fit in, there was enough to mark me out, and what followed was a period of bullying which nearly broke me. I had a surname which was easy to rhyme, and there was a nasty little sing-song that I heard twenty to thirty times a day. It truly was nasty, and it was vindictive, pushing me out of the “group”, marking me as other. Looking back, it had older brother tones. I’m not sure an eight year old would have created it solo 😬
Having been pushed out to the fringes, I withdrew completely, and that further alienated me. I was happy enough playing marbles (ON THE MANHOLE COVERS 😱🤢), but that was about it. The segregation had highlighted which box you were in, and I lost my girl friends. This was a black time, and the only solace I really had was schoolwork, and specifically reading. I devoured books, any book, especially history.
I had the respite each day of walking to my Aunt’s Post Office for lunch. My mother had spent her days there helping (and NOT TAKING A WAGE!) during my schooldays. Thankfully that lessened as time progressed, and eventually I was bussing solo across Glasgow, transiting the City Centre twice daily as a nine and ten year old!! It doesn’t bear thinking about! I passed the old BBC building and crossed the Kelvin each time, and there were three… incidents 😬. One day, I was walking to the Post Office for lunch, in my blazer, when I was effectively mugged by three or four older boys from the appalling North Kelvinside school. It was borderline borstal, and I handed over all my money, not much, but I hoped enough. It didn’t save me from an old fashioned kicking, and I arrived dishevelled and distraught at the Post Office. Coming from a police family, favours were called in, and the next day, two CID officers quizzed me, then shadowed me, to and from lunch. I confess I was almost more scared of them! They were dressed as borderline down and outs, as disreputable as it comes. Thankfully nothing happened, but over the next year I had a couple of incidents, but wasn’t keen on admitting as it raised a profile I was trying to keep low for obvious reasons!
This has been a torrent of memories for me, and will continue… however the pace will lessen a bit. Blog four will probably be uploaded in a few days! Hugs 💕
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