More memories of Lindsay Road

More memories of Lindsay Road. Miss Laura Ferguson, who left in (I think) 1972 - she presented us all with the gift of a paperback book. I got "Tales of Science Fiction" which I still enjoy. When I was in 3rd Class I came first in the annual exams. I continued to come first right through primary and secondary (small classes, of course), which was probably most unfair on my sister. I remember getting a book voucher for something like 2/6 and having to go into Hodges Figgis to choose my prize - a book of ghost stories, including Oscar Wilde's Canterville Ghost. Miss Fullerton, Mrs McEvoy. I remember I used to prefer to write "poetry" than prose essays, but once wrote a silly story that had me and (I think) my class mates (but not the teacher) in stitches. I would love to have it now and see whether it was funny or just nonsense. I remember that our Irish reading book included religious stories, and what a revelation it was to me that the Bible could be told in Irish. I remember that Revd Mr Moran, the manager, died, and he was replaced by Revd Alan Martin, who had a long and distinguished ministry in Abbey Presbyterian, and was chaplain at Trinity when I went there many years later. Mr Martin introduced us to the story in Mark's Passion of the young man who escapes the soldiers by fleeing naked. We also had religion classes from Revd Cecil Faull of St George's, tall and loud, whose daughter Nicola was a dark beauty - or so it seemed to me. For a while we had an elocution teacher, whom I think was called Mr Moynihan. He taught us about dipthongs, worked on our Dublin accents, and organised plays that we made up ourselves. He held a sort of sale or auction one day, don't know why, and I ended up with a 45 rpm record of an old Eurovision entry, Ceol an Ghra. I remember learning "All Kinds of Everything" when the young Dana won; not to mention Edelweiss as Gaeilge. We had Irish dancing too, which I loved. Came in useful too, for we would occasionally go to ceili evenings in Abbey, when great fun was had with The Walls of Limerick or The Waves of Tory.

Perhaps it comes with being twins, or with being shy, but I think we were not great at socialising. I remember the excitement of going to a BIRTHDAY PARTY! Nowadays kids seem to be at parties every week; not so for us. A new Scottish family, David and Catherine Shevill, had come to the school, and we were all invited. I vaguely remember that the food was "different", and that we all got a special present of a bright shiny new halfpenny, penny and two-penny piece. Decimalisation had arrived; the old 1/2 d with its pig, the 1d with its chicken, the bunny on the 3d, the greyhound on the 6d, the horse on the half-crown, were no more.

Another exotic was the presence of a foreign boy, coffee-skinned, large, who wore a yellow jumper and so acquired the nickname "Hanna Banana". He would spend Irish time writing out his Arabic work-book.

It was a good school, and I was happy there. Then I became a chorister in St Patrick's, and we were both moved from Lindsay Road to complete 6th class in the Cathedral Choir School, in preparation for entry to the Grammar School. Our new school was no more than 10 minutes walk from Sweeney's Terrace.