Jacqueline Allingham of Strathaven was encouraged to enter The Herald Mighty Pens competition thanks to a friend. “I was delighted to hear of being a winner and also very surprised. I am a recently retired NHS Speech and Language Therapist and I have always loved books.

“My friend Carolyn and I decided we would try writing short pieces for each other during lockdown when we took turns to choose a topic and we would each write a story or poem and post them to each other.

“I discovered I really enjoyed writing and also was excited to read what my friend had written.

“This inspired me to find the confidence to write a story for The Herald competition.”

 

SCOTTISH WINTER TIME

December 1968. It was the year the government decided not to move the clocks back for the winter. It was the month I moved with my family from suburban Surrey to a rural town in deepest Lanarkshire.

My Dad said this change from Greenwich Mean Time to British Standard Time was an experiment to see if fewer children would get run over on the way to school before daybreak than they would going home in the dark. School children were all given fluorescent yellow sashes and armbands to wear in the pre-dawn obscurity.

I don’t know the results of the experiment but they went back to changing the clocks after a year or two.

We had moved from the supermarket bright suburbs where I could walk to school in the daylight with my friend and I now found myself in a couthy market town where I had to make my way, with my brother, in a pitchy darkness to morning school.

To cope with this cultural shift I tried to focus on the benefits. My Girl Guide Letts diary from 1968 indicates two lists as follows:

Good Things Bad Things

Near to Gran I am new girl

More countryside Darker and colder

Saw a fox No friends

I can see a donkey on the way to school Left best friend behind

My Mum always got up early and lit the coal fire. She would then put our underwear on the fireguard to warm up and we would shiver as we rushed to dress in the freezing living room. Frosty, icy patterns decorated the inside of the windows.

Bowl of porridge with a sprinkle of brown sugar and the creamy top of the milk and a cup of tea the colour of an autumn beech leaf and then a spoonful of slippery cod liver oil before being cast out to the dim morning, sporting our sashes and arm bands.

It wasn’t long before my brother met some other boys his age and scampered off ahead.

He was six and it seemed easy for him to make friends. The boys of that age seemed to bond with each other through physical means rather than verbal and they ran together bumping collaboratively against each other like a litter of puppies.

Aged ten and a half, I felt I needed to use language to make new friends and the trouble was that I became overcome with anxiety about how my accent sounded as I feared being teased for being “English”.

I was walking down the big hill clad in a home knitted balaclava and mittens and my rather rigid duffle coat. My new satchel was slung from my shoulder in a manner I hoped looked nonchalant.

I hadn’t needed a satchel in Surrey as you didn’t get homework till High School there but Mum had bought this one which now contained my jotter/exercise book, gutties/plimsolls and a chocolate digestive wrapped in foil for my playpiece/snack.

“There she is! The new lassie.” I turned to see three girls and a boy who I recognised from my class. They were walking behind me. For a moment I hoped they were going to be friendly and walk with me to school so I smiled.

“Let’s see if she will talk.....What you got in the bag?”

I said the word in my head first to see if it could come out without sounding too English, “Stuff.”

“Do you know you are a Sassenach?”

I did know because my Dad used to tease us and say we were Sassenach children but when the boy said it, it sounded like an insult. I felt my face redden and it became hot under the prickly balaclava.

Then the boy said, “I think we should look to see what she keeps in that bag.”

He snatched it from my shoulder. He opened it and they all gazed inside in the gloom as if they might see a wonderful surprise.

The contents were a disappointment and the boy gave me a look as if to offer it back to me. I stretched my hand out and he pulled the bag away and the four of them ran off schoolwards, fluorescent bands dancing in the darkness like malevolent fireflies.

For a moment I imagined being like my brother and running with them laughing and bumping and joining in but my courage failed and I followed them at my usual trudging pace. The nice lollipop man gave me a grin as he helped me safely across the road.

At school, no sign of the satchel and I had to pretend to the teacher I had forgotten my homework as instinct warned me that to tell the truth would be unwise.

By morning Playtime the sun had risen and it was brighter but still freezing cold. I stood alone and without my biscuit to occupy me it seemed like an eternity till we were back in class.

The homeward journey was brighter and less spooky and now I could see more clearly where I was going and where I had been.

I was rehearsing what to say to Mum as I didn’t want more trouble over the satchel but when I arrived home she greeted me with a triumphant, “Look what the postman brought with the Christmas cards!” as she held up a slightly squashed satchel.

“He said that someone had somehow squeezed it into the post box and it had your name and address inside so he delivered it.”

The next morning I arrived at school with my satchel and the boy looked surprised and then he laughed. “You got it back! Want to play peevers with us? You can have some of mine!”

I noticed the dawn was starting to break through and I could see the welcome on their faces now.

WHAT MADE THIS A WINNER?

Bernard Bale “It is a very human story that just about all of us can relate to if we have ever gone to school. That fear of knowing nobody, fear of not matching up in the eyes of both teachers and fellow pupils can be a terrifying experience that for some has left scars for life.

The relief of being accepted is clear and the reader is relieved along with it. Going to a new school is close to joining a new family and emotionally very stressful. Words are not just about reading, they are about feeling and Scottish Winter Time achieves this. Congratulations.”

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