First day at school

I thought that it was just for one day .
When day two approached - I was horrified .
I cried and cried .

I was scared of going to the loo , because there were no doors and there were boys !

The school and the teacher were very nice .
I gave the teacher a lecture about growing plants having identified every plant in the garden -
she was astonished .

I just wasn't used to lots of loud children having not been to nursery and it didn't help being an only child brought up by a grandma in the company of a lot of old ladies .
But as soon as the Art classes started - I couldn't get there quickly enough !

77 years ago!
All I can remember is that the teacher, Miss Ross, was very old and wore a hairnet!

I cried too.

The seats were old fashioned ones, doubles, which lifted up and were attached to the desk.
The girl next to me was a bully, I can still see her face and remember her name.

The teacher was of the old fashioned type, wielding a tawse, we were terrified of her.
I remember one incident, when I had to go to the toilet which was at the other side of the playground and outside. I fell in a puddle and was soaking wet. Instead of asking what was wrong, she screamed at me to get back to my seat.
I also had a milk intolerance, but she forced me to drink it. I was sick everywhere!

Fortunately a few months later, we moved house and I went to a new school, where I was very happy.

Very clearly. Marilyn Miles, our home helps daughter, who was at the school but in an upper class, collected me on her way to school. It was about 200 yards further up the road.

School was large and noisy (or appeared so). I was made to sit next to a boy I decided I didn't like so when I got a book with a tear in it, I blamed him and they moved me.

The loos were outside and disgusting wet seats and a wet floor and the rain ran through it. I found it really unpleasant.

I think my mother walked up to collect me. I was glad to get home. I could read before I went to school and the books I read at home were so much more interesting than those I had been given at aschool.

The bright side is that I only went there for three weeks. We moved from London to Carlisle and I went to a different school, but that is another story

I just posted this on another thread but I got very bored in the afternoon. The teacher told us to "put your head in your arms on the table and have a sleep" and she popped out of the classroom. I got up and wandered off to the nearby park where I was eventually found playing on the swings! When my mother eventually collected me I told her I didnt like it and would not be going back.

Needless to say I was made to go back. In the cloakroom every child had their own coat hook with a picture on it. Mine was a green frog.

Looking back on it my wandering off was prophetic. I was never one to blindly accept the rules even as a young child and was always looking for ways to game the system.

My first day at school was fine and I enjoyed every single minute of it. I had been looking forward to starting school for so long.

Our teacher had put a little tin with cardboard counters, red on one side and blue on the other, a reading book, two jotters , two pencils and a book mark with my name on it in my desk, and done the same for every other child in the class.

Our mothers stayed for the first lesson, then left and came back and fetched us at mid-day.

Some weeks later, reality kicked in. My parents had sent me to the council school we "belonged" to, and did not realise that no-one would play with "the doctor's daughter" as any working-class child who did so, would be regarded as a snob in the street they lived in and not spoken to by any of their usual play-mates.

It took until half-way through Primary 2 before my parents' realised this, or rather were told it by the very embarrassed mother who had to explain to my mother why her daughter could not come to my birthday party, and it wasn't until after the Easter holidays that year that my parents found a small private school they could afford the fees at,and the uniform for.

This was Scotland for you in 1955.

I cried and cried. In those days there weren’t nurseries and pre-schools to get you used to being away from mum.