Cow Hey - 5 School

 

Monday morning I was awakened early by signs of life in the kitchen below. So I dressed as quickly as I could and made my way down there.

"Good morning. I trust you slept well," said Mrs. Allsop. She seemed quite friendly, so I relaxed a bit.

"Good morning. I did sleep very well. I'm sorry I slept through tea last night and it was very kind of you to put bread and cheese and milk out for me."

"Well, it wasn't a surprise that you should've been exhausted after the last day, and after the whole last week. I didn't say before that we offer you our sincere condolences on the loss of your father, love."

"Thank you. Everything has happened so quickly. And it was all such a shock for me. Fred never explained to me what he had in mind. I do apologise for being so rude last night. You're indeed very kind to think of adopting me and offering me a home here." I swallowed hard when I said these words, but they were partly true. I did want to stay in this house, and I did feel sorry for having seemed so churlish in my reaction to their offer.

Mr. Allsop came into the kitchen from having been out at the barn. He was beaming when he saw that we seemed to be getting on all right.

"Morning Blanche. Best you get some breakfast down you because you'll need your energy for the day in front of you, with meeting all sorts of new people at school."

So I sat at the table and had a heaped plateful of porridge with honey, and a large mug of tea. Mrs. Allsop had also made me a packed dinner to take to school with me - bread and cheese again, and a slice of the delicious fruit cake we had had yesterday.

I'd only just finished my tea when there was a knock on the door.

"That will be my niece Florence," said Mrs. Allsop. Mr. Allsop opened the door and in bounced a very pretty girl, with her curly hair in locks.

"Hello Florence, and how are you today. The family well? This is Blanche," said Mrs. Allsop not waiting for a reply before carrying on with her questions.

"Hannah has the gripe, but the rest of us are fine, thank you Auntie," said Florence.

"You girls run off now, and don't forget, Florence, to introduce Blanche to your friends and the teacher and all. Off you go and have a good time."

"We might or we might not," answered Florence with a cheeky grin.

"So how old are you?" she asked me as we started walking beyond the end of my house and along the path.

"Nearly 11. My birthday's in March," I said.

"I'm 10," she said. "Do you like school?"

"I liked my old school. The teacher lived near us and I knew her quite well. She let me help with the little ones reading and letters and such."

"I'm afraid we've a man teacher, for us older ones, Mr. Steward and he's more than a bit mean sometimes. He's well known for using a strap if you get on the wrong side of him or haven't learned what you should. But mostly that's the boys that get strapped. And the little ones are taught by his wife, Mrs. Steward, so they won't need your help and she has two pupil teachers, their daughter and Emily Bourden. They're both seventeen," she added.

"How many are in the school?"

"About 250 if everyone came. It varies with the time of year, as the older children are kept back when it's planting and harvesting time, quite often - and then in the really bad weather a lot of us don't get there. If there's a heavy snowfall, I won't be going, and neither will you. You'll see why as we walk down today. It's bad enough in this weather but it's very dangerous when there is a lot of snow and ice."

We were now going quite steeply down into a woods - although along a very well defined track.

"Do horses and carts come down here?"

"Not for general use, but the miners and woodsmen have to have their carts for hauling logs and coal away."

Before we had gone very far she pointed off to the left. "See that bunch of old rocks down there? That's all that's left of the monastery that was here back in the 13th century. Those monks who were under the Abbot of Basingwerk were given this part of what was then considered to be Glossop by Henry II. They controlled the woods and the coal mining in those days, as well as doing farming. And they made a lot of money out of it. But then they left in the 15^th century and their monastery fell into ruin and nobody has wanted to buy it and fix it up."

"Where are the coal mines?"

"You'll see them shortly. There are some tracks where they run the trucks laden with coal from the seam (it is open cast mining so they only dig into the hillside, not down into the ground.)"

We continued walking quickly down the road and through the woods and when we came to the place where the coal mining was centred Florence pointed it out to me. There were two narrow railway tracks, with cars on each which were connected. "You see," said Florence, “when the full truck runs down hill, it provides the energy to pull the empty truck back up to the top again.” There were several men and young boys getting on with their work on the site, and Florence waved to them and some shouted “Hi,” back again.

"The train takes the coal to the canal which is built next to the mill at the bottom where it is loaded in barges," she explained. “It's used for some of the power in the mills. But the mill wheel makes power too.”

Before long we came to a wooden bridge over a stream. "This is the Etherow River," she said. “It's more or less frozen but I am not allowed to try to skate on it.” Then we crossed over another longer bridge, and off to the left there was a waterfall that went down ten steps. “There's the weir and from that they get the power for running the huge mill wheel. It is one of the biggest in the country - even bigger than the Laxey Wheel on the Isle of Man, if you've heard of that."

It was all very new to me, and very interesting, but we didn't have time to dawdle and I couldn't think of how to ask the sorts of questions that I wanted to know about the place.

