Starting School

 Parkhead Primary School

 

As you will know from my previous blog, I have a twin sister Isabel and of course she and I started school at the same time.

 

A bit about the schools first, we began primary school in the old primary school in West Calder, and it was very close to the old West Calder High School. Eventually we moved from the old Primary School to the sparkling new Parhead Primary School which is still going to this day. Then the same happened again, we attended the old high school in West Calder then we were moved to the brand new and enormous looking new West Calder High School in Polbeth. It is now a housing estate and there is another new West Calder High School situated between Polbeth and West Calder. In those days there were no computers, calculators or mobile phones, it was all done my brain (such as it was), pencil, paper and eraser.  In fact now I remember we also had inkwells on our desks in Primary School and learned to use pens with nibs and blotting paper, most young people now adays wouldn't know what they were. The new High School was amazing because it had a swimming pool and we were taught to swim. Gym was never my thing and I could never seem to master climbing a rope!

New schools though felt new, with

brand new furniture, brand new blackboards but same old teachers, bless them all!

 

I wanted to tell you about my first day at school, my Mum got Isabel and I all dressed up in our new school uniforms and we had to get the bus into school.  My Mum led us into the room where all the new, rather, nervous pupils with their parents were. I learned later that my Mum was worried about how Isabel would be on her first day but it was needless, Isabel was like a duck to water, absolutely no problem. Me on the other hand, well, how could my Mother leave me with all those strangers, I bawled and I seem to remember hanging onto my Mother's ankles when she tried to leave.

 

There is a footnote to the school story. My little sister, Helen, was 4 years younger than us and she watched us going to school each day and couldn't (as I found out later) wait to start. She must have been about 4 when one of my Mum's friends thankfully came upon young Helen with a vanity case in hand standing at the bus stop determined she was going to school and returned her home.  My Mother thought she was out playing with her friends, the little scamp! That feeling of wanting to go to school I am sure didn't last when she had to go to school!

My First Job

 

I think I was 14 when my mother spoke to our local milkman (from the Co-op) when he came around to get paid, for in those days milk was delivered to your door in glass bottles. She managed to get me a job which meant an early start, up at 4am, for a 4.30 start, in all weathers, 7 days a week.  On school days we finished in time to go home, grab some breakfast, get changed then off to school. At weekends we did the full milk run and finished 9 -10 o’clock.  Along with those early starts I still had my brass band practice two nights a week and during the summer playing at Gala days and competitions as well. So my life was pretty hectic, but they were great times. I remember going into the Co-op offices on a Friday after school to collect my first wage and in those days, it was always real money, not bank transfers.  I received my little wages envelope form the clerkess and once outside, glowing with pride and anticipation, I couldn’t wait to rip it open and there it was, my wage for working 7 days a week, one single pound. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

 

Me and the other milk boy, Tom Kelly, used to have some fun.  One early morning when we were delivering along his street he ran in and came out with a hot cuppa for me with a good mix of fairy liquid included (washing up liquid for dishes). It was just as well he was nippy on his feet, for after I had finished choking and spluttering, I don’t know what I would have done to him if I had caught him. But we settled down and laughed about it, however I was left for a little while with a bad taste in my mouth.  Another time our milkman went into his house and left us two miscreants outside. Tommy let off the hand brake and we pushed the milk truck (safely) along the road aways to give our milkman a fright, which we did! There was blood spilled though for when I was pushing the truck I had one of my hands over one of the indicator lights and it broke and I still have the faint scar to this day.

 

One morning in the dark I got a real fright.  I was carrying my milk bottle carrier (held maybe 10 bottles) and I climbed external stairs to collect the empty bottles and replace them with fresh bottles. I got to their door and much to my horror I saw a large pair of pink eyes staring at me in the dark and I nearly dropped my carrier and bolted, however on courageous inspection, at least I tell myself that, I discovered it was a massive albino rabbit that must have escaped from its hutch.

My early thoughts on a career

 West Calder Library

(just as it looked when I was a child) 

 

We used to go to Sunday School (Church of Scotland) every week without fail and we had a wonderful minister, the Rev. David Robertson who was just a kind, generous, committed person not just to his parish, he visited the hospital, the prisons and anywhere people who need help or spiritual help, let me state though he was not a bible thumper, he loved what he taught and preached. Of course, I didn’t appreciate that at the time. At whatever age I was, young and innocent, I thought being a Minister would be a great job because you only worked one day a week, yeah right, but I was young.  I did go on to be a Sunday School teacher in East Cakder Churcdwhen my sons and I went to church.  I am an Eternalist now, the only one I think, still a supporter of the true Christian values, which are really spiritual values which are not owned by any religion, and it is being guided by a loving, kind, compassionate heart with everyone (as best you can) and all life!

