Childhood Memories - A Wistful Tale

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Grahams’ Moravian Primary School on the northern side of the abandon railway behind Atlantic Ville was a wonderful small school that I attended from the time I moved from William Street, Cambellville in 1976. In the schoolyard there were two buildings used for primary and secondary education and a two feet wide concrete passageway separated them. To the western side of the school was a large burial ground running from the railway line to the Moravian church just behind what is called the forty feet sideline trench at the back of Atlantic Ville. To the east of the school was a large plot of land with shrubs, bushes, razor grass, cork and monkey apple trees.

What fun I had at Graham’s Hall! We played cricket, thieves and police, war break, marbles and a host of other games. We climbed the tombs and were scared like hell to peek into those that had cracks wide enough to see the bones of the dead. We ate the downs from the lone tree in the graveyard and were not afraid of dying. We learnt music in the churchyard from a bearded musician who lived in Industry Front.

There was one day that I went to school with a bright orange shirt and my class teacher asked what I think I was doing. She chased me home to take it off. There were days that I went barefooted to school when the holes in our Bata boots got too big a hole to wear. And on some midday when we went home we had milk and rice with sugar or biscuit and sugar water for lunch, and we were happy. We did not complain. There were days too when we had good meals, like chicken curry and rice with liquefy yellow split peas. On most occasions we had fish curry from freshly caught fishes from the Atlantic Ocean.

The teachers were really excellent at Graham’s hall. Mr. Bacchus who made us learnt from 2 to 24 times table. There was Ms. July who taught the common entrance students and from whose class many later went on to Queens College and subsequently became renowned scholars. But I mostly remember Mr. Bachus who made us knelt on the hard floor with our arms in the air holding our heavy book bags whenever we made a mistake. He drilled us in spelling and the multiplication tables in the classroom and on some days in the schoolyard like we were in the army. Luckily I used to get most correct and save myself a flogging on the behind or in the palms where the welts used to make you grimaced when you sat down or hold anything with your hands.