III. Elementary School
GOING TO SCHOOL
Funny thing about going to school. You set
out from the gate and you'd only see along
our Vale Avenue up to the corner, yet
when you got there, you still only saw Mason
Street as far as the rise. You couldn't go wrong
'cause it was there that you crossed the croft, hidden
when you passed the Co-op. Each corner told you
where to go next, and they all came in their turn.
Just imagine if after Queen Street the view
turned into Chorley New Road! No, you had to learn
you've to walk that much farther for every bend.
You can never run on at once to the end.
BOCCHERINI: MINUET FROM THE STRING QUINTET IN E
Was a minuet Boccherini wrote. It
started with 'Da-du-da-du-da!', a dainty
tune, easy to sing. It helped us to sit
quietly after our play, ready to do
something else like a lesson or a story.
That little tune seemed to mean all the bright new
books she kept on her shelf, the fireguard, the fire
happily dancing and warm, her spry red hair
bouncing out like a brush. But how could the wire
wriggled inside the fireguard, the windsor chair
with its varnished rails shining in afternoon
sunlight, flames playing peek-a-boo, be that tune?
LEARNING LETTERS
You'd see 'S' as a snake, but some way away
because snakes must have eyes and scales, and a tail
that goes thin at the end. You could see an 'A'
like a pyramid, though you would have to draw
some steps in. In 'B' some boys couldn't fail
to see two breasts, though they'd put some dots in. You saw
'O' as a ball or as a hole depending on what
you saw round it. And 'I' would be anyone
standing up for himself. The poor boys did not
draw 'I' as a capital. Everyone
should know that! For yourself don't put a little
letter. Something 'unique' needs a capital.
LEARNING MY TIMES-TABLES
When we went into prayers into the big hall,
I didn't pray much, for every times-table
was up round the room. There were some on each wall.
Found I was learning them funny ways. The Threes
had a pattern — 3, 6, 9 — I was able,
adding up 1,2 and 1, 5 and 1,8 (these
weren't the only ones), to get 3, 6 and 9
all over again. And the 9's went reverse
after 45 —54! It was fine
(see, they all made 9, too!). No need 'to rehearse'
as Miss Walker said. All the rest of the folk
went on praying. I learnt, by a sort of joke.
NUMBERS
Though you knew all your tens, you had to learn all
twelve of the twelves because of changing money,
and you had to be able to add your small
change over where the twelves came, so you had two
sorts of addings, subtractings to know. Funny,
if all our pennies added up to a new
shilling, fourteen or seventeen, then we would
know all the sums for those numbers. It could be
thirty-four or three-hundred-and-seven! Should
we also learn all of those? Why, you could see
numbers hiding inside a wood out of view,
and we only had tamed a very small few.
'PROBLEMS'
In arithmetic she would give you
'problems'. Was only the tricks really she'd taught
you already in numbers, but you had to
work out just what it all meant. There was always
a man who had a load of bricks and had bought
them at Tuesday's price to sell at Wednesday's,
but he didn't sell all of them — the rest sold
worse on Thursday. And there was the man who
filled a bath with a hole in, or had an old
car that went slower the next day. Was it true
that our life had these 'problems' that counting would
solve, as long as you're sure that you've understood?
RED INK
In the bottle the red ink made an amber
jewel of glass, not like our black blotty ink
in the white pots. She, when marking your grammar,
mental arithmetic, or anything else, would
quickly take out her fountain pen, in a blink
ticked it or crossed it, make sure you understood
as the red began drying. Bright green gleamings
shone on the nib as she turned it. You'd see down
all the register page the neat red slantings,
beautiful zigzags. Some days how she would frown
at the black oughts that spoiled them. On there was praise
and was blame in those inks for us and our days.
THE PARTITION
There was one big partition between Standards
3-and-4 and Standards 5-and-6, very
tall, of glass and of varnished wood, the blackboards
folding as well. Like a concertina it
would go hiding away at the side. Any
lesson you'd see the headmaster's big head flit
about there like a ball on a wall, nodding,
shaking to words. When it shook hard, we could just
hear the shouts. The partition would go crossing
over in grooves like a tram, and the chalk dust
would be swept away. Holidays had begun.
There'd be space for the party, the dance, the fun.
LIFE STUDY
In a sort of dark greenhouse next to Standard
Four all the plant study things were kept, as well
as the tadpoles and minnows and the mustard-
seeds and the bean-shoots. We were studying life,
and those parts of it would wriggle, bend and swell
there in the green-glass gloom. Something strange was rife
in the twilight, in jars and pots and round globes,
smelling of dankness and wet roots and shoots. We
each put beans in some blotting-paper: pale lobes,
wormy and prying horns became 'botany'.