When we got down past the weir, we walked alongside the canal, and then a big lake, with rows of houses on one side. (pictured above)  We walked on the opposite side past the mill itself.

"This is Compstall now,” she said. “And this is in Cheshire rather than Derbyshire where we live. But because we live closer to this school that the one in Chisworth, we're allowed to come here."

A few minutes more and we turned out of a gate, and went across the Compstall Bridge, and into what was obviously the school - as many other children were hurrying in at the same time.

"This building's called the Athaneum," she said, "and it's used for all sorts of things besides a school. There's a library there with hundreds of books, and a stage so people can put on plays, and an outdoor band stand. Do you like to read?"

"Yes, I do, but I never had much time for it before."

"Well, they let you borrow a book each week if you take good care of it, so we can go and look if you like after school, before we start home."

"The little children are upstairs, and we are down, " she said. Upon entering the building, we went downstairs to a large schoolroom, took off our shawls, and Florence showed me where to hang mine, on a hook in the hallway. Then we went into the big room and she took me up to the front where a man of about 40 sat at a desk. "Excuse me, Mr. Steward but this is the girl, Blanche Hodkinson, that I was telling you about. She's being adopted by the Allsops in Cow Hey. Her father died last week and she don't have nobody else to care for her."

"Doesn't have anybody," corrected Mr. Steward.

I was aghast at how much the girl knew about me and my circumstances, and how freely she was offering it loudly and clearly to the whole collections of strange children.

"Thank you, Florence. How do you do, Blanche. Please have a seat at the end in the back - where the older children are. I'll talk to you more later and assess how well you're doing in your reading and letters and sums. "

Turning to the growing numbers of children he said, loudly and sternly, "Will you all please be quiet! We'll have prayers in a moment, but first let me introduce you to our new pupil, Blanche Hodkinson. Please make an effort to make her feel welcome here."

And with that everyone turned and stared at me. A few children smiled, but mostly the looks seemed just curious or down right unfriendly.

"Take out your bibles and we'll start with the Lord's Prayer, and then read from St. John's Gospel for yesterday. I trust you all went to church yesterday."

I won't go through the whole day in detail, but true to his word, after prayers and bible reading, he set the others work to do, and came to my desk.

"I need to know which group to put you with, so I'd like you to read this to me."

He handed me a copy of Jane Eyre, a book that I'd heard of but never read before. I read the first page and didn't find it difficult and he obviously decided I was an adequate reader.

"Now I want you to do some mental arithmetic," he went on. "What is 7 x 12?"

I hesitated awhile because I don't like my times tables very much. "84" I eventually said.

"And what is 45 divided by 3?" That I found easier. "15"

"And add these numbers quickly in your head. 8,4,6,7,5"

"32," I said.

"No, that isn't correct."

"I could've done it if they'd been written down. It's hard to remember that many numbers when you just say them so quickly."

"Are you telling me how to do my job?" he roared.

"I'm sorry sir," I replied humbly and remembering too late that he had an aptitude for using the strap.

"Well, in future will you only speak when spoken to, and keep your opinions of how things should be done to yourself. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, Mr. Steward."

"Yes, Mr Steward." Some of the other children sitting nearby started giggling, seeing me get into trouble so soon in my new school.

"And I want to see how well you can write, so I'll give you a slate and I want you to write your name, address, age and date of birth on it."

So I did as I was told, and knowing that my copper plate penmanship had previously been highly praised I wasn't disappointed when Mr. Steward said that it was fine.

"Well, Blanche, you'll fit in well with the older children in terms of the reading and writing, but I probably will put you back in the middle group for the arithmetic lessons. But to help you catch up with the others, I'll lend you a copy of Jane Eyre to take home with you. Read it and write a report on it by next Monday, please."

"What sort of report?" I asked, overwhelmed by what I was being asked to do.

"Why don't you compare the virtues and weaknesses of Jane and Mr. Rochester? That should do nicely."

So on the various lessons went, and I felt quite able to cope with all the work that was being done. When midday came, we were allowed half an hour for lunch and free play. Since it was so cold and snowy outside, Florence and I opted to stay back in the classroom and ate our sandwiches at our desks. Various of the other children came up to speak to me.

"So what did your father die from?" asked one girl?

"I don't really know," I said, truthfully, "but he was in the hospital for awhile off and on and then one time he just died."

"I know," said one older boy tauntingly. "He was a nutter - a loony," and he went off chanting, "Blanche's pa's a loony," and some of the other boys took up the phrase too.

"Why are they so mean?" I said.

"Oh, that's Harry Roberts and Thomas Wood. They're always awful."

"Why should they say my Pa was a loony?"

"Who knows? They just thought it was clever and silly and a good way to upset you, which is what they were trying to do, and you let them do it. Just laugh at them and they'll stop."

Before long, the recess ended and the children were back hard at work at the desks. Nobody was strapped that day, but if Mr. Steward had decided to strap those mean boys who had teased me, I wouldn't have minded one bit.