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| My old school on a brighter day a year or two back |
I took a walk along to one of my childhood neighbourhoods earlier this evening, just as twilight was beginning to fall and house and street lights were starting to pop on in not quite perfect unison. My old primary school, which had recently housed the pupils from another area while their new building was being constructed (which it now is), lay before me in the gathering gloom.
Lights were on in the hall and a car was parked inside the grounds, so I approached and pressed the door buzzer. A night watchman, who was looking after the place to deter thieves from breaking in and stealing anything of value (as had happened elsewhere), opened the door, but was unable to say when the structure would be demolished. If it doesn't happen before the end of the year, it won't be too far into the next.
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| From a distance. Soon it will be beyond reach |
I sat on a park bench across from the school where, in retrospect, I'd spent many a happy childhood moment (though doubtless it didn't seem so at the time) and quaffed a can of Coke, while memories of the 6 years, 7 months I had lived in the area over 40 years before vied for my attention. Then, with one more look at the school and my old house, I made my way home to my current abode - the one my family had flitted to back in 1972.
I've often felt that I could live again in my old neck of the woods, until I consider all that's changed since I left. (Mostly in the last 20 years or so.) As mentioned in previous posts, when we moved away from the place, at first I didn't miss it because I still attended the local secondary school, and would return after teatime to hang about with my pals in the neighbourhood shopping precinct. When I repaired to my new home at the end of the evening, the ambience of my previous house (and the two before it) was preserved, on account of us still having the exact same furniture as before. Because of this continuity of mood and atmosphere, it sometimes seemed to me that we had never moved at all.
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| The new school, with the old one in the background |
However, back to my school, which, in its final fading days upon this earth, has been robbed of its identity and had it supplanted by another. Its original appellation now adorns its own replacement in a far corner of the grounds, while the name of the school for which it temporarily filled in remains on the sign at the front gates. Sadly, it will meet its fate under an alias, but, to me, it will always be itself, its true persona as apparent and unchangeable as when I first walked its hallowed halls and capacious corridors in the heady days of my youth.
I may have mentioned this on another post,but I don't remember.
ReplyDeleteI found myself working in my old secondary school building about ten years after I left.
No longer a school,now a social work Day centre.
My base in the building was my old english class.
I remembered standing at the teacher's desk,aged thirteen, reading out one of my first essays and almost fainting.
Almost.
When the building was being emptied of its school fittings,I asked for the desk.
I am sitting at it as I type this,thirty-six years later.
I feel a little faint at the whole idea!
Baab, I think you did allude to it once, but it's a fascinating tale that bears repeating. After all that time 'though, could you be sure that it was the actual desk at which you once sat, or merely whichever desk was then occupying the spot at which you sat? (Presumably they must have been moved around over the years.)
ReplyDeleteI think the time that had passed since i first stood at the desk and owning it was ....oh my, about 15 to twenty years later.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are quite right,the desk could have been one of many.
It was in the room and in the same place,add in some romantic notions from me and its the desk.
I also became faint in geography,history,modern studies and maths.
Oh i just read your post again,the desk was the Teachers desk and not one of the pupils desks which helps the odds.
Its one of those sixties/seventies classics with the drawers on either side for confiscated contraband.
I'd like a desk like that. Send it to me at once. (You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy...)
ReplyDelete