School Part One

The school was a long low building, a corridor with classrooms to the side. On my first day it seemed enormous to me. The large windows, the steel frames, the grey panels. 

At the front there was a cloakroom, with coat pegs in it. There must have been benches in there, to sit on. 

The boy's toilets were on the left, a large room with frosted windows along the top. The metal troughs to pee in.

At the furthest end of the corridor, on the right, was primary one. As you went further up the corridor you advanced in age, and primary seven was at the top. 

At the back of the school there was a slight hill which led to a large playing field. There were two sets of stone stairs set into this dip in the land. The back of the school was the windows of the classrooms, with the odd door, and some bushes growing. 

On my first day all this seemed to me enormous and alien. It was more perplexing than frightening. The windows seemed to me to be enormous, like the windows in a cathedral. On that first day I saw a boy have a nosebleed. I saw him throw himself down the grassy hill. It all seemed inexplicable. 

In Primary one, the plastic chairs. The plastic blocks that we would play with. 

At the end of the corridor were the teacher's offices and a sort of small entrance foyer. 

The school was bordered at the front by a fence with a gate, and a row of tall trees. There was also an expanse of grass to the right, at the limit of which there was a slight rise bordered by a rickety fence. This formed the limit of the school, beyond which it was forbidden to go. If you went beyond that, to fight with the boys from the other school, you would be given the belt. 

At the furthest limit of the playing fields was another fence, behind which was a derelict house. This house had an evil reputation and was said to be haunted. 

If you walked to the very end of the playing field you came to some long grass, and beyond it, the woods. Behind the school was a patch of woodland, a lesser part of the wider woods. 

In this little world we spent our days.