They were all in the school, a crucible
for analysis, all captive, all visible.
THE CHRYSALIS
For our Life Study lessons people brought jam
jars and inside there'd be big caterpillars
that went nosing and humping around. A tram
passing would slide through the glass but the creature
didn't know. It just munched, its furry whiskers
opening, closing like scissors. Miss Hester
always saw that it got what it wanted to
eat, so it lived in its prison but without
knowing that was the place it was in. It knew,
though, what was the time to turn into a stout
shiny 'chrysalis', changing inside, no doubt.
Never saw, though, the butterfly coming out.
THE CUCKOO
Had a lesson about the Cuckoo. Was nice
when in the spring you heard 'Cuckoo!', like a flute
playing somewhere in paradise,
all the leaves clean and so fresh like little fans,
tiny parasols like the one for the cute
fairy on top of the cake. The bird had plans,
though, I thought, that were not nice at all. The hen
laid her egg sneakily inside another
bird's nest. After a while the big nestling, when
both the new parents were off somewhere, stronger
than the other chicks, heaved them out. Nightmarish
it looked, squat like a toad, so puffed up, selfish.
THE NITROGEN CYCLE
There were maggots in dead birds. Daddy said they
'scavenged' away the nasty corpses and let
all the plants have a feed. The priest said our 'clay'
turned back to clay. Mr. Ainscough always went
out, a shovel in hand, in order to get
horse manure: roses could make a lovely scent
from that smelly old stuff. And all our business
went down the pipes to the sewage-works to those
big cylindrical tubs to be made stinkless,
turned into fertilizer. And no one chose
to be part of this strange sort of tit for tat.
Was the theme of the song 'Ilkley Moor baht 'at.'
'BARBARA ALLEN'
We sang 'Barbara Allen'. When she went up to
Jemmy Grove, that was a nasty thing that she said,
telling him that she thought he was dying. You
don't go reminding people that they're going
to die. Showed she had some kind of hate instead.
Wasn't just playing at doctors. She was showing
that she wanted to score off him, make her seem
ever so big. It was the sin Vanity.
All the youths they cried 'Well-a-day!' for this dream
girl and she knew it. But I'd think, a pity
if you're born being beautiful. Must be hard
not to think you're the tops. Still, put me on guard.
THE IRISH SONGS
We sang lots of Irish songs at school. 'Green
banners would kiss the mountain air' and the 'bold
Fenian men, heads erect, eyes front' would be seen
'making the Saxon yield.' And the Saxon would
string you up on the gallows, bound and blindfold,
if you were brave and wore green for the good
of old Ireland. I loved the marching tune for
'Kelly, the boy from Killane', though the 'gold sun
of freedom' was darkened in days of yore.
Redcoats had routed us, but all had been won —
now a nation, we all could forget the past,
and Miss Hester said we were all friends at last.
THE BEAUTIFUL TUNES
Thought a tune was a funny thing. On the stave
there would be crotchets and quavers all dangling
like the spoons in the kitchen, a wobbly wave
rising and falling. Sing just one of them out of place
and Miss Hester was cross, said you 'were mangling
what the composer intended.' You could trace
a nice tune 'cause it seemed so right. You wouldn't
want to sing any note wrong. It seemed to go
in one way and no other. You just couldn't
sing a mistake. What made a melody flow
in so lovely a way? And where did they come
from, those beautiful tunes to sing and to hum?
ENGLISH MUSIC
For our folk-dancing Miss Hester played English
music. I liked it so much. It reminded
me of Mammy's own record, 'Greensleeves'. Tinglish
feelings would come when I heard a folk-song sung
like 'Brigg Fair' for it made me feel contented.
There was a song called 'Bredon Hill' where they'd rung
loud bells just when he'd been on the top with his
beautiful girl, and you heard the bells ringing
both for happy and sad. In the melodies
always you'd recognize there was a something
in the notes or the rhythm made you belong.
Made me want to make up and sing my own song.
'JERUSALEM'
And Miss Hester said Jesus really wasn't
over in England and when the hymn said so
it was just to mean 'holiness was present
here in our hearts,' there was love among us all,
and it said that Jerusalem, too, although
it was in Palestine really, you could call
it our capital, call London by its name
only if all of us pretended it was,
and so hard it became it. There wasn't flame
either that burned on your bow. It was because
by bows, arrows and chariots you 'intend
something else.' It is better to let's-pretend.