 

My second career choice at that age was that of librarian, because I loved reading. In those days of my childhood this was where adventure and knowledge lay, where you used your imagination rather than watching someone else’s imagination at work on a screen. My twin sister, Isabel and I, were regulars at our local library and could be found walking home afterwards each with a bundle of books held safely in our hands. I can still remember the librarian, Jean, testing my reading to see if I could now enter the hallowed grounds of the big library, moving up from the Childrens’ section.  She took a book from the 'grown up shelf' and I had to read a paragraph from it, and I got stuck on the word pyjamas, however she let me pass and the rest is history!

 

When I got closer to working age my mother advised me not to get involved with Sales.  Salutary advice, but did I listen? For that was what I became involved in, one way or another, for most of my working life! I just wonder how different my life would have been if I had heeded those wise words from my Mum!

 

My First Drunken Night and Hangover

 West Calder Main Street

 

My First Drunken Night and Hangover

 

I have never been much of a drinker. However, this tale starts when I was 18, the start of the legal of drinking age in Scotland.  I had already tried some vodka which I thought was okay but never enough to get really drunk and GOD forbid that my parents should find out!

 

This Friday evening started with my band practice in West Calder, I played the cornet in West Calder Brass Band. As soon as the practice finished, I was off to one of the local pubs for my future brother-in-law’s stag night.  It was a big adventure for I had never been to a stag night before and this one was important, my new brother-in-law to be who was also a friend too.

 

I had lager, vodka, whisky, rum in quantity and remember I wasn’t a drinker.  There were a couple of my other friends there that night, Jimmy and Peter and they left to go home with me. I was legless and so was Peter.  Jimmy was the soberest of the three of us, and he managed to keep us upright and walking. We first headed to the chip shop at the top of West Calder and as we approached it there was a policeman on foot patrol.  Well, I was 18 and it was legal for me to drink alcohol and I had to tell him this in uncertain terms, this was spiced with some choice spicy language which must have carried for my young sister Helen, was quite a bit further down the road with her friends and heard me and my choice language much to her chagrin. The policeman was great though and just smiled good naturedly, letting me finish and letting me go on my way home with Peter and Jimmy.  Peter was first to be dropped off because he lived in West Calder, the three of us got to his front door and his Mum answered as Peter, looking like a zombie staggered in the door.  Jimmy and I then had a mile walk to Polbeth where we both lived. Jimmy had to manoeuvre me up a flight of stairs to get to my front door and he held on to me as he knocked the door.  I think it was my Mum who answered as I literally fell in the door, I think Jimmy was quite glad to leave as quickly as possible.  My mother was deeply concerned about my state; however, my father was quite understanding knowing I would learn my lesson. I am sure my Mum made me a tea, anyway I am sure neither parent (I don’t know about my sisters) would have got much sleep that night because I was projectile vomiting in the loo frequently through the night. In these days I worked on a Saturday morning in Edinburgh so at the due time (7ish) I had a little breakfast (I think) and tea before getting the bus into Edinburgh, I felt terrible and must have looked like death warmed up. The 30-minute bus journey seemed to take an eternity and I just felt dreadful. I managed to keep going through the morning and then it was time for home and back on another bus. I still felt terrible. When I got home, I only had time for a brief lunch, as much as I could stomach, because after a quick change into my brass band uniform and collecting my cornet, I was off to march and play at East Calder Gala Day (like a fiesta day), I have no idea how I managed.  When I got home, I must have been starting to recover because I went out to the dancing to West Calder Poly (that is what we did on a Saturday night in these days and there was no alcohol served there). I had phoned my friend Peter to see if he wanted to go but he was still feeling too ill. I walked a girl home (about 2 or 3 miles) and then walked home again. Oh, the resilience of youth. After that traumatic Friday night, I learned my lesson (mostly). I have only every been really drunk about 3 or 4 times in my life and that I believe was quite enough for me.

 

Just a little foot note, I found out a few days later that when Peter’s mother went to check on him that night, she found him in a prayer like position over his bed (never having made it into it), in a drunken sleep midst counting what money he had left after the night out.