Back to School

This afternoon I made a delivery in an urban area at around 3.0 pm.  As I approached my 'target', I encountered a phenomenon that has become an inescapable part of daily life for thousands (mainly young, mainly women) across the country - the School Run.  I felt I was lucky to have an unimpeded course, as I ran the gauntlet of a great variety of vehicles, from humble minis to family saloons, to prestigious four-wheel drives: each presenting a doting parent or grandparent to the school gate, and each ready to receive the addition of an excited junior occupant for the return journey.

How different from my own day, I reflected.  School days now are over by 3.0 - sometimes earlier, it seems.  My primary school day was from 9.0 till 3.45, and when I progressed to the local Grammar School, my friends and I weren't released until 4.0 pm!  At this point there was a mad dash for the buses, while those of us who lived closer to school blocked the roads with dozens of cycles, many badly ridden, or with riders who cared more for teasing their fellows than for the nebulous concept of road safety!

And while we're on the subject, let's give the old clock another twist, and go back to my parents' schooldays, during and just after the First World War.  I've no idea just what time lessons finished, but the school day was a long one, especially for some children.  There were no cars or buses for them.  It was a tiring walk of some miles both morning and evening, and it wasn't their school books or gym kit that they carried, but a crust or two of bread for their lunch.  Somehow, though, I don't see them as miserable.  There would have been games and shouts as they left the school I have no doubt, just as in later generations, with taunts to each other and the occasional joke at a teacher's expense.

The young crowd would progress along the road, and grow smaller with each passing junction, as a cluster of bodies would leave the main tribe to make for its own community.  As the numbers decreased, so the sound would fade too.  Cheers and laughter would increasingly give way to talk of the affairs of the neighbourhood, until, as one farm gate after another claimed its brood, the minds of the siblings turned to the doings of their own families, and one would ask another whether they thought a father's field had been ploughed, or a mother's washing dried (matters that could have a dramatic bearing upon the atmosphere in the house that evening!) or the likely state of grandma's cough.  And all too soon, the same groups would come forth, merge, and gather the following morning.

There was no anxiety over obesity or lack of exercise - what energy wasn't taken up in getting to and from school each day was soon consumed by chores or boisterous play at evenings and weekends.  And parents would be far too busy to even dream of taking and fetching the little darlings.  It was taken for granted that new starters would be taken by their older siblings, and if there weren't an older sibling, then there would be a near neighbour to show the way the first few times, and after that they were on their own.  Even in my own day, I was encouraged to make an arrangement with a boy down the road to cycle together to the Grammar School on the first day of term.  Of course, there weren't so many dangers in those days - of if there were, they weren't so publicised and demonised.

But reverse spectacles were always rose-tinted, and I suspect ever will be!