There was no doubt my classroom was a relic from the past.
The dominant feature of the whole room was the enormous black ‘AA.’ I had christened the black beast of a stove the ‘Ancient Anachronism’ the first time I saw it on my tour of the school at my interview, the acronym stuck!
…the stoves, which graced the classrooms, including the pre-fabricated building out at the back and the school hall, were all tenderly cared for by Cath Barber, the caretaker, cleaner/ handyman.
‘Oh boogar ‘ere we goes again,’ moaned Cath as she tramped in with two buckets of coal so weighty I couldn’t even attempt to shift them along the floor let alone carry them.
She was a buxom, muscular woman with a navvy’s colourful vocabulary, probably in her mid sixties. She had greyish hair tied back in a sort of bun, and always wore a ‘Mrs Mop’ type of apron-cum-overall.
At the far end of my Victorian classroom was a large cupboard.
…The said cupboard stretched the whole width of the room and was so deep I would have to crawl into it to reach whatever was hidden if it was right at the back.
It no doubt held treasures that hadn’t seen the light of day for some years…
…I watched in fascination as Cath ran the mop round the edge of the room at a rate of knots leaving a considerable amount of debris in her wake.
Finally she opened AA, which rewarded her by coughing out a large quantity of soot-laden smoke.
‘Boogar, and blarst.’ said Cath adding a further couple of expletives not usually heard in school.
I was glad there were no children around.
Making even more soot and fumes, Cath riddled AA with great vigour and poured the entire contents of one bucket into its maw, slamming its door shut at great speed. She straightened up looked at me and placed the other bucket well away from the fire with a slightly malicious look.
‘You’ll ‘ave to fill ‘im later.’ she announced, picking up mop and duster. With a quick backward glance in my direction, she opened the door and left…
The interior if the cupboard yielded some interesting objects...
Cath looked curiously at the array of things I had in my arms.
There were piles of damp newspapers, various ladies’ journals with vintage knitting patterns and recipes together with some craft ideas.
They were all disappointingly damply disintegrating.
There were also one or two school logbooks, which had to go to Mr.W.
Cath let out a shriek, which made me jump out of my skin.
‘That’s mine, I did that when I woz the same age as the kiddies in your class.
Oh my gawd fancy that still bein’ ‘ere!’ She got up from my chair and moved amazingly quickly down the room to where I was standing.
I looked down at the round, object in my hand.
Its surround was a damaged gilt frame. It had a soft watercolour tinted background and some artificial flowers stuck onto backing paper. Over all was a transparent dome. The whole effect should have been pretty, but it wasn’t really, it was too crudely done.
I glanced up at Cath’s face. She had tears in her eyes and a tremulous smile on her lips.
‘It’s a bit of ‘istory that’s wot it is. I made that sixty years ago. I lorst it. Me mum gave me a clump when I couldn’t find it. She’s dead now o’ course.’
She suddenly sat down on the nearest chair. ‘I woz taken outa the class to work on the fields, we kids did that in them days. We woz allowed to keep the gleanings arter the ‘arvest woz in. I ‘ad put it on Teacher’s desk but it ‘ad gorn when I got back the next term.’
My heart melted at the thought of this hard-bitten old lady mourning the loss of her childish effort at trying to create some thing beautiful, so very long ago.
Impulsively I handed it to her.
‘Its yours’ I said ‘You keep it. I don’t know what Mr W. intends to do with these things.’ ...'
Cath was certainly a character. Her vocabulary was a revelation! I had never heard of...'phucking pleasants' for a shillun...' for example.
She dominated the running of the school up until she retired, well into her seventies.
I tell her story in 'Cath's AA' in Tales out of School.
