Jamaican English Part Two

If there is one smell which sums up my primary school, it’s that delicate scent of polished parquet flooring, boiled cabbage with an aroma of custard. Not your usual custard but SCHOOL custard, strong and with a life of its own, even the lumps had muscles.

It was and still is, an impressive building. looming over the surrounding roads and looking like some sort of red bricked castle. Even then it was old, might even be Victorian, as it had separate entrances for boys and girls. I'm sure I've got the date somewhere as there is a section stating how old it is. Three floors high and located halfway near the bottom of a hill with a million windows glaring out into the world.The kitchen was right at the entrance, huge boilers and cookers always on the go, stream puffing out of windows in one direction,as a carpet of suds flowed down the drains. Oh and rumour had it that a there was a ghost in the attic, which was a huge room running the full length of the roof. Even the stairs leading up to it looked scary, unlike the others which were well worn, these stairs were smaller and shorter and looked lonely right up to the large doors at either end which was always locked. Maybe the rumour of it being haunted was started by the staff to keep children out as no one knew why it was meant to be haunted and by whom.

Mrs Ratnar wore her hair in a bun and always seem to favour peep toed shoes. When I first met her, I was distracted by the brighness and colour of the class room and wondering why Mum had brought me here .I wasn't too keen on this strange place and was busy looking around for an escape route. And then I saw the toys....... and other small people of my own size, looking like they were all having a good time. And decided to stay.The little bottles of mik and orange juice were divine but so many little mouths draining the last drop of liquid from a bottle with a straw......I don't know how the teachers didn't run screaming from the room. The Headmistress, Mrs Campbell, wore the highest heels I had ever seen. Her glasses, ( for some reason they remind me of Catwoman) were attention seeking also, almond-shaped with decorated corners.You could always hear her click-clacking, click clacking all over the school.

The Playhouse was my favourite piece of equipment, I was always in there, tidying and doing pretend cooking until I decided one day to jump off a chair and land on the play draining board. I tripped and fell instead onto the sink and hit my head. I didn't know the edge of it was so sharp until I got up and blood started pouring down my face. The other girl in the playhouse screamed so loudly that Mrs Ratner dashed over, saw me standing there and rushed away again. She came back with a handful of tissues from her desk to stop the flow of blood. I wasn't in any pain, but I didn't like this sticky and warm stuff that smelt funny. Mrs Campbell drove me home in her Mini to tell Mum that I needed to go to hospital. Mum had just come home from one shift and was just about to relax and had to struggle quickly back into her girdle and stockings to go out again. At the hospital, a doctor who I had thought was nice as he had said something about stiches but did not realise that he meant the stiches were going to be on me, tidied up the gash on my brow. This did make me cry and I've still got a scar now.

It took me quite a while to learn how to read as I was only interested in playing with as many toys as I could. Mrs Ratner would call my name more than once and if I could have been dragged kicking and screaming to her desk to learn more about Janet & John's wild adventures, I would. I couldn't see the sense in learning all this and then one day, it all fell into place. Move over Janet & John, hello to stories about people doing more than watching a dog run.

I never won the Daffodil competiton but loved looking after the tiny bulbs and seeing them bloom into bright golden flowers. We grew watercress and made potato stamps to create colourful pictures. The summer holidays were a bit worrying though as Mum always viewed this as a good time to clean us out. I personally thought that she use to experiment with various concoctions as we would have a variety of tonics to sample. On school days we would have to take Haliborange ( yum yum) and other multi-vitamin tablets but I mean, who would ever think that Scotts Emulsion, Cod Liver Oil, Liquid of Life ( more like Liquid of bleeding Death) Garlic Pills and others would do anyone good? And then she would bring out the big guns, herbal teas made from bush and leaves of Jamaican plants AND try to pass them off as ordinary teas. Yeah as if milk and sugar could disguise the foul smell. In our house, there would be a lot of crying and pleading going on once we saw Mum with spoons in one hand and a mysterious bottle under her arm. The taste, the smell, the miserable mind bursting tastes would coat your tongue and the back of your throat..oh my word....

We knew when it as getting close to starting school again as soon as Mum started ordering items from the doorstep salesman. The one I most remember was an Indian man who came round with a large suitcase. He would open it up and a rainbow would appear, all types of clothing would be packed in neatly, with a couple of silky bedspreads ontop. My brother would be the lucky one as Mum insisted on making mine and my sister's clothes. She has always been a brilliant seamstress and taught us both to make clothes from measurements, not patterns, just as how she was taught in Jamaica. She would insist on both of us looking the same but I must admit that having a smaller and cuter version of myself wandering around, really got on my nerves. I mean, there is a two year gap and my sister had more hair than me, so ribbons and various hairstyles always looked nice on her, me on the other hand....

I can't remember kicking out my shoes on a regular basis but Mum always made a point of buying my shoes from the Co-op. She said that the Co-op had tough shoes and there was a brand of footwear called 'Tuff' at the time. I felt special going shopping for shoes as they would come home in a box wrapped with a lilac ribbon.And this was after laughing at the box the shop assistant placed the money in and watching this box zoom along the ceiling of the store to some distant point.

Christmas time was always exciting, with classroom elections for Christmas Postman. A large tree took up a corner of the assembly hall, decorated with baubles and boxes wrapped in bright sheets of coloured foil.We made paper chains and lanterns to decorate our classroom and any excess went into the main hall. Hand made Christmas cards, full of cotton wool dangled alongside ballons and if you looked closely enough, some children would have remnants of cotton wool stuck to their faces, failed attempts to make a fluffy beard before the teacher saw them.

The cooks tried their best with the Christmas dinners but I only remember the puddings. Mint custard made a welcome appearance, such a delicate green and lovely light taste and White custard was fantastic with chocolate sponge. Each day would have a different coloured or flavoured dessert but I could never face blancmange, the skin on that looked more like a blanket. Rice pudding was always served with a swirl of strawberry jam but I only dabbled with Sago, Tapioca and Semolina. Any type of crumble or pie and I would have seconds. A couple of brave souls would even have a third helping, no mean feat as in those days portions were a decent size.

Decorating our house was a family affair, with Mum telling Dad where the tinsel decorations should hang so that they wouldn't mess up her curtains. We would decorate the tree with chocolate umbrellas, coins and parcels and I would have one eye on my sister who was famous for eating things on the sly and wrapping them back up. Mum would buy these huge ballons from Lewisham Market and we would spend the evening blowing them up, with my nerves getting tighter and tighter as my brother and sister loved making them pop.For once the front room competition was put on hold as our friends and families brightened up their windows with their trees and lights. Each home would radiate with colour and gorgeous flowing decorations, some so large you had to wonder where they had brought that and with what.

I think that my arms are still toned due years of mincing dried fruits for our Christmas cakes. Each year Mum would get out a large glass jar, the type you would have sweets in and she did buy this one from our local sweetie shop, which was owned by an elderly couple called Baker (.Come to think of it, they probably weren't that old but to a child, any adult looked old.) As soon as we saw the jar, we knew what was coming next and yes, here comes the mincing machine. Stainless steel and with a weight that threatened to snap your wrist, Mum would secure it to the dining room table, haul out several bags of sultanas and raisons with leave us to it. The mindless " scoop into top, press down with spoon, turn turn turn turn" made the table dance gently from side to side. This took a couple of days to get it all mixed and then Mum would drown the now filled jar with ruby wine, put it in a cupboard and top it up with other mysterious drinks until it was ready to be made into cakes. The mincer is still going strong, my table was doing the same dance a few weeks ago but the glass jar is no more.