'LINDEN LEA'
Was a lovely song 'Linden Lea' Miss Hester
taught us one summer. Made me want to set out
right away on 'the open road'. No 'meäster'
giving you orders, no 'dark-room'd towns' to live
in, but flowery glades and oak trees about
you, with the birds whistling, apples that would give
themselves down to the touch of your hand, a stream
flowing by, 'bubblen in its bed'. The melody
makes you happy — it calls you into a dream.
There the the keys on the piano softly
and strangely unlocking, unlocking. Can feel
that the dark-room'd school isn't what's real.
THE FIRST TWO QUESTIONS IN THE CATECHISM
Who made you? 'God made me.' Why did He make you?
'To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him, in this
world and forever in the next.' Was it true
God really needed servants? If He could do
all He wanted, 'omnipotent', then service
wasn't required. Would be nicer if we knew
that he needed our help. When you get to know
somebody well, you find out what they like, and
then, especially if you get to love them, show
just in what way you do lending them a hand
where they can't help themselves. Wouldn't be odd,
after all, to believe in that kind of god.
THE TWELVE VIRTUES
It was 'Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience', and then
'Benignity, Goodness, Longanimity,
Mildness, Faith, Modesty, Consonancy' — men
just as for women for the last one, she said
it was special to memorize — 'Chastity'.
These were the Twelve Virtues to know that you read
in the little fat Catechism. To chant
them all together put them in your mind.
If a Protestant asked you, and if you can't
say why you're Catholic, he's won, but would he find
that the words made it clear? The seventh we had seen
meant 'forbearance' but what did 'forbearance' mean?
POPE ST. GREGORY'S JOKE
It was when Pope St. Gregory one day out
walking in Rome saw a procession. She told
us, Miss Hester, he saw passing by about
fifty or more men in chains brought from the war
back in Britain. He saw their hair was like gold
silk, and their eyes were so blue. Soon as he saw
them he asked who they were and was told they were
'Angles'. 'Not Angles, but Angels! ' was what he
said. Was queer to be looking up at her,
seeing Miss Hester laughing and we were free
to laugh too at his joke, again and again.
Though our hair wasn't gold, we were Englishmen.
EMPIRE
In the school was a picture of a sailor
pointing away to the sea. There were two boys,
dressed in Tudor costume listening to a tale, a
story of far adventures. Was 'Sir Walter
Raleigh's Boyhood'. Empire! lands of viceroys,
sahibs and nabobs, stretching from Gibraltar
to Tasmania, founded by explorers,
Captain Cooks, Francis Drakes, Clives of India.
They had put red on the map everywhere for us,
biggest of all! The goddess Victoria,
an imperial queen, had guided our fate.
The red showed what had made the English so great.
'DRAKE'S DRUM'
There were stories in which dead heroes came to
help when their country was at risk. The ghosts fought
all alongside the living, and the foe grew
fearful and fled. Peter Dawson sang 'Drake's Drum'
in which Drake said his drum should at last be brought
home back to Plymouth, and when 'Armadas come',
it was then we must strike it again to bring
him from the dead to fight with us. It wasn't
just Chinese who praised ancestors. Was a thing
all of us did, so there might be a moment,
said Miss Hester, his spirit would be needed.
Was the way in a war that you succeeded.
'SEA-FEVER'
We learnt 'I must go down to the seas again.'
John Masefield's poem was all about being
a brave seafarer ready to cross the main,
facing the 'flung spray and the blown spume' (she told
us that 'spume' meant the froth blown up from the heaving
waves). It was fine to travel, be bold
like a gypsy or vagabond, a rover
tramping along with the heaven above you
and the road below. Were meant to go over
beckoning hills in search of the good, the true,
and the beautiful. Scott's ship, you would board it
at once. Trouble was, we couldn't afford it.
'THE SCARECROW'
Was a poem by Walter de la Mare. I
learnt it off by heart and could say it at school or if
Mammy asked me to at home when someone dropped by
who was a lover of poetry. 'Get lost
in the verse!' said Miss Hester. So I was 'stiff
as mail at morning prime' when the winter frost
made me 'flame' in the sunrise. The seasons' change
meant that I had to wait without minding while
all the fields remained barren, but, when 'my strange
master, Man' sowed all his seeds, then came my trial:
I'd 'to lift void eyes' ('void' meant empty ) to
keep a watch for the crows. Made sure the corn grew.
'ABOU BEN ADHEM'
We all said we loved God, but how did you
do it? So to help us, Miss Hester made us learn
a long poem, 'Abou Ben Adhem'. Abou,
he was like us, not knowing how to, feeling
very guilty because he didn't. To earn
God's love forever you had to do something
very special, but Abou's name wasn't there
put in the list that the angel had. But he
said he 'loved all his fellow-men'. Was a prayer
really. The next night the angel said, 'Come see.
