DOB: 24/02/1928

Sheila McLeod

I went to Lady Alice primary school during the war. We started school at 9 in the morning and stopped at quarter to four, so it was a long day. We stopped at 12 o’clock for lunch and some pupils would go home for lunch and then come back in the afternoon.

The Lady Alice uniform, for girls, was like a gym dress with a sash and you wore a blouse underneath. We also wore blazers and for PE you had to wear white skirts with navy plimsolls.

Classrooms were arranged differently from yours. We had individual desks; a long table and you didn’t sit facing each other. More importantly, you didn’t ever talk when you weren’t supposed to. You daren’t. The teachers were very strict and if you got caught doing something you shouldn’t have the teacher would pull you out and reprimand you. Pupils got the strap all the time, no doubt about it. I never got the strap though; I was a very quiet girl.

The subjects I liked best were English, French and history. I wasn’t all that keen on maths but arithmetic was okay. I liked art and got art classes every week; that was nice.

As the war went on, eventually the male teachers started to get called up. This led to a shortage of teachers so what the school did was arrange for some pupils to come to school in the morning and others to come in the afternoon. That was quite disruptive and you didn’t have as much time to learn. But that was how they managed to keep the school opened so it was better than nothing. The only time I remember the school closing down was days after the blitz when it closed for a couple of days.

My school never got hit by a bomb but I think a landmine did land in the playing fields at one time. It was on a parachute and there was a picture of it in Dunlop Street. It demolished some houses. The nights of the raids you would hear the bombs whistling down, although everyone told us, if you hear it whistling it won’t hit you, so you just had to keep thinking that.