Gift from the Gallowgate (29 page)

I taught her at Hazlehead Primary School and, even then, she was always anxious to help. Nowadays, she occasionally takes in some shopping for me. I mostly order over the telephone and have
groceries and frozen food delivered perhaps every six weeks, and both Sheila and Alan ask every week if I need them to get anything for me.

With no chemist anywhere near us, I always tried to order repeat prescriptions so that Alan could bring the necessary items to us on a Saturday, but inevitably there were times when it was not a
repeat prescription but a new and urgently-needed medicine. This was quite a worry until I learned that several chemists now offer to deliver. This is a lifesaver, literally.

To go back to what I was saying before, I come to an event that I could scarcely believe could happen to us. When we moved to our present address in 1966, we had much farther
to go to church than before, and by that time I was studying a lot, so we only went about once a month or so, at times even less. Along with our Christmas cards one year, I received a letter from a
man who had taken over as Treasurer, informing me that if we did not pay in our envelopes regularly, we would be struck off the roll. I had never missed one payment, handing in several envelopes at
a time if necessary, so you can imagine how I felt.

My dander well and truly up, I wrote to the minister himself, explaining why I was angry, and reminding him of how much my family had been involved with his church. I even detailed exactly what
we had done, and reminded him that my mother had robed him at his ordination, so that he would know exactly who I was. Mum, by this time, was unable to cope with the villa in Mid Stocket and had
moved in with Bertha and Bill. She had also transferred her ‘lines’ to St Machar’s Cathedral.

I got no reply to my letter, but a few months after this, I was waiting for a bus at Woolworth’s in Union Street, when I saw the Reverend T. walking towards me. He apologised most
profusely for the incident, but put his foot in it by claiming that he had no idea at the time of who had written the letter to him.

This whole business made me so angry that I did not join another church, and, although this is no excuse, I’m afraid that the years just drifted past, and I am still not a member of any
Kirk. I do feel ashamed to confess that, but I still believe in God, still watch services on TV and croak the hymns. Over eighty now, I am not very mobile, and couldn’t go to church anyway,
but I hope I can class myself as a silent Christian.

There is no comparison between walking into a college for the first time and walking into a school for the first time. At a college, all the people you meet, apart from the
tutors, are students, greenhorns like yourself, trying to look confident but only succeeding in emphasising how unconfident they feel.

On the first day in school, I drove into the playground and parked the car beside all the others, glad to see that I had something in common with them, at least. Travelling by bus would have
taken me over an hour (into town and out again) but only ten minutes by car. I reported to Mr Robb, the headmaster, who showed me into the staffroom, where an array of smiling faces looked up when
he introduced me. I knew I’d be all right. And I wasn’t the only newcomer that day; two other replacements turned up, another ‘ordinary’ teacher and a sewing teacher.

I found that I needn’t have worried. All of them, old hands and new, were very friendly, and although I had heard tales of cliques in staffrooms (had even experienced it on my first
teaching practice), that wasn’t the case here. Of course, the infant teachers did sit together at one side of the room, and the rest of us sat facing them, but there was no sense of
‘The Great Divide’. There were, perhaps, a few little hushed secrets told, but in the main, the conversation was general, and mostly regarding the pupils, who were a motley bunch,
individuals with their own characteristics.

I must admit – as I’m sure will most teachers – that, even after so many years, I can remember the clever pupils best, those who soaked up everything I taught and yearned for
more. They would be closely followed by the bright sparks, full of life and anxious to please, even if they sometimes had difficulty in understanding a specific point. Next, I would say, came the
badly behaved, of which there were quite a number; they stick in the memory, and their antics still make me laugh . . . though I didn’t find them funny at the time. The middle-of-the-roads,
poor souls, who did their work quietly and caused no problems, have slipped into the mists of time. I can recall some names, but not their faces, or faces with no names . . . which is a terrible
admission to make.

