Those Were The Best Days Of Your Life

Okay, so it isn't the best photo, but it's rainy, and getting late.

I really wanted a blip that wasn't the beauty salon, (cause I was there again), and took a really nice picture of it. When I came out, I looked a the school and thought, there's a monument of my youth.

Our School Troon Primary was traditional. You are looking at the front of the building, which when I went to school housed the "boys" playground. Above the big red sandstone door, it actually says "Boys". The girls weren't allowed in the boys playground when I started. But by the time I reached the heady heights of Primary 7. they had divided the Playgrounds into Seniors and Juniors. Oh the excitement!

It was in that playground that I walloped the class "hard man", with my Anorak, and the zipper caught him in the eye. He cried. The School Hard Man Cried. I was horrified. Me, a measly girl made him cry, with my anorak. How pathetic. I wasn't so scared of him after that. I knew the power of the Zipper.

The window on the top left of the front of the building was my Primary Seven class. I have good memories of that Class and Mrs McGuiness. I remember Patrick, who constantly put drawing pins on my seat, which really hurt my bum, and pinged my bra strap. (i was a well developed 11 year old). Patrick went on to marry and subsequently divorce my best friend in later years, and surprisingly, we became good friends, when I bump into him occasionally, we still are. (I think).

I played netball on the courts at the front. The local primary schools played between each other. Troon, St Pats, Muirhead, Barassie, and occasionally Dundonald.

I made friends in this playground that I thought would be friends for ever, and you know, in the main, I think they still are. I don't see very many of them now, but when I do see them, it is as if no years have past since I last seen them (Despite the hair colouring, and make up and weight).

My daughter attended a Drama Class here, and it was sheer delight to walk into the school, and put my hands on the cloakroom hangers and feel the memories echo through them. As I stood one night, I was taken back to a day when we queued up to leave, and as someone put their blazer on, it wiped across my eye,and I thought I was blinded for life. My eye was so scratched, it was closed for the rest of the week. I remembered standing in line to leave the cloakroom, and our teacher Mrs Govan, holding onto the shoulders of the two in front, and remembered the smell of her, as I stood perilously close to her bosum.

I remembered the way the teachers stood staggered along the corridors and stairs to ensure order and not chaos on the way back to class. I remember one teacher a devoted Christian whose one line was always "It's hard to be a Christian". She was the most terrifying teacher I have ever encountered. She belted at least 6 children a day, for no reason other than it was good to be fearful. My horror of her was multi-fold. She was also my Bible Class Teacher, and seen as a pet at school. I would be the one she would stop as the lines progressed, and hug me tight to her and say what a good child I was. I was always praying that she would be distracted by a BAD child and leave me alone, but it never happened.

I remember the "other" class, who followed us up the school. They never seemed as "clever" or "good" as us, and I'm sure we weren't streamed, but even when we went on to secondary, the friendships never really crossed the division that had been created in Primary. We had the good teachers, the fun teachers, learning was a joy. They had the scary teachers, the beltings, the misery of homework EVERY day, and detentions. It probably wasn't like that, but we did seem to have it good.

I remember the end of primary school, and our Christmas Dance, where we marched down the corridor in our "long" dance dresses, with our dance partners - strangely mine was Patrick who tortured me so. We did the Grand March in the area below the balcony and ended the dance walking into the Gym Hall where we ate little sandwiches and french fancies. We then danced and danced, until it was time to go home.

School is the best years of our life. I try desperately to encourage my children both to appreciate that. The Girl is still there, and enjoying it. The boy has left, and has left with great memories, and fantastic friends. I think they got the idea.