Here's your name at the top of the list!' Was true.
But there needn't be God if that's all you do.
'THE PIGTAIL HUNG BEHIND HIM'
For a concert at school I was dressed up in
satin to say a poem. A Chinaman
with a pigtail was talking. He would spin
this way and that to try to catch sight of it.
How they laughed in the last verse when I began
whirling around, always at the opposite
to the place where the pigtail was. But backstage,
though, I would show all the people who praised me
what my mammy had done to make me the age
wanted. My little black cap like a monk's, see,
has the pigtail sewn on. It would spoil the stunt
if you turn it around while standing in front.
THE MOONLIGHT IN 'THE CLOUD'
In 'The Cloud' were some lines that described moonlight
breaking right through to make reflections on seas,
lakes and rivers. The picture was once so bright
just as Miss Hester was reading it, it seemed
that I'd seen such a lovely view. Was a tease,
though, 'cause it disappeared, just as if I'd dreamed
it, the moment it made me happier than
I'd ever been. It had gone right out of reach
and I couldn't remember it. Sort of ran
off right away, went dimmer and dimmer each
time I tried, as if imps were keen to screen it
more. Could only remember that I'd seen it.
ALFRED THE GREAT
We were told that King Alfred the Great had learned to
read when his mother, Osburga, had offered
a fine book as a prize to her sons. We knew
we would have prizes, too, for what we had learned.
They called Alfred the 'Great' because he towered
over them all in his learning. He had earned
what he got. Was because he so loved his folk
that, when she asked him to watch the cakes, he burnt
them. He spied on the Danes, and cast off their yoke,
keeping his land free. And if he hadn't learnt
what his tutor had set him, England wouldn't
have made all the world civilized. It couldn't.
'WARSAW — AN ANCIENT CITY!'
In the school Mammy went to they made you chant
what they were teaching. All the teachers, they
had been taught to believe it true that you can't
learn if you don't repeat what they were saying.
In geography each day she had to say
'Warsaw — an ancient city!' Sort of playing
it was. 'Warsaw — a ancient city!' Funny
calling it 'ancient'. It made you think of Rome
or the ruins in Egypt. Couldn't study
that way what Poland was like. A metronome
knew as much. But a chant makes you a jackdaw
for my memory's stuck 'ancient' to 'Warsaw'.
COLOUR-COMBING
Doing crafts in the elementary school
we would be given paint, paper and cardboard.
Cut the card like a comb, then made a thick pool,
all of one colour, like soup or blood or slime
or a syrupy ink; and then next you poured
some on the paper, and Miss said it was 'to prime
it' to take the design. With the comb of card
you had to draw it out over the paper.
You made tartans and fences. You found you'd barred
all of the space with criss-crossings. Could shape a
fence with parallel wriggles and bumps. You found,
though, that Miss didn't want you to twist it round.
POTATO-PRINTING
Brought potatoes to school. Though Albert didn't,
some of us helped him out. They were for designs
in the art lesson. Found it very pleasant
cutting shapes in the solid potato, damp
and yet firm. Then we had to draw careful lines
there on the paper as guides, and to paint the stamp
with the colour you wanted. You had to make
sure that the print kept its place in all the squares.
What was nice, though, was each one made a mistake,
pressing the paint in a different way. No pairs,
though they were all the same! Each one a misfit.
To repeat it exactly would have spoiled it.
MAKING RAFFIA MATS
We made raffia mats. There were hanks of it
all hanging loose in all colours like ponies'
tails. Their soft swishy noises, slick lights that flit
smoothly along them, their tangy new smell, their
bright greens, reds and deep blues — Chose from these glories,
just as you wished, to make your mat, round or square.
What I liked was the waving this way and that
over and under — next time round, under and
over, tight in, alternate. It made your mat
stiffen up, tautly. It wouldn't let your hand
through. Then nothing could hurt it, trim on the frame.
Could use it for plates, make another the same.
HARBUTT'S 'PLASTICINE' (I)
Harbutt's 'Plasticine'. Miss Norris had long rolls
of it, wrapped in a brown greaseproof you could peel
off like silk. At once hands would make snakes and holes,
and opaque bubbles, finger-printed, you could
pop. It looked much more the more air you could seal
inside, farting the louder when someone stood
on it. I could make boats, the grain of the desk
a sea. Oars used to droop. The sailors would sag,
their blank faces, round shoulders, warped limbs grotesque
as they hunched at their task, as grey as their flag.
