I attended school aged three. I am a summer-born child, so have every sympathy with summer-born children. I still recall those moments of pure eureka joy when maturity and age came together, and everything finally clicked – usually long after everyone else had already figured it out!
My first teacher was a very nice nun called Sr de Passy who ran the Infants Class – what we call nursery – and then we went to Junior Infants; the modern Reception class. I remember playing with corn kernels, which I had never seen before, and I was fascinated. This is why it still matters to me that children have opportunities for surprise, curiosity and awe and wonder.
My first crisis was when I had an ‘accident’ because I couldn't ask ’Can I have permission to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom?’ quick enough in Irish. We had to remember the phrase, which is now clearly embedded in my psyche (An bhfuil cead agam dul amach le do thoil?).
I have always been an avid reader and would read anything available to me. We were not a bookish family, so I read my mother's magazines. When I was eight, my mother was called to the school because they were concerned about my reading matter, as I was telling stories that were judged too precocious!
When I was about nine years old, we had to learn about farthings. I don't know why, because they had not been currency for years. I needed to see them to understand, so my mother took me to a very elderly neighbour who had some and he lined them up to the value of a penny, and it made sense to me then. A modern pedagogue!
I am the eldest of five so I was sent out with my siblings to play, and we were not encouraged to come back until mealtimes. I loved to swing around the concrete lamps, although I cracked my head on one more than once. In those days we were proud of our cuts and bruises! We played hopscotch with chalk stones, and ‘gobs’ with five stones, or made potions by soaking Cadbury's chocolate wrappers and anything else we could find to make coloured water. Once I took a shortcut through a building site and got one of my rainboots stuck in the mud. I had to be rescued, and I was in so much trouble!
Sometimes we were taken to my grandmother's house on the outskirts of the city, and she had a wild garden that led to woodland. It was magical and there were lots of blackberry bushes and she made jam, which my dad loved. In fact, I still do this – going instead to the inner London waste spaces to pick the blackberries.
I attended quite a strict convent school, and the real thrill came from opportunities to break rules. Every young person needs to discover their own path, and it's often easier when the ‘grown-up’ world feels black and white – no pun intended on the nuns!
