Front Line

Front Line - Chapter 3 - Year 1

Front Line

Chapter Three- Year 1

   For the first time I could understand why people never wanted to go back to school. It was the day before I would start the first year of my proper education, besides the year that was frankly just another year of playgroup to me. I remember telling my mother and father that I didn’t want to go back, I have no idea why but I knew once I was in there I would be fine, the day before jitters always got the better of me, making me want to stay home and not go again.

   Backtracking a little to the middle of summer, around this time a white enveloped arrived. ‘To the parents of Julianna Monroe’, inside would be what I needed for the following year ahead, such things as the basic pencil, pen, ruler, pencil case, uniform list with optional extras. Also included would be the name of the teacher that would be teaching you for the following year. I have a vague idea of my first year teacher, she retired after the first term, I think her name was Mrs Mason or something like that. The teacher that took over from her, she was a lovely woman, her hair was always up and her round classes on her nose topping off her wide smile. Her name was Miss Robinson, weather a teacher was married or not, you would always call them Miss, not that it bothered them either way.

  The routine was pretty much the same when the first day arrived, I think my younger brother came with us this time, I’m not sure. We walked in the same gate as for the first three years of the infant side, that’s where you would enter through. There was always one girl, her name was Emily who would cry and whine for her mother not to leave her. She would cling to her mother like that was the last time she was going to see her, ever.  I knew I had pre-first day jitters but I was never as hysterical as she was, little did I know that that was just a front, the true Emily would show herself when the doors were closed and the teacher not around.

   Every morning started the same from that day on, we would line up for our registration session, go to assembly, then go to class. The ‘Yellow Unit’ as years one and two were classed under, had a main room in which all coats and bags were stored in, that of course came first before we went to register. Back in those days of the turn of the century, schools like mine didn’t rely much on computers, the register was a bulky folder that you scored a small pencil mark next to the name of the child if they were absent or present.  They would be kept by the reception desk and two from every class would be in charge of fetching and bringing the registers every morning and afternoon, I don’t think I was ever the one to do it for my first year but that was the least of my worries if I got to do it or not.

  Throughout the first month things seemed pretty normal, we would learn basic things within the core subjects, English maths and science. They would just utilise what we had learned from the year before and polish up on what we weren’t good at. I remember every Friday morning I would go to the canteen and learn French, not that it did me any good. I would get so excited when I got something right; I would always get a shiny sticker that I would proudly show off to my parents. Just like the first year, I wasn’t in the same class as the boy I had given the title of best friend; instead a boy with the same name was in my registration class. We got along well and the three of us soon became good friends, as we thought we were back then.

   One day however, around November time, things took a turn for the worst. I don’t remember being told, but I remember the big void in my chest the day I was fully aware that my grandad had passed away. It was a Sunday in which I was told he had passed away the night before, being young I didn’t know what it meant when someone had died, all I was told was that grandad wasn’t going to be around anymore, and that he had been granted his star in the sky. The following day when I had to go back to school, things were as normal as they possibly could be. Aside from my mother informing the school and my teachers what had happened before I got to class so they were all extra nice to me. This now being almost fourteen years ago, whether or not I cried in school over the matter is anyone’s guess. But if I was back then like I am now, I probably cried my eyes out as he was the closest out of my two grandad’s in terms of my relationship with them, and losing him left a great hole in my chest.

   Despite our loss which many families go through so I am not alone in the way I felt, things had to carry on. Indeed my father would be grieving the most as it was his own father,  but as I was also told back then he wouldn’t want us to be crying over him, he would want us to pick ourselves up and carry on for his sake instead. I acted upon this notion and throughout the rest of that year, despite various occasions where I was bullied and picked on, I carried on in memory of the cuddly, warm man I once knew. I have very vivid memories of what I used to do with him, yes I wish I could still do them with him as well as many more things now that I’ve grown up, but thanks to the hard effort of my friends and family, the small blip in the road of my second year at school was soon partially glossed over so that I was able to finish off my year with a smile on my face.

   The last day of that year again is a bit hazy but what I can be most certain of is the fact that I was more than happy to get away from the gang of girls that had formed what felt like a militia group against me. It also meant another summertime that felt like it lasted a lifetime, more time to be in the comfort of my mother and father and company of my younger brother Peter.