Before I move on to the main part of this book which is about my life as a midwife, I just want to look back at my early days and therefore my school days.
I started school when I was three years old and my first school was St. Jospeh's Convent School in Newcastle Under Lyme. This too was a private school and also ran by Nuns. It was a small school and had just four teachers........Sister Mary Patrick, Sister Mary Dominic, Sister Mary Pascal and Mrs. Clare.
These Nuns were not too bad as far as my experience of Nuns go. Sister Mary Patrick was the Head Teacher and Nun and was really old, although I don't know how old she actually was, but she had also taught my Mum and so really was getting on. I recall she had the softest hands I think I have ever seen to this day and they were covered in freckles too.I remember her hands so well because it was a scramble every day to take her Rosary Beads to her before we said our prayers at the end of the day. We all wanted to be her favourite pupil and this was a great way to get into her good books.
So although she was not generally unkind, I will never forget the day I left shool to go into Newcastle with some of my friends to have lunch in Newcastle at a little cafe place called Burgess's. We were allowed to do this believe it or not, but as long as we had let the Nuns know and we had permission from our parents to go. I had done neither of these things this particular day and when I got back to school, didn't I know it? Sister Mary Patrick screamed at me and punched me in the middle of my back with her fist shouting "Naughty Girl" for what seemed like an eternity! It hurt so badly ....and even more worrying was the fact I knew she was going to tell my parents too and so I would also get a "good hiding" at home from my dad once he found out! That oxtail soup and bap really hadn't been worth it!
These really were the days when if you were in truoble at school you were in even more trouble at home! Parents believed the teachers 100 percent and so you got double the punishments for showing them up and bringing disrespect to the family. This is a far cry from how it is today when no child can seem to do any wrong at all, and teachers are petrified to discipline a child too.Surely there must be a half way house somewhere as although it wasn't great to be punched in the back by a old Nun.......I certainly didn't leave the school again without permission!
Sister Mary Dominic was known to be a tyrant and very strict, but thankfully she didn't teach me. I had Sister Mary Pascal who was a riot. She was such fun and always skipping around everywhere. She also wore a short dress for her habit so looking back must have been a really modern Nun as all the others wore long habits still. She also seemed to have a great time when the priests came to vist and they all laughed a lot together! I think she even smoked too, the priets certainly did and I know for sure she drank sherry on occasions!
It was a nice little school but was heavily dominated by saying prayers, religious teachings and attending Church Services. Every child in the school went to Mass every single Friday morning regardless. We all lined up and crossed the road through the subway to the Holy Trinity Church opposite the school and made up most of the congregation.
A few of us played musical instruments that the hyms were sung to and therefore sat in the front rows, and of course I was one of those pupils! I played what was called a Melodica, which was a wind instrument with a keyboard on it that sounded like an organ when played. I thought I was the bees knees if I'm honest and always wanted to sit next to Sister Mary Patrick too!
On many of the weeks the Friday service was actually a Requium Mass, which is basically a funeral service and so there was always a coffin in the aisle and plenty of people crying and upset. When I tell people this they think it was really wrong. I guess it was not ideal and certainly would be frowned on these days, but after all death is part of life and it never scared us as it was just seen as a normal way to spend a Friday at school.
Prayers were said reguarly, which meant in the morning, before each lesson and at the end of the day before we left. The last prayer of the day was said to get us home safely and is so firmly etched into my brain that I still say it every time I get into a car to this day! We also had to stop abrupty in the playground if an ambulance, police car or fire engine went passed and say three Hail Mary's for the poor people involved.........and yes I still do this too!
Conditioning is real and Catholic Guilt is even more real.......I don't believe it ever leaves you! The amount of times we were told we would "Go to Hell" was unreal and it was for very little too.......in fact it seemed like it would actually be really hard to avoid Hell at all and the way it was sold to us was not appealling.......spending eternity in burning flames and fire!We needed to behave perfectly to get into Heaven it seemed. The nuns used to draw a big white oval on the blackboard and colour it in with white chalk, then demonstrate visually by rubbing some white out, how everytime we told a lie or did something naughty our soul became unclean and therfore not whole. Of course the way to rectfy this was to go to Confession and repent all of our sins, which we did every couple of weeks or so. I do remember thinking my brother Mark would never go to Heaven after he had shouted out in class one time that "Mrs. Clare has big busts". What was he even thinking?
The good thing about the school though was that we all learnt to read music and we all learnt to knit and crochet too which I really enjoyed, especially the knitting and it's a skill I'm so glad I have. Over the years I used it to knit tiny baby clothes for the small stillborn babies when premature baby clothes were not readily available. I think anything that is handmade for a baby is done with love and I was sad a few years back when Moms would turn their noses up at hand knitted clothes, but now as with anything in life, they are fashionable again and I just love seeing hand made cardigans and booties on babies again as they are just so beautiful and made of course with love.
Other things I remeber from school are playiong Hopscotch, Jacks, Clapping Songs, British Bull Dog, Skipping and the thing you do when you tie a load of rubber bands together and tie it around your ankles and make shapes......but I can't rememeber what it's called now. These were all fun things and I do look back with some good memories from this time of course.
My best friend at this school was called Farah and I met her on my first day there and we became great friends and it was even more exciting for us when a four years later we found out our Mum's were having babies on the same day. They were actaully born one day apart but it was still great fun for us.
Farah became poorly and was admitted to hospital when we were seven and it turned out she had diabetes which of course I didn't understand at all back then, but was fascinated when she had to do all these expeiments on her nrine in a test tube and give herself injections regarly too. I often wonder how she is doing as the last I heard from her was when we were about twenty five and she had qualified as a Lawyer. Well done Farah!
We spent a lot of our time outside of school also doing church activities with the Nuns such as weekly Benediction on a Tuesday evening, church cleaning and also attending all the reliogious processions dressed in white dresses and veils like little brides ......brides of God we were told! We would carry baskets of flowers at these processions and place one down on the floor every three steps whilst saying prayers and we were known as the "Strewers" The good thing about these processions was that they always eneded up with a party in the church hall and us kids got to run around and have fun whilst the adults had a drink and socialized together. There's probably lots more to say about my time at St. Joseph's, but I think you will get the jist of how it was back then by what I've said already.
Because we were living in Porthill at this time and with my Mum having Mark who would have been around one and also pregnant with Jane, I actaully travelled to school on the bus......alone! And it wasn't a school bus either!
Mum used to walk me to the top of the culdesac and put me on the bus and I duly got off at the top of the road next to the playground. I remember there was an older girl who got on at the next stop on, who also went to my school and so I used to sit with hern for comapny and safety. She was definitely under eleven though as St. Josephs's was only a Primary School. She also got the bus back home with me and I therefore knew to get off the bus at the next stop after her where my Mum would be waiting for me. This was all well and good until one day when she got off a stop earlier for some reason and therefore so did I!
I think this is the first time I ever felt fear in my life and I was petrified as I didn't recognise where I was and I panicked and I can still see myself trying to pull the rubber bits of the bus doors apart, screaming at the driver to let me back in! It was awful, but thankfully I was able to get back on and home safely to my Mum.
My memories start here at my first school because I don't really have any memories from before I was three years old and I certainly don't recall Mark or Jane being born either, although I do have some flashback memories of falling over whilst running to the ice cream man and cutting my knee open badly and I do still have the scar from that! My memory really stars to kick in much better from when I was eight years old though and it is very vivid to say the least. I often wonder if this is the same for everyone or just me?
So I will leave my Primary School days here and move on to my Senior School days next.
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