Welcome to the Website of Mrs R Carr

More about my teaching career

I clearly remember my first day at school, Miss Laughlin showed me two desks in the row of desks nearest the windows. She told me that my two brothers had sat at these desks when they had been in her class and asked me which one I wanted to have. I chose the 2nd Desk. Other memories of "1st Babies" as the class was known, include drawing on sand trays and using chalk and blackboards. Miss Lauglins little tin of Dolly Mixtures for good children. She did not give them easily, they had to be earned (sweets were still on ration at this time). Miss Laughlin was a "very old lady" (probably in her fifties - she was still at All Saints when I left). She had silver hair which she wore in a bun at the back of her head. Many will remember The Radiant Way Readers. These were used in many Primary Schools in Scotland during the time I grew up. They were still in general use when I was one of a group of students from the Craiglockhart College of Education, who were visiting the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh. The children there learned from Braille versions of Radiant Way. It was said that one of the advantages till then had been that the children were learning from the same readers as their sighted siblings. This was changing as the fashion for lots of pictures and few words, in the new reading schemes were not so suitable for the children who read with their fingers. I attended All Saints School from 1944 to 1951. Ist teacher Miss Laughlin then Miss Taylor, Miss Casserlerley, Miss Curry, Miss Duffy, Miss Brannigan, Mr Shields - I may have forgotten someone - I think there was one year when we had several changes of teacher. Note that all the female teachers were single, 2 possible reasons : the War had just ended in which many women had lost sweethearts, and the rule that teachers (women) must leave the profession when they married was only changed some time after this period. My mother did not return to teaching until 1950 or 51, at first as what we would now call a supply teacher, and, within a couple of years, took up a permanent post in St Andrew Junior Secondary in Coatbridge. My friends in Primary School included Margaret (Rita) Cairns, Anna Madden, Maureen Degnan, Alice Gordon, among others. Boys on my class were Robert Arbuckle, Eamon Morgan, The Martin Twins (John and Patrick ?), Peter Gorman, another Arbuckle, James McAlinden (who joined in the final year) I remember Robert Arbuckle laughing uproariously because I was hesitating to put my hand up, though I was fairly sure I had the answer. Peter Gorman and a boy called McCluraith were planning to go to Blairs College the junior seminary near Aberdeen where my brother later taught and became Rector.

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