If any of you in this category are reading this, I apologise. Your type was the mainstay of a class, industrious, pleasant, usually asking shyly for help if something puzzled you but otherwise
unwilling to make yourselves noticed. If you should ever meet me, please don’t pass by. Speak to me. Tell me your name, if I can’t recall it, and the school concerned, and that’s
all I should need to be able to place you.

On my first day, one of the girls sidled up to me as they were going home at lunchtime. ‘I like you better than my last teacher, Mrs Davidson.’

My heart swelled with joy at winning them over so easily, and when they came back in at half past one and another of the girls came up to me, I prepared myself for a second compliment.

‘Mrs Davidson,’ she said, looking directly at me as if daring me to say a word, ‘my sister says you’re fat.’

Well, I ask you? What could you say to that?

That first class of seven-year-olds almost drove me up the wall. Out of the thirty-six (classes were much bigger then), I’d say that the nucleus of badly behaved affected
most of the others, and by Christmas, I’d had enough. I fully intended to hand in my resignation from teaching altogether, but the headmaster talked me out of it.

‘You’ll never get another class like that,’ he assured me. ‘They were the same in the Infants, and we tried to separate the worst of them when they came up to Primary
Three, but it seems even that hasn’t worked. You should look on this as an initiation, Doris. Do your best to control them and you will see a change in them, I promise. That will give you
confidence in yourself, so much so that no other class will upset you.’

Who was he trying to kid?

What he said next astonished me, however. ‘Buy yourself a tawse – the belt, you know – and let one of them ‘accidentally’ see it in your drawer. Knowing it’s
there can often do the trick, without you actually having to use it. Remember, though, you’ll have to carry out a threat if it’s necessary. They won’t respect you if you
don’t.’

I learned the hard way as far as that was concerned. I can’t for the life of me recall what they were or weren’t doing that made me use the threat, ‘If you don’t do as
you’re told, I’m going to belt the whole class.’ They didn’t obey me, so I was forced to carry it out. I knew that most of them had been influenced by the hard core of
show-offs, but I lined them all up, girls as well as boys, and gave each of them a slight tap on the hand with the two-tailed tawse, ending just as the lunch bell started to ring.

Imagine my dismay when Mr Robb came into the staffroom at the end of the break. ‘I’d like to speak to you for a minute, Doris.’

He waited until the others went to their rooms before going on, ‘Rosemary Martin’s mother (not her real name) came in to complain about you giving all your class the
strap.’

I was shocked. ‘Just a wee tap, that’s all,’ and I explained why. It was on his advice, after all.

‘Aye, well,’ he said, rubbing his hand over his chin, ‘you should have picked out the ringleaders and made a proper example of them; it would have had more effect. I promised
Mrs Martin I would reprimand you, so regard this as a ticking off. Go to your room now, but remember what I’ve said.’

For the record, Rosemary Martin was the same little girl who had taken great delight in telling me that her sister thought I was fat, so this didn’t make me feel any better disposed
towards her, but although she was inclined to speak her mind without thinking, she turned out to be an above average scholar and we got on quite well.

I wasn’t the only one who learned a lesson from that incident. The offenders had recognised that there was a limit to how far they could push me. The tawse had done the trick . . . more or
less. At least, I didn’t have to resort to threats again.

I had better explain the system that reigned in Smithfield at that time as far as allocating classes was concerned. There were two Primary One classes and two at Primary Two level. Let’s
say that Miss A and Miss B taught P. Ones and Miss C and Miss D taught P. Twos. The following year, Miss A and Miss B would take their same pupils into P. Two, while Miss C and Miss D would both
have a new intake in P. One.

That takes care of the Infant School. Primary Three was part of the ‘big’ school, quite a traumatic transition for some of them, so it stood alone. The children were taken by other
teachers for Primary Four and Five, and others for Primary Six and Seven.

I was glad to pass my first class on, and my second was far easier, even with its sprinkling of little troublemakers, but my third was a dream come true. It would have been just before the
Easter holidays when Mr Robb asked me if I’d like to take them into Primary Four. ‘If you feel easy with that,’ he smiled, ‘you could take over the four and five stage
permanently.’

