Victorian schools should not be thought of so fondly

The Victorian building I was incarcerated in in Falkirk in the early 50s certainly had high ceilings and high windows, but there the Shangri La ended. Forty-two of us were crammed into double desks on four tiers, separated from the forty-odd next door by a folding partition, and from the forty-odd beyond that by another folding partition. The windows, high as they were, also had high sills, so all you could see when you escaped from the boredom of rote learning to stare out of them, was sky. These reveries were short lived and ended, usually, by being hit by a missile. If you were lucky, it was only chalk, but it was just as likely to be the wooden blackboard duster, or, not infrequently, a bunch of keys.

The high ceilings provided ample space for the circulation of the drafts from the loose window frames and the pathetic central heating was supplemented by a coal burning stove between the teacher’s table and desk (I never worked out why two pulpits were required for the preaching of chanted spelling and multiplication tables as the change of location seemed to be completely random) which stank the room out with smoke, possibly to mask the smell of damp children, since there was no place to dry wet clothes.

Attractive as these buildings may appear to the aesthetes among us, they were more like a jail than a seat of learning and I am sure that at least some of the teachers had been dismissed from the prison service for being over enthusiastic with corporal punishment.

Les Hunter

Lanark

THE importance of fresh air to health has become forgotten and Jean Fraser’s letter in The National is well worthy of further consideration. The great Scottish polymath Patrick Geddes was once laughed at for suggesting that people should sleep in cages cantilevered from the building. Modern research into sleep makes it clear that fresh air and low temperature help structured sleep which in turn is vital to strengthening the immune system.

Fraser mentions the Victorian style of large windows and high ceilings which were certainly conducive to reducing the spread of infection but also was to allow gas lighting which required head room, and in the case of schools the high cills were to cut off the view. However, knowledge of the value of fresh air lead to the practice of patients sleeping on balconies or terraces (particularly those with TB, the management of which was spearheaded in Scotland) and of course convalescent hospitals being built in the country or in big grounds.

The building of schools and houses in the post-WW2 period was dictated by precise regulations on the amount of fresh air, sunshine and daylight which reached each part of each room. It is a puzzle to me why contemporary homes are tested for air leakage when humans are damp entities which need to be well ventilated. It is also a puzzle to me why modern hospitals are often surrounded by busy roads, huge carparks and served by diesel ambulances. In the centre of the building are hermetically sealed rooms for patients fighting for their breath being given oxygen, with the room itself ventilated artificially.

This pandemic must be used for a springboard to achieve a more balanced and common sense built environment. On a lighter note, as a vulnerable pensioner and fresh air fiend, I often wonder why trains and buses don’t have open sections as Edinburgh trams used to have.

Iain WD Forde

Kinross-shire

JEAN Fraser’s letter and her mention of Victorian schools awakened memories of my time spent at Dunning Primary School just over 80 years ago.

The school was, one room, one teacher, a spinster lady brought back from retirement, and the pupils ranged from 5-12 years old. There was a black cast iron stove in the corner of the room and the teacher’s table and chair were next to the stove so in winter she and the youngest pupils were warm. The older you were the further back in the classroom you were and my “writing tablet” was a dark blue slate and my “pen” a piece of chalk.

My fondest memories of the school were of the play times when I ate my play piece and when we sang “Now the day is over night is drawing nigh”. I have no memory of anything that I learned at school but Dunning