That pure Cane Spirit since 1848.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

In 1964 I went to state catholic primary school. What a punch in the guts.
You see, I had spent the preceding year, my gap year, at nursery, expressing myself as a tree or a stickleback or a tadpole or a cotton wool cloud in a blue sky. I had busied my emotional development through the medium of finger paints and Bauhaus wooden toys. The last of the innocent naps always followed lunch and then home in time for Stingray or Fireball XL5.

State catholic primary school in 1964 was a workhouse from 1924. My best friends smelled of damp and stale bread. They had holes in their jumpers. I caught nits. They had bruises and black eyes and purple dye painted on them. They were the poorest, fucked around kids you can imagine.

Shut up Maroon, you are becoming tiresome. You’re nearly fifty, so fucking what? Live, you stupid bastard. That famous picture of the Japanese kids at nursery having their nap in Hiroshima is identical to us having ours. Complete blissful innocence. But then our dads weren’t out raping Nanking were they?

I was extracted in 1965 and sent to protestant primary school. It had activity rooms and French language puppets. It had miniaturised sanitary porcelain in the lavatories. Not to mention a roof over the urinals. It was nice to pee without getting rained on in a place which smelled of carbolic soap and not old man’s piss.

20 comments:

Ms Scarlet said...

We still had slidey toilet paper though, which doubled up for tracing paper.
Did you have the fluffy white glue that came in blue pots? We used to sniff it.
Sx

savannah said...

gawd, y'all make me feel so damn old! *sigh* xoxox

(but i must say, catholic schools in california were much, much nicer, sugar!)

Gorilla Bananas said...

Marina, Aqua Marina, why can’t you whisper the words that my heart is longing to hear?

Mrs Pouncer said...

Scarls, we had that glue, too. Smelt of marzipan. I loved it. And a layer of wax on the top. Cow gum, on the other hand, was vile. Maroon, I bet you had Gloy.

Pat said...

The fragrance of the church primary school's loos in the thirties lingers with me still. I don't remember toilet paper - neat squares of newspaper strung on a hook. Quite ungiving and left print on your bum. Did I tell you my Dad wore clogs? In war-time we all did - shortage of leather or something. They were very uncomfortable.

Ms Scarlet said...

That's the stuff Mrs P! I still miss it...
Sx

Dr Maroon said...

Scarlet in state catholic primary school there was no glue. There was nothing to glue with it. There was no time anyway. We had to light the eternal flame(s) every day [sic] polish all the exposed hearts on the statues. Then pray for redemption.

in protestant primary school we had blue conical flask type bottles of fluffy white glue.

Sav darling everything is better in Calif.

God Mr Gorilla Bananas. Remember? Wasn't it joyous? Didn't you sit there in transports of delight at Troy Tempest? Puppet sci fi adventure. It had it all.

Dr Maroon said...

Clarissa there was Gloy, and Bostic for wooden things and fishy Secotine for something else and wallpaper paste for papier mache mountains and jack and the beanstalk and stuff.
Such fun with glues.

Dr Maroon said...

Pi my father had lovely shoes and had he lived to see me in state catholic primary school, he would have gone apeshit and kicked up hell. As it was, dearest Mater came to her senses and dragged me out in the nick of time. The kids were fun right enough.

Barlinnie said...

The Bostik was grand in the eating, but after a while it left a bitter taste on the tongue, and the roof of my mouth felt like a tinkers shoe.

Kevin Musgrove said...

We'd have huge pots of rubber solution glue, which always had a rice-pudding skin on the top that clung to your brush like something out of a horror movie. The best thing was that you could spread it all over your hands, let it dry and then rub it off, taking away all the evidence that you'd put blue fingerprints all over Maureen Jessop's painting and leaving you with lost of play bogies that you could disgust the jessies with.

Happy days... we still do all of that at work.

sarah said...

"indoor" plumbing.. how 20th century, i note that you had to switch from catholic to protestant to get a roof over your head. (hmm)

i remember the tiny porcelain. i thought they were weird.

Sweary said...

I happen to LIKE stale bread. It makes fabulous bruschetta.

Now who's poor?

Dr Maroon said...

Sweary! How wonderful! God it's good to see you. Come away in. You've just this minute missed a wonderful champagne breakfast, but what about a little brandy to take the edge off? Just a tiny one. Here, we'll get these down us. Cheers. Now, stale bread. Well of course you are right! Any bread that was going dry was made into B&B pudding or melba toast. I was trying to use that aroma description lexicon thing that whisky noses use. Like you know, leather, nettles, vomit, mould, caramel, running through the woods with my knickers in my pocket... you know the stuff they say, pissed up assholes that they are. The stale smell reminded me of stale bread. They were my friends. my very best friends, god help them.


Sarah I know. I hold the Archdiocese of Glasgow completely responsible for that. Fuckers. The miniature toilet bowls were weird. I preferred standard bowls and the washhand basins were full sized just very low which was ok. We never washed our hands anyway and we never got typhoid like they said we would. Liars.

Kev, take a load off. Here, you have a wee brandy too. Now lad, they were real boggies weren't they? Don't worry, all little boys are disgusting, i'm sure you love Jessie in your own way. It was probably just an overactive sinus. Want a refill? Yeah, me too. Down the hatch, god that's good, French.


Mr Bastard, Bostik did taste good didn't it? So did Airfix glue. It had a wierd vapour action that was not unpleasant. It contained xylene, enough to kill a hippo but it was tasty.

Dr Maroon said...

boggies? bogies surely

Pat said...

I after E except after C. Doesn't always work - as in Weird.
We all make mistakes:)

xerxes said...

The problems are caused by adults who hate children. Them and paedophiles.

PI, yes, isn't wierd weird.

Dr Maroon said...

em i think its pedophile inky.

sarah said...

unless performing surgery.. i believe washing hands to be overrated.

Dr Maroon said...

Im not sure Jesus would agree, Sarah my lovely. It being Easter and all.

Manii lavabo as Pilate sneered. And that was before MRSA was invented.