In the 'Oxo' tin all had to go at four.
Next day, crushed flat, they were no good any more.
DRAWING WHAT WE LIKED
When Miss Hester in drawing lessons let us
draw what we liked as a special treat, I would
draw a sailing-ship sailing, with cumulus
clouds in the background and a treasure
island there off the bow. I would make it good
doing the 'shading' on the hull that Teacher
had herself shown us all when we did the vase
filled with the tulips she'd brought. I'd put me right
at the stern at the wheel. Other boys drew cars,
planes, and new motor-bikes. The girls drew starlight
scenes with fairies, princesses. But Albert filled
his whole page with a war, soldiers being killed.
THE BOYS WITH SHAVEN HEADS
It was Julia Buckley, Kevin Kilcoyne,
and Kathleen Doran and me had the better
books, much farther on. Reading them, we could join
all in a group helping each other. We could
do geography too (coloured books). Letter-
work was behind us now, for if you were good,
you went faster and faster. Those six-year-olds,
those boys with shaven heads like convicts or slaves,
were not able to do it. In their households
books weren't available. Lots of reading saves
you such trouble when you're grown-up. It scares
you to think that your head could be shaved like theirs.
CATCHING HEAD-LICE
Mammy used a strange double-headed comb, fine
sharp teeth for drawing the nits out of your hair.
With one hand on the top, down from the hairline,
pulling so tightly it hurt, she drew those teeth firm
with the other hand scraping your scalp, would spare
none of it. Jerking it through, she made me squirm
but her shout kept me still, hearing the nasty
clicks as she killed them. Was good for you. You'd caught
them from other boys who had mothers who were lazy.
You wouldn't want a mother like that, who thought
washing clothes much too much, would rather shirk.
Now, that metaphor 'nit-picking' doesn't work.
'DICK'
It was always a 'dick' as he brandished
it in the bog. Like a soft, pink, split acorn.
And they always would snigger as if they wished
something was different from what the teachers
said. You'd hear 'Dirty dick! Dirty Dick!' They'd 'sworn'.
'Dirty' was easy: kinds of nasty creatures
were all there in the slime, and you had to clean
terribly well down there. Why should your thing
make them snigger like that? And what did 'dick' mean?
My Uncle Richard was called that. They would swing
them about just to see who could wee highest.
Had to hide that I felt myself the shyest.
MUSCLES
There were boys who would show off their muscles. They
clenched their fists tightly, asked you to feel how hard
they became. But I'd wonder how you could say
it was your doing when God gave you your arm.
But I knew it was just to put you on guard,
warning you off, saying they could do you some harm
if you tried to seem better. They'd read about
Hercules, Strang the Terrible, knew muscles
gave you power in this world. Wasn't any doubt,
everyone knew. But if only in tussles,
fights and bullying muscles acted, power
was just wasted in making others cower.
CHARLES ATLAS
At the back of the Rover there would always
be small advertisements, and one always there
was Charles Atlas. He said that you would amaze
all your friends, boys and girls, if you sent two-and-
sixpence. That would provide right away 'a rare
opportunity to develop your physique'. The legend
was that Atlas could hold up the world, so it
wasn't his real name. They'd grow huge arms like his,
make their trunk a trapezium, be so fit,
bunching their muscles like cobbles. With bodies
like that they'd be the best. Kind of pushover
it was, hidden in the back of the Rover.
SECRET LANGUAGES
There were boys who would talk in Aygo-Paygo
lagangwagage. Funny because we all knew
it. They were just pretending. It was a show-
off to show you couldn't be part of their gang,
being clever as if they could speak French, few,
special and private. It was a sort of slang
that you couldn't make use of when grown-ups were
there, although that was unfair because often
when they meant to be private themselves, they'd blur
all that they said with big words. Couldn't listen,
only hear when they hinted and nodded. Why
couldn't truth be made plain when children were by?
RIDDLES
They would ask you, 'Why did the coal scuttle?' You
couldn't know, could you, the answer. A really
silly question like that was only meant to
set you a puzzle when they had the answer
all the time. But it made you feel uneasy
trying to think how some coal that was just a
sort of stone, could have legs and could run sway.
Grinning with glee, because only they knew what
would make proper sense. It was a sort of play
but it was you was the toy. Was tommyrot
when they said was because 'it saw the kitchen
sink.' For 'scuttle' and 'sink' had meanings hidden.
PETROL REFINERY DIAGRAM
Elementary school exhibition. One
exhibit held me. Sort of tube diagram
to present all the process in skeleton-
form of a petrol refinery. Liquids
in bright reds and bright greens with slow bubbles swam
down and along, up and round, following grids
and obeying the most awkward of corners.
