Can you remember your first day at school?
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'Aye, I can just say remember it. I can remember going in and they had a big fire at the top and there was a big fireguard around it. And there was these people from Ludworth, they used to bring in bottles with tea and they used to stand them inside the fireguard to keep them warm--in the winter time. Because they used to stay at the school all day, they used to have something to eat there.'
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And the teachers?
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'Miss Keaveney, Miss O'Hara, I can remember them. Miss O'Hara was a little wizened up woman--Irish--they were both Irish. She used to get hold of your ear like that. "Come along, Thomas!" and pull you out in front of the class. Miss Keaveney, she was all right. Oh, there was a few. There was Miss Hoban. Miss Hardiman, Mr Battle. Costello, Mosey Taylor--why, he was Headmaster for a while. 'You'd start at the top. Infants, first, second, third, fourth fifth, sixth and standard seven upstairs, X-7 they used to call it. Costello's was standard six. Miss Hoban she was a quiet type. She belonged Wheatley Hill. Miss Hardiman. Phew! She was as hard as iron, her. If she got vexed there was a little red spot used to come up here and used to go all over her face, it used to go red.'
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What were you punished for?
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'Owt! The stick, aye, there and then. "Come here! Put your hand out!" You used to put your hand out and "Whoosh!" Yer bugger! If you kept yourself right you never got it, but if you were larking about and they caught you at it--chucking things at each other and that--then you used to get it.'
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For smoking?
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'Oh, we used to smoke, man. We used to smoke in the toilets. Smoked out there. But we were older then, we were 12 or 13 years old and in our last stage of schooling, standard six. Why, Costello, I was in the yard one day and we were running about and there was a boiler house and we used to go in there and have a smoke. And Costello, he used to come out and walk about, he used to like a smoke as well. He comes out one day and he says: "Give us a match, Tunney!" So he knew we were all smoking.'
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You used to sneak them out of the pit bike shed on your way to school?
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'Coming back, usually. You used to have to keep a look out. If you got caught. Phew! What! You'd get a bloody good hiding there and then! Oh, we didn't do it often, but if we were beat for a cigarette, we knew where they used to hide them. There was no pit baths then. They didn't dare take any cigarettes down the pit so they used to hide them. Little places in the joists and that, in the ceiling, they had places where they'd hidden a packet of cigarettes, or maybe a half of one. Well, we used to go in and get it and away.'
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Who was the Parish Priest then?
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'Father Mulcahy. Nice fella him, big fella. He was on when I was on the altar. Aye, Smith. There was a Taylor as well. I don't know whether he got the Headmaster's job or not. We used to call him "Mosey", "Mosey Taylor". Bald-headed fella with a big beak. He was a canny fella. I don't know what happened to him. I think when they got Finity, he left.'
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What can you remember about the General Strike?
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'They used to get these meals and that at the school. I couldn't understand it, because sometimes we used to get some and sometimes we didn't--our family. Aye, it was rough. Kids used to come to school, man, the buggers used to have odd shoes on and all sorts in those days! Nobody had anything! We used to go digging. You know what they call “over the style”? There's a field there where you go over the bridge bank.'
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On the road to Wheatley Hill?
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NEXT: More on the 1926 General Strike
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