“You were not listening!” Mrs S raged, dark eyes blazing with hatred. I shook, whimpered and cried as she smacked me hard, many times, across the back of my legs with her wooden ruler. I was only seven and a half, fairly new to this school and Mrs S terrified me. I felt the eyes of a class full of seven and eight year olds upon me, staring at my distress. Tears streamed my face, my legs were stinging and I didn’t dare to move until Mrs S dismissed me.
My crime? The inability to do the ‘money’ sums.
Pounds, shillings and pence sums were beyond me. I hadn’t done this at my old
school. I tried to tell Mrs S. She never listened to me. She wasn’t going to
help me. Did she believe that if she smacked me hard enough, I would magically
be able to do this work?
My young life had completely changed. I had been a
happy, confident little girl, doing well at school with teachers I adored and a group of
friends. I was uprooted, due to our family being in the licenced trade, and
moved from all that was familiar to a different pub in a different town, this
new school where I felt like an outsider, even at such a young age. I loved my new baby sister. I was completely lost
in all this new stuff. Looking at life
through my adult eyes, that’s a great deal for a seven and a half year old child
to cope with. I don’t remember any intervention, apart from my Nanna Hetty
suggesting to my mother that she ought to speak to Mrs S or have me change
schools. I’d been having nightmares about Mrs S while I was staying with my
grandparents during a school holiday, and told Nanna Hetty about my miseries.
Nanna Hetty was my paternal grandmother. I adored her, just as I did my
maternal one. Grown-ups can have their differences and my mother would have
taken Nanna Hetty’s views as
interference. I was stuck. Dad was getting the pub sorted, under new
management, and Mum had to get into a routine with the new baby and me, but I
didn’t know where I fitted in. They told me just to do my best at school, but I
already was. I did listen to Mrs S, but I didn’t understand and was too scared
to say so.
Family friends came to visit one day and brought
with them a girl a bit older than me. I don’t know who she was and I can’t even
remember her name, but that day, she was my guardian angel. We were playing
together. I overcame my shyness and asked if she could do pounds, shillings and
pence sums. Yes, she could, and would she teach me? Yes, she would, and she
did. Slowly, explaining everything, she taught me so well, I was bursting with
confidence at my new ability and for once, I wasn’t dreading school.
Two things happened in my favour, though years
apart. Twelve months after this move, we were off again to pastures new and I
was leaving this dreadful school and Mrs S and the teacher I had after her. A feeling of belonging never occurred there
for me. The other big thing was Decimalisation. Hooray! It might have been just
for me.
Perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was setting my
demons to rest, but many years later, I found myself working in the same school
I had hated, sometimes in the same classroom that used to be mine, where Mrs S
smacked my legs. Mrs S had passed away long since, or she’d be about a hundred
and thirty years old. My favourite job in my entire working life is the years I
spent there. It is a happy school with confident children and teachers who go
the extra mile to care for them. Corporal punishment is a thing of the past,
thank goodness.
My poem, in Haiku,
I was listening
But I failed to understand
And ended up scared.
She filled me with fear.
She was a witch with dark eyes
And a darker heart.
Hard, wooden ruler
Across the back of my legs.
I still didn’t learn
But I had nightmares
Caused by my raging teacher
Who would not help me
When I was seven,
A shy, new girl, feeling lost
And so unhappy.
Pounds, shillings and pence,
I just couldn’t calculate
And sobbed in distress.
PMW 2021
Thank for reading, Pam x