Bubbles would slip round as if greased, all precise,
by the labels and explanations, orders,
formulae, calculations. The whole device
was a-hum. But what if some slight corrosion
caused some pipe to leak? Might be an explosion.
HANDWRITING COMPETITIONS
There were handwriting competitions. Special
paper with printing on the top, the lines pink.
Money prizes, calligraphy sets. People
all over Bolton went in for it. You'd watch
how you dipped in your pen: you'd to put the ink
just in the right place, so no blot and no blotch
from your fingers. The right place, though, was funny
'cause it was your writing. Had to be right 'cause
it was you. Only you knew, to win money,
how to put curls on the tails. I thought it was
strange that there was a way if only I'd see,
but how could I be sure I put down
THE FREE MILK
You had milk before break. I liked pushing my
thumb through the little trap-door in the middle,
and then licking the cream off. You didn't buy
it — it was nice it was free. Some days I'd save
up the cream till the last, but then the little
left in the bottom couldn't be sucked up. Gave
you the chance to drink all of it if you kept
your straw just near the top. but then your milk stayed
thin and watery-blue. Could shake it, except
then you would miss the lovely thick taste. I'd dream
as I sucked it that cows gave nothing but cream.
THE POLICEMAN'S VISIT TO SCHOOL
A policeman one day came to school to talk
all about safety when crossing the road. He
said so many young children, they tried to walk
out from the pavement not looking either to
right or left. The first thing, he said, was to see
what you were doing. Although he smiled, his blue
creaking uniform, big heavy helmet high
up on the desk, they reminded you of what
a policeman was for. If you didn't try
hard to be good, of if you only forgot,
he'd be like the fast lorry and run you down,
even hang you in prison in the big town.
THE SCHOOL CHRISTMAS PRESENTS
We were given at Christmas 'Oxo' painting
books at school, and a 'Sunlight Soap' disc to whiz,
Ovaltiney free comics, and a walking
'Force Wheat' man that you cut out yourself and linked
with tin fasteners. We got out the brushes
and the paint. On the right-hand page the distinct
picture, colours inside fat black lines, skies blue,
cauliflower clouds, fields each a flawless green,
and an 'Oxo' coach, packed with children, that flew
up the white road and beyond. Painting it was fine.
I scorned those who couldn't keep inside the line.
THE HOUSES-OF-PARLIAMENT CUT-OUT
At St. Mary's School Christmas we were given
presents, an Oxo painting-book, a Bisto
whizzer. One was meant 'for the New Citizen' —
it was a cut-out Houses-of-Parliament.
Needed very sharp scissors. You didn't know
how it all fitted together, what was meant
to go here and go there. Couldn't help bending
some of the pinnacles, and some buttresses
stuck on sideways. But, with a bit of mending,
got it together, the fussy recesses
and the towers. Got dusty, no longer neat,
and you wished you could start with another sheet.
CHRISTMAS PARTY
The partitions were back. The whole school became
hall for the party. Our mothers had made cake,
jellies, mince pies and sandwiches. Was a game
having the tea with your friends, with the teachers
too, and Father O'Henry present to make
everything holy, even the big crackers,
paper hats and the unrolling snakes. After
tea all the tables were cleared away and we
joined in Palais Glides, Musical Chairs. Laughter,
gramophone music, sing-songs, a lovely tree
with each bauble the whole party in tiny
gold or crimson or green, twinkling and shiny.
THE PLAYGROUND TRANSFORMED
By the wall and the fence was prison, castle.
With your feet on the fence's lowest rung, it
became bridge, and the flagstones untouchable
sea. The concrete supports by the lavatories
were a ledge that was wide enough to permit
all the climbers to hold on against furies
of snow, save where an inexplicable fight
thrust a victim who screamed to his death inches
below. Alleys between walls allowed the flight
of defeated brigades; the narrow pinches
became passes for last stands. And all the school grounds
could be ours, though the church steps were out of bounds.
THE FLAGS IN THE PLAYGROUND
Liked the flags in the playground. Showers
spotted them: first, a few drops like the stars when
there's a bright moon, then thick like daisy-flowers.
Dusty in summer, they were deserts we flew
over, hundreds of miles, grey, yellow, cayenne
red, with dry salt-pans ringed with white, Timbuktu
where the hollow roads crossed. In the heavy rain
Canada's lakes overflowed, in spate swept down
in broad fans or were knit to a torrent-skein
rushed to a flood where the bubbles spread in brown
fleets. A world underfoot. There we fought our wars
over real geological sandy shores.
