23/01/2024
A couple of days of days of snow and I am reminded of a piece of oral history recorded in the 1970's. I know who recorded it and I know that the people she talked with are no longer with us and what is really surprising is that the recorder can't remember why she was asked to conduct the interviews. I also know that by a very circuitous route the handwritten (in pencil) notes made their way back to me a few years back and this testimony from a then very old lady about her school days was in there.
The lady in question lived at Inchnadamph, but the nearest school at the time was in Elphin and she had no option but to walk to school every day. It meant gettig up early in the mornings and it meant that when it snowed the childrens boots were soaked through by the time they arrived at school.
Back at the start of the 20th century there wasn't a budget for heating the schools, so the classrooms had an open fire and children were expected to take a log or two, or a few pieces of coal into school with them each day to feed the fire - not a private education as such, but there was a price to pay.
On one snowy day, the lady recalled that she forgot to pick up some fuel and arrived at the school without anything to feed the fire.
She wasn't excluded - everyone was taught - but instead forced to sit at the back of the classroom at the point furthest from the heat of the fire. A cold lesson which she never forgot.
If you look out today and perhaps wonder whether the buses are running, if school is on and whether it is worth going outside, it is maybe worth a taking a moment to think of that poor lass having to walk miles through the snow only to sit at the coldest part of the classroom in her wet boots.
