Primary School Memories

By Ray Schaufeld

Sun, 22 Sep 2013
  • 4403 reads
10 comments
 
Mixed up little witch
sky-high before lunch
I hid beneath the cave of wooden desks
with metal inkwells
in first year juniors.
 
How did Miss Cooper get me out?
Did she talk to me
did she touch me?
I remember only
her tall young friendliness
her abundant flame-red bun.
 
Bright memories bold colours
like the red green blue yellow
of our four houses,
 
Inter-school choir
with huge Miss Tillyer.
We walked to Copeland
following her sweeping baton
singing of hags and vagabonds.
 
Skipping
french skipping
cats cradle
trading 'beads and diamonds'.
 
'Queenie queenie who's got the ball
is she big or is she small
or is she like a ping-pong ball?'
Queenie hurls the ball up high
we chase it
to become the new queenie.
 
My misfit friends
Lesley Bottoms
became Lesley Young.
 
(Where did siobhain
and malachi go?)
 
My  mind's eye image when eleven
the main girls
with their elderly tutting gossip
and their home truths
true only to home
grouping and moving as one village,
myself an outside onlooker
(feeling what?).
 
That hot day in fourth year
the french doors were open
out whirling round the courtyard
I flew.
 
How did Jonesy
with his lugubrious
Welsh lilt
get me back in?
I only remember
I went unpunished.
 
I never showed my hand first
in answer to any question
asked in class,
didn't want to stand out.
 
And I did well in primary school
with exam passes
and moving  on up
and primary school
did well
by me.
 
Hey and doesn't my tree
bud and fruit, flower and seed
so lively -
my root system
deepens and remains
in place
Unaltered.
 
 
(Wembley Manor Junior Mixed
Sept 1963 - July 1967)
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
Certificate PG
Poem
Lost and found
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

What ever happened to those friends we once knew?  This is a question I often ask myself.  Love to hear of others memories and those times gone by.  Enjoyed reading elsie.

 

Submitted by Linda Wigzell Cress on

We often keep in touch with secondary school mates, but I too often wonder what happened to those at the Primary.  Reminiscences, whatever hasppened to them?

Linda

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Hey there Jennifer and Linda.Thanks for reading. I no longer live anywhere near Wembley Park and I have no idea where my misfit friends from Wembley Manor Junior Mixed are now! My mother still goes to the local hairdresser and they all swap the goss under the drier as always so she would know whats what but it was the more conventional girls who remained in the area, often moving out to Harrow, Pinner and even Moor Park if they prospered. Glad you could relate to this.    Elsie

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

An intersting mix of flashback memories (early memories are like that aren't they? I'm often puzzled what caused some odd, little incidents to become so firm, like a photo). And interestingly inspired by the IP – childhood, and all life I guess, is such a mix of highs and what seems so ordinary or even troubled.

regards, Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Thanks for your terrific detailed response to this poem. Yes memories are snapshot images and incidents.

I'm getting a lot out of participating in ABCtales, other peoples writings and our IP getting me going and myself writing a lot in a short period of time. Finding it self-revealing in a good way. All the best     Elsie

Submitted by Bee on

Hi Elsie. 

Whatever happened to French skipping - and so many other outside games? They seem to have vanished.

A great poem this, full of memories and feelings of childhood. Could you have imagined back then, writing a poem like this and voluntarily offering it up for comment? How far we have come!

Very much enjoyed the read.

 

Bee

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Hey Bee thanks for the comment. Yes you are right, back then I wouldn't have been able to write the opening lines. I forgot about hiding under the desks when I started secondary school and then a year after I had left and come back with another girl  to visit ,as big girls at secondary school often do, a teacher reminded me!  But in a friendly way. All the best       Elsie

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

I'm glad you liked my poem and it has set you thinking of your own times at school. Much longer? Maybe an additional poem or a short story when I get round to it. Thanks for your interest and good comments   Elsie

Submitted by Steve on

This is a wonderful poem. Your love of words, the buoyancy of your words, the joy and playfulness of your words is endearing.

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Hey thanks! What lovely comments. I shall get round to reading some more of your work soon      Elsie