I didn’t have to think about it. Primary Three was a difficult stage, both for children and teacher. It was a transition from Infant School to the ‘big’ school, where they had
to learn to concentrate on the work they were given, or whatever they had to do, because it wasn’t all straightforward lessons, and there would be little chance of many classes as good as my
present one. I’d had them from August 1969 until late May 1970 when the crunch came.

We were coming up to Sports Day, held in the playing fields at Northfield Secondary School, but the practising was done in our own school grounds, where there were several expanses of grass at
various points around the school buildings. Smithfield had been built around the late 1950s, I think, a sprawling one-storeyed mass, and we all had our own little patch where we could take our
chairs out and work in the summer, or make use of in any way we liked.

Our first practice went off extremely well, the children had learned in the Infants that racing meant that you had to try to beat the rest of the runners, and the sun beamed genially down on
their efforts.

On the afternoon before our next practice, Mr Robb told me that I was to have a new pupil next day. ‘He has spent some time in the psychiatric ward at the Sick Kids,’ he warned me,
‘and reacts badly if anyone touches him. The report is that he is fit to be integrated into a normal school again, but be careful, Doris. Let him do whatever he wants . . . within reason. If
you have a problem, just send for me.’

I worried all night over how I would deal with this problem child, and finally decided that the first step would be to make him feel welcome. I had another boy with the same surname, a quiet,
obedient soul, so if I placed them together, it should make the new boy feel welcome, with at least one friend.

The children had all started on their Maths Workbooks when Mr Robb brought John in. The only introduction he made was to the child. ‘This is your teacher, Mrs Davidson,’ he
announced, then turned and walked out.

I was so intent on not sparking off a tantrum that I ignored the vague niggle in my mind. I couldn’t explain it, anyway. I put out my arm to take the boy’s hand – as I’d
have done to any new pupil – but remembering in time the caution I’d been given the previous day, I merely said, ‘This is your seat, John. I’ve put you next to Colin. He has
the same last name as you.’

The new boy gave an outraged roar and started banging into desks and kicking schoolbags out of his way as he rampaged round the room, while the rest of the class, particularly poor Colin,
cowered in fear (and that included me, I’m afraid).

Mr Robb had said to let him do what he wanted, so I let him carry on as I did my usual round of the children, asking if they needed any help, or ticking the items they had managed to do. I was
explaining something to one of the girls, when I realised that the new boy had quietened and was studying the pictures on the wall. I breathed more freely, assuming that he had got over whatever
had triggered him off, but suddenly he roared, ‘Hey, you!’

The hum of nearly forty pupils ‘working things out in their heads’ stopped abruptly, and all eyes were turned to me, wondering what I would say. I couldn’t let him speak to me
like that; it could incite some of the others. ‘Excuse me, John, are you talking to me?’

‘Aye.’

‘My name is Mrs Davidson.’

‘I ken.’

I had never been so glad to hear the interval bell, and I said, ‘Colin, would you like to take John as a partner? You can show him where the toilets are, and let him join your
games.’ It was what I had originally planned, but I should have been more careful.

Colin looked alarmed . . . and no wonder. John was over a year older and much taller, as well as being solidly sturdy, and Colin had been the unwitting cause of his fit of temper. I chose
another victim. Philip was the tallest in the class (or had been) though he was still a good bit shorter than John, but he was more able to stand up for himself than Colin. ‘Will you take
John under your wing?’

Philip didn’t look any happier about this than Colin had, but I gave a slight nod and he said, timidly, ‘OK. Are you coming, John?’

For a moment, the boy’s brows came down, and I held my breath, but in the next instant he came forward and walked out of the room alongside Philip. I don’t know what went on in the
playground, but everything seemed to be quiet.

In the staffroom, Mr Robb asked me how I had got on, then explained that I had put my foot in it by telling John to sit next to Colin Wallace. ‘He has an older brother called Colin,’
I was told, ‘and they can’t stand the sight of each other, apparently.’