Article I written by Alexander Gunn aka A Native of Badbea was printed in the Northern Ensign on 9 Sep 1880 - Part B
Education - no easy matter
One delinquent of this kind felt the indignity done to him so keenly, and showed such a rebellious disposition, that he declared that he would never bring a peat to school again, and, when reading his first lesson, he gave expression to his feelings in this style:
"m-y, my, tha thor me luem fadh; "d-o, do, tha thor me lueme fadh: "m-e, me, tha thor me lueme fadh," and so on.It required a good big fire to keep the school in proper heat during the winter season, for, as I have already stated, the walls were dry built - not a trowelful of mortar of any kind entered into their composition. The force of the wind was broken by the crevices and joints in the walls being stuffed with dried moss or fog gathered from the roots of the heather on the hillsides. It was forced into the crevices by a bit of wood shaped something like a marling-spike; but in winter the snow-drift found its way into the interior of the house, where it formed into miniature wreaths, and it was no uncommon spectacle to see an urchin standing in this wreath, with his bare feet, during the lesson.
Bare footed in the snow
A Native of Badbea
(To be continued.)
- Highland familes placed great emphasis on their children getting educated and worked hard to see that happen.
- The peat-fire picture shows how red-hot the peat could get and yet these fires were still commonly sited on the floor in the middle of a room.
- Alexander Gunn tells in a later blog that this school was for boys only. Girls attended the next school after this one was dismantled.
- I do not think the picture of the boys going to school, by McIan, is likely to accurately depict the boys in the Achnacraig school. Alexander Gunn uses the word 'urchin' which is better, but at least McIan shows the boys carrying their peats, and the leader barefooted in the snow. The next blog confirms the boys wore kilts to school but they were more likely to be plain handwoven garments than tartan.
- As with many place names in the Highlands, Auchincraig and Achnacraig are two spellings of the same place.
- Some of this content I have used in a previous blog but to keep this series complete I have repeated it here.