In each class pen/wiper and ink monitors were appointed. These pupils were made responsible for ensuring that inkwells were filled and for distributing pens. If you were popular with the ink monitor you got a good nib. If not, you made blots galore and earned the side of the ruler from the teacher for ‘dirty work’.
Each child in Primary School was entitled to one third of a pint of milk a day free. They were delivered by the dairy in miniature bottles the same shape as the regular pint bottle. The milk was delivered then to our classroom by selected pupils from each of the ‘higher standard’.
If the weather was bad, some children for various reasons were not sent to school – no coats, too far to walk etc. The nuns referred to these children as the ‘sugar babies’ – they might melt in the rain! Those who normally went home for lunch each day would, on wet days, be given lunch in the dinner hall – bread, jam and cocoa, sent down from the convent kitchen.
In my early school years the town Workhouse was still operating, though there were few inmates. A few children from the workhouse used to attend our school!
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