Living in the Past: A Northern Irish Memoir Read Free Page B

right from the first day. Kathleen took me by the hand and told me about another little boy who was starting school that day as well, and what a nice little boy he was, as we walked along. I suppose I was probably crying. I remember we got to the door and when I heard the harmonium playing I bolted and ran all the way home.

    School Photo from around 1931
Arthur is 6th from left on front row (no shoes).
Also, on the school photo is ‘The Mistress’, standing left, Kathleen, 9, back row, 2nd from left, Mary, 11, middle row, 6th from left, and Elizabeth, 7, middle row 7th from left.

    After that I had to be watched, as I would bolt at the first opportunity. The big boys would be sent to catch me, as well as people in houses along the way. But it seemed I kicked anyone in my way on the shins and I always got home.
    Recently, Shamey was talking to a man called Joe Mor who was in Dungannon hospital with a bad heart and he asked him, “How is Arthur?”
    Shamey replied, “He’s all right.”
    “Well, tell him I’ve still got a black bump on my shin where he kicked me.”
    I must have settled down eventually. In the wintertime at school we were given a mug of cocoa about eleven o’clock each morning from a big enamel bucket in the playground. School was heated by two coal fires; one in the upper infants’ room and the other in the bigger senior room. The large room was always cold.
    The cane was used a lot and was something one had to get used to. It was part of school at that time and I think it was very cruel when one considers the tiny hands and the cruelty that seemed to be part of the adult culture of the time.
    Our school had a headmaster called the Master and a headmistress known as the Mistress, and an assistant teacher who taught the infants up to first grade. The Master had a weakness which was called ‘the drink’ and was a common affliction in Ireland. The Master was a binge drinker, which meant he could go sober for a long time and then suddenly break out and go on the tear, as we called it.
    When he showed signs of erupting, the Mistress and her family usually took precautions and watched him closely. Alcoholics can be very clever, devious and extremely difficult to watch. At this particular time they got a friend and neighbour of the Master’s, called Tommy, to sleep in his room with him when they first saw the signs that he had been at the bottle. Knowing he would stop at nothing to get out, they had his clothes removed lest he escaped during the night.
    One night, Tommy woke up to find that the Master had disappeared. He rushed to put his clothes on but they were gone as well. The Master was small and squarely built, and Tommy was very long and skinny, so the idea of him being seen in public in his new outfit would have given the Mistress palpitations. Respectability and keeping up appearances were most important.
    Members of the family went in different directions and during the afternoon he was located in a pub rendering all of his favourite songs and entertaining the customers, still dressed in his special clothes.
    We dreaded him returning to school because he would be in a terrible temper when he was coming off the drink. One morning he came in early and lined us all up to examine our readers. We had to stand in front of him and hold up our reading books as he laid the cane against the page and peered at it to see if the corners of the pages were turned up. Dog’s ears, he called it. Nearly everyone was severely caned that morning – I think I can still feel it.
    In spite of the cane there was plenty of fun at school. One day in the reading class a little girl called Mary Ellen couldn’t say ‘the’ – she would say ‘de’, instead. The teacher said to her that to say ‘the’ she should put her tongue out, showing her how to do it. So Mary Ellen said ‘de’ then stuck out her tongue afterwards. Of course, we all laughed and giggled in spite of a fear of the cane.
    Another girl called