As I’ve mentioned before I went to a private school. We wore uniforms and we had assemblies every morning and sang the national anthem in Gaelic. Almost none is could Gaelic but we stood and it got sung everyday. You’d stand in your class in a line. Then you’d go off to your class. The school had strict guidelines that we had to abide by. I came in after students had been caned for whatever. We still got hit with a ruler on our hands and my math teacher often threw his chalk board eraser at his students. If you ducked quick enough you could escape it belting you in the head. My brother often had it thrown at him. My geography teacher when he got frustrated would grab your head and bang it on the table. Times were very different back then.
We had a woman who looked after all the girls we nicknamed her Nellie. She used to wear the same outfit everyday it was a purple tweed skirt and blazer. Whenever we got into trouble we were sent to her office and she would lecture us on proper edicate at school. I spent a lot of time in her office. My best friend in school was Karen. Karen and I often got into trouble together. We had fun and we would prank our teachers so that we got to go to Nellies office. One day we were bored so Karen poked my leg with her compass. I magnified it huge and cried out in pain like she had stabbed me. The two of us went to Nellies office and I’m pretty sure our parents got called about that one. We went through everything together.
Karen walked me home one day before she had to walk back and take the train back to her house when I was scared to walk home. To make the kids like me I often got into fights with other kids you had to do whatever you could to survive even at school. One day I was fighting with a kid and they picked up a stool and threw out at me. I ducked and the stool went through the painted glass window. As I said yesterday I loved it was escape from my home.
On one of my last years at St. Andrew’s before I moved to Canada I went on a French trip with my class. We went from Dublin to Lehavre, Paris on the roughest ferry ride ever. It’s 15 hours. The waves were massive and we had to stay in our bunks in our rooms. Everyone was sea sick except me. It was hard to walk. The trip is really long. Back then you could gamble on the ferry so Chip he won 100 pounds and when his family picked him up they were able to claim the money he won. I will write more about that trip in the next blog. Karen and I are still really good friends and she came here to visit me with her mom, dad and her husband. Next Spring she’s coming in for the day as they will be coming on a cruise ship. I’m looking forward to seeing her. I’ve missed her. I think this is why I love working at school so much because it was my safe place.
Beauty from Ashes. 