The Salford Girl 2

A Memory of Salford.

In 1950, St Ann’s R.C. mixed infant school was just off Silk Street. Salford 3, I think. I remember, aged 3, lying down on the fold-up bed with all the other kids on their beds in the large nursery room in the afternoons for our nap, and the appetizing smell of the cold round of toast, spread with echo margarine that my gran, who lived a few streets away on Cannon Street, had made me for lunchtime. I recall the school dinners, which made me retch and were unpalatable. I didn’t return to school until it was compulsory to do so when I was five.
Miss Connaughton’s class was up the stone steps. Two large open coal fires with nursery fireguards warmed the classroom. In the winter months, the bottles of milk, about a third of a pint were brought upstairs by older children in crates, then placed near the fires to unfreeze; some of the kids I remember were Barbara Simpson, Eileen Horsfield, Elaine Burton and two fiery, red-headed characters Jimmy and Rosie White.
In the mornings at assembly, under the watchful gaze of teachers and Mother Anthony our headteacher, we girls and boys lined up in front of the big Sacred Heart statue of Christ to say prayers—the Christ statue’s kind eyes looking down on us all so lovingly, and with one hand, Christ pointed to his open heart, while with the other hand, he appeared to bless us. Afterwards, it was an hour of Catechism, which I found rather boring due to the repetitive chants, “Who made me, God made me, Why did God make you, to know and love him forever and ever” or something like that. I would have preferred a story from the Bible, but that is the way it was.
Each year in Spring we assembled in lines outside the school to walk around the cobbled streets, passing the old houses surrounding the school (the area can be seen in the Hobson’s Choice film with John Mills.) A number of people came out of their homes to wave and smile at us. I remember having been to the dentist which was off Chapel Street for extractions when I was six, and my dad stopping at Arlington Brew with me to watch the film being made. However, there were no film stars present, just firemen hosing the street down and dad said in case I got cold in my gums (me neither) we should carry on walking home.
In May, for the big event of crowning the statue of the Virgin Mary in our school’s main hall, the children were encouraged to bring in small bouquets of fresh flowers. A plinth was placed beneath the high ceiling to support the statue. The fresh flowers were garlanded all around the statue, down to the floor beneath. There must have been twelve feet of flowers on either side; it was spectacular, and the fragrance wafted throughout the school. Afterwards, we gathered in the hall and sang hymns to the Virgin Mary. ‘Bring flowers of the fairest’ was my favourite hymn as was my older sisters before me. Then someone would climb a ladder to place a small crown of fresh flowers on the statue’s head; I think it was a pupil.
Mother Anthony, teachers, and priests always talked to us of the Virgin Mary. They would say, ‘Pray to the Virgin Mary.’ However, whenever I needed an uplift—which was usually the case most days—I preferred to pray to Jesus, since I felt no strong connection to the Virgin Mary; the statue was beautiful but cold-looking, and I prayed to her only occasionally.

---

---