THE DEATH OF HARRY HULSE
Harry Hulse there before Easter, but not there
after. We said a prayer for him. 'So sorry
for the Hulses,' said Mammy. We had to share
sorrow, Miss Hester said. All the grown-ups, so
big, weren't able to stop death, for nobody
could. Was a second cousin, yet he could go
just as quickly as anyone else. Death came
so many ways and yet it was the same death.
It was odd there was something always the same:
nothing else was. It saw you had no more breath
to want anything. Harry now could neither
walk, nor play, nor care what you wanted either.
CLOUDS
Could say clouds were like clocks, their hands moving on,
showing how time wasn't still, but they'd cheat you.
If you looked up a minute later, they'd gone.
Others had taken their places or they'd done
a quick-change act, but how could they? Yes, the blue
stayed as it was, unmoving, but clouds had fun
changing shape while you looked somewhere else. But still,
watching as closely as you could, you couldn't
catch them at it. The cirrus were shifting, frill,
cobweb, and fine silky smudge, but you wouldn't
notice till they were gone. Sit still, but your pulse
will go beating on. I'd think of the dead Harry Hulse.
THE CONFETTI
When we came out at playtime, sometimes there'd been
weddings. Confetti was all over the church
steps, the colours of sugared almonds, yellow,
pink, and pale blue. The bride and groom, like a queen
and a king, had come out just there. Girls would search
round for the lucky horseshoes and then would go
counting then with 'He loves me', 'He loves me not.'
But all the stars and the circles they'd leave stuck
on the stone, or in corners blown there to dot
railings and dirt and cigarette ends. The luck
and the joy they had shown in clouds like flowers.
For a minute or two they had flown in showers.
HEARSE
You could see from the playground the hearse waiting.
One hearse for all of us. It was so close
and yet so far away. They were placating
horrible Death with that Rolls-Royce, the best car
for the god who so frightened us. Grandiose,
silvery ornaments, a plate-glass armoire
filled with showiest flowers, not showy enough
just as they were, but wired as hearts and crosses,
and the coffin piano-polished, a bluff
no one believed, all those gleamings and glosses
couldn't hide what we knew — the shoulders, that bend,
there, the head, and your feet down there at the end.
RETURNING TO SCHOOL AFTER NORWAY
What a moment of triumph! Entering school
right after coming back from Norway, and straight
through the headmaster's lesson, against the rule
(it was the middle of lesson time), Standard
Six and Seven all working hard, to be late
yet not be blamed, be able to walk forward
to his desk to explain, all sunburnt though
wasn't a summer outside. Was showing off
that I knew, as the only pupil to go
off on a ship abroad. But I didn't scoff
at my friends when they asked. Was awkward, I knew,
the whole school hadn't been abroad with me too.
AUTUMN LEAVES
I liked autumn leaves. Seeing red and yellow
trees was exciting. When I asked Miss Hester
what the reason was why there were rainbow
colours where only green ones had been, she told us
about chlorophyll, then said it was better
if we remembered that God would enfold us
in His glory when death came. I thought of bright
blood of the Sacred Heart, and the golden ones
could be haloes, and some that were almost white,
people in Purgatory, and shiny bronze
all the angels avenging. The black ones fled
to the gutter of hell. Those were really dead.
FOG IN THE AFTERNOON
I liked fog on an afternoon in winter.
Getting near four o'clock, the school windows would
only show the inside reflected on the
yellowy cloud outside. Even the clanging
trams could only make glows as they passed. I could
think when I got out of school that the walking
was not mine but the pavement's, that corners came
sailing around to fit my way, that a lamp
marked my course with a buoy that could only aim
straight as I steered. The fog had to push its damp
waves of cold apart for me, and leave me dry.
It was forced to bring home to me by-and-by.
SEEING THINGS
Saw the trees through the schoolroom window. A bough
would make faces that slipped up and down through each
other: nose became chin, moustache became brow,
and the horrible man became beautiful
girl. The galloping horse's leg was a leech
sucking blood, and the head of the charging bull
was a Christ with His arms outspread. The Laughing
Cavalier was screaming as a demon,
and the dour Roundhead opened an alarming
mouth, swallowing clouds. The chameleon
shapes, disguised as each other, I couldn't see:
they were all really disguises of me.
