Ebrinton pupils return as employees

But Ebrington is unique in that both school secretaries are not only a wonderfully warm presence, they are both past pupils, and are fiercely protective of the young people who come through the gates at Ebrington primary.

Marilyn McCarter also holds the honour not only of being one of the pupils of the former Ebrington Primary who made the transition to the 'new school' 50 years ago, she was hand picked by the principal to help him lock the doors and gates at the old school- which was housed within the buildings at Ebrington Presbyterian Church.

"I don't remember my first day, but I do remember my first class," she says of her days as a pupil.

"The old school was located in the halls adjacent to Ebrington Presbyterian Church and consisted of six classrooms of various sizes, because in some of the rooms there were two classes. They were huge, and P1 or junior as they were called, was taken by Miss McGonigle. She was my first teacher. I was only four years of age and she was quite small in stature, but she was a very elegant lady and had great poise. She was very soft spoken and was a white-haired lady. My recollection was she had white hair and everybody else has the same recollection.

"I remember the sun used to come in and silver glints were in her hair when the sun shone in. She was a very nice lady and looking back she just had that edge about her that put young children at their ease. She always had a lovely smile, and she always wrote bright red nail polish."

In P1 or junior infants, you did not have a jotter and pencil, the pupils wrote on slate with chalk - another vivid memory for Marilyn. The facilities also burned themselves into her memory.

"The desks in those days were long benches and there were four to a desk. They were in rows. I remember there was one room which had benches and to work you had to lean on your knees. That was 'the watertap classroom', but in all the other classroom there were long benches and the seat was integral to the desk and there were ink wells built into them and they were on a metal frame. The single desk versions of those did not come in until we moved up here 50 years ago," she says laughing.

"There were no back to those bench desks and if you leaned back that was it, you just went back. I don't remember a lot about the lessons when I was very little, but I do remember that the blackboard was on an easel. The chalk was yellow on the outside and white inside and we worked with the wee slates and there was coloured chalk as well, and when we were doing art you were allowed the coloured chalk to draw on your slates and you were not given new chalk until your piece of chalk was really worn down. There was a box of chalk on the teacher's desk and you came up and got another piece. You always tried to get a big long piece, but sometimes the teachers would break the stalk in tow and only give you half...After that you went on to pencils, when you got to P3."

In P7 she recalls the excitement of going to a new school.

"We were told we were moving to a new school and it would be nearby, but we knew that because we were all from the Waterside and we knew they were building on this site here, so we knew we were coming to this site. In those days this site was called 'the old polo field'. All this ground here backed onto the old workhouse, and the paupers' graveyard was just in the fields next door. That's how our parents tried to deter us from coming in here. I remember it was all marshy ground and if you came through here you were all muck, and our parents used to try and frighten us not to come through here by telling us it was the pauper's graveyard," she said.

Naturally, as children, the admonitions fell on deaf ears.

Marilyn can recall clearly the final day in the old school and the trek to the new one.

"We all filed in for assembly, and the assembly hall in the old building was the huge big lecture hall and it was divided into to by a partition. In assembly and for special occasions the partition was pulled across, so we were all gathered there. We knew we were having a special assembly because it was our last day.

"We sang the hymn 'Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing'. We were all assembled in or classes and we were all told to file out and start walking and the teachers walked us up to the school," she said, adding: "Now, Mr Ramsay was the principal and he asked two senior pupils to stay behind. Normally when you are told to stay behind you know you have done something wrong, so it was daunting, but the reason the two senior pupils were asked to stay behind as because he wanted us to assist him to lock the doors of the old school for the last time, and I was one of them and Ian Warnock was the boy.

"We were only a few minutes behind the rest of them when we walked up. The residents from the area were all out watching us, as were the TV cameras, and we were actually on the TV that night," Marilyn recalled.

Marilyn said the pupils were not really tearful as it was tempered with the excitement of going to the new school.

"Now, the teachers, it was a big change for them and they had mixed feelings about leaving their familiar surroundings," she said.

The change over happened early in December and Marilyn left primary school the following summer, so she only had a couple of months to enjoy the comparative luxury of the new school, not so Dawn, the other school secretary, who was only in P1 when the trek to the big new school took place.

"I was in P1 on the first day whenever we moved and came up here, so I did the walk. I just remember that it was a wet day," she says unable to recall any other detail of the day.

"I was a quiet shy wee girl compared to what I am now," she laughs, adding: "I just lived close by. Our back garden faced onto the school grounds, so I didn't every have very far to go. I spent my whole primary education here and came back here to work about 17 years ago."

Like Marilyn, Dawn remembers Principal Ramsay, and also Roy Wright, and her children were also educated at the school.

"My heart lay here and it was because of the emotional attachment with the school that I brought my children here. It was strange to work here in the beginning, but it strange to see girls that I went to school with, to see their children's children coming here now to go to school.

"My recall of my younger days is very bad, but I do remember my father one time bringing an ostrich egg from Australia, and that when I was in my second or third year, and Mr Ramsay kept it in his office. I remember it was taken round the classes and we all talked about where it came from," she said.

"We were all fascinated by the size of the egg because we were used to hens eggs and this was huge by comparison," she said.

Being in a garrison catchment area Dawn remembers the Army children coming to the school when she returned as an employee. Initially it was only the officers children who came to Ebrington, but later all the children attended the school.

"The children integrated really well. It is strange to talk about them now because they have all gone again. It must be 10 years since they left. Maybe it is not as long as that," she said.

Although there has been a bit of a stall in terms of the next big change for the school, Dawn says there is excitement among staff about the new build that is to take place, hopefully in the near future.

"I'll know when the new site will be under way because I can see the Samson Hall from my bedroom window and I know when it is flattened that work will be under way and all systems go!"