I like my time at Long Wood infants and Junior School. It was an escape from dysfunctional home life. While at school I worried about my grandmother. I was anxious that she wold die and no one would be there to look after me. Most of the teachers were good to me and I really like Mrs. Macy Thomas and Deidre Gough, they were always kind to me. I mixed and played well and I liked listening to stories and singing. I remember one such day on an Ash Wednesday the whole school would wear our best clothes and attend a children’s service at St. Matthews church at Hutts Gate.
There was a lot of favoritism at school and in my opinion you were treated well according to the status of your parents. Things weren’t that good for me. In fact they were lousy. I didn’t have any parents, so I suffered! There was a girl in my class, her mum had gone to England. Just like my mum had. She was loved and cherished and she would bring to school a pack lunch with dainty cut sandwiches. She would always share them with me. I remember her as a lovely child and she always seemed to have everything. She had a lovely family and she was always top of the class. What a contrast to me. I was always being caned and at the bottom of our class. I always thought I had the family from hell but got a free school lunch.
Long Wood infant and Junior School was indeed a good school. The playground was spacious and the scenery was beautiful. Despite Mrs. Thomas caning me I felt safe and didn’t want to leave.
Every day after school we would walk past the Frenchman house and call into the dairy to see the pigs. One day a girl named Dawn fell into the pigs pound and told her brother that I pushed her. I wasn’t even near her and her Brother Patrick wasn’t happy with me and I ran away from him as fast as I could.
I would go to Mulberry Gut and climb loquat trees and pick and eat as many loquats as I could possibly eat. I would always get home from school around 5 O’clock and this would displease my grandfather, but climbing loquat trees was much nicer then listening to my grandfather going on about how much he hated me.
On Friday afternoons I would run home from school as fast as my legs would carry me. As I was running I would collect blackberries, mushrooms and spinach for Mrs. Ivy Glanville. My grandmother would take it to her on a Saturday. Mrs. Glanville would always be please to see us and would greet us with such great affection. She woulsd always serve our favorite meal curry rice and fish cakes. We simply loved Mrs. Glanville and she always make any of us feel welcome. I just loved to visit her, and she made me smile.
Part of growing up in St. Helena was playing outdoors, climbing trees, gathering firewood, picking black berries and collecting mushrooms.
I would often play with my cousins Lilly, Annie, and Brian. They lived with their mother and stepfather Mr. Francis. While their mother was a delightful woman there step-father was a small cruel and hellish of a man that would beat their mum and her small children. He didn’t like me and I and I certainly didn’t like him. He threw my oldest cousin and her baby boy out into the flax bushes, and her grandmother Mrs. Clingham took them in.
The men on St. Helena were very hard working they would fish and do their vegetable garden while the women would look after the children. The woman would cook, collect firewood, knit and make clothes for their children. Even the children would find off jobs to help earn a few pennies.
Out at Deadwood I only had one customer. I would collect firewood for Mrs. Kathleen Duncan. She would give me a few pennies, a cup of tea and a rock cake. I was very fond of Mrs. Duncan and still think of her with great affection.
The washing was always done by hand and there seemed to be a competition who had the whiteist washing on the washing line. I always thought that St. Helena women were dedicated, loyal, strong women who kept their families no matter what. They had strong names like Eva, Barbara, Doris, Murial, Gladys, Gwen, Lizzie, Maggie, Ivy and Hilda. Now would you mess with those names, I think not.
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