SECURITY
Mammy said I had lost my pen, but someone
stole it at school. There were such nasty people
about, ready to steal. I knew why it had gone:
what I had liked it for — the transparent bit
where you saw all the ink — must have made evil
thoughts fill their minds. With a battery in it
and a secret switch, what of when they tried to
steal; it, a light flashed that blinded them! Then they
would be sure to be found out, and let's say you
can be the one to decide just when he may
have his sight back! It wouldn't work, though, because
just imagine you couldn't find who it was.
THE BULLY
My big cousin, who heard I was going to
let my pals have a go on my bike, was there
after school with them too. A bike was a new
thing back then. Teddy Cunningham and Tommy
Morris first had a try. It was only fair
Philip should. I did not let anybody.
But the afternoons grew to routine. Philip
had the longest of all every time. When I said
'There's my tea waiting for me,' I saw his lip
stiffen, his fist clench. I sweated with fear, instead.
When I'd pushed him off, some men bandaged his knee,
and, 'You bloody bully!' they shouted at me.
USING A TIME-MACHINE
H. G. Wells in a book had a time-machine.
How very wonderful it would be to go back
and put right all the things that weren't; those, I mean,
gave you a nasty jolt when you thought of them,
say, like Philip's two-fist attack
making me give him a ride, like a ransom
or a blackmail. I'd say, looking straight in his
eye, 'You're a friend, aren't you?' Then it would never
have got through to my pulling him off. Catch is,
thinking like that, isn't really clever,
'cause again and again, starting the rescue,
you repeat and repeat, 'You're a friend, aren't you?'
THE REASON FOR THE CANE
They said, 'Hold out your hand!' Sooner or later
we all did. Some were slow: like a train signal
that was stuck, the arm stayed down. They said greater
pain would come if you left it there, and we would
see it rise for its gift from the powerful
stick. The flat hand would cripple in, and we could
feel the wince, and the wringing that wouldn't rid
him of hurt. What was that greater pain they spoke
of, I wondered. They knew they had to forbid
us our blots and our lateness. They said a stroke
was a kindness because. Worse than the cane
if the arm stayed down ?— What was that greater pain?
THE CANING
I can't even remember which hand he caned.
I can't even remember what it was for.
Yes, Miss Hester had told him, she had complained
about my — talking again out of turn? — failure
to do homework? — a cheeky back-answer? — or
being late? I remember, however, the
brutal thickness of bamboo (a walking-stick?)
with brown stains like his fingers; his broad shoulders
and his height; his thinned lips; my feeling sick
to see ink-pots so still. It was a teacher's
right, they said. I remember the pain and shame,
for my burning hand could not keep hold of blame.
HIDING A PAIN
If you fall off your bike Mr. Lee always
said you should laugh — it was the best way to feel
better quickly, but I'd think, with just a graze
that would be okay, but suppose you really
had a nasty crash, went right over the wheel
coming down bang on your head, but nobody
could tell 'cause all your hair hid the lump away
though it was throbbing and throbbing, if you laughed
all the time, all your friends would think you okay,
take not a bit of notice — it would be daft
'cause you might have a fractured skull, so to hide
all your suffering might mean you finally died.
THE CARTESIAN DIVER
Outside school at the tram-stop there was a man
with some jars on a card-table. 'If you're glad
that these kiddies are here, rise up!' Stranger than
life, a glass tadpole, tiger-striped, goggle-eyed,
like a miniature demon, silently mad,
to the top of the water rose in a glide.
'If you're sad they won't buy, go down again. Drown!'
Wobbling dolefully, down it sank, obedient
to the death. Pennies fell for this slave and clown
(there were more of them trapped for the insolent
buyer). I had no pennies. Those richer than me
cried, 'Be glad!' or 'Drown!' in tyrannical glee.
ELEVEN-PLUS
The Scholarship was at the Mechanics
Institute, first-floor, with the trams clanging past
like glass barges. Protestants and Catholics
all were together, so Dennis was there too.
All the practice with IQ tests now at last
proved it was not so bad, and arithmetic, you
just did what you could. English was a treat.
Writing the composition was best. I did
one on 'Cinemas' — thought it a sort of cheat
knowing so much. But I was really stupid —
could have used the word 'auditorium'! Why
did I tell them I had? Was really a lie.
FIRST DAY OF THE HOLIDAYS
Saw the butterflies jiggering like a typist's
fingers as if in two minds which way to go.
It was lovely the morning. All the dawn mists
turned to invisible air by the bright sun
like your breath that has vanished off the window.
Holiday freedom! First day! What's to be done?
It was nice not to make up your mind, not to
think about making it up! To hear Mammy
at the sink washing up, look up to the blue,
dash down the garden. Even hens seemed happy
with their aunty eyes glaring. Stared back in glee,
for the world had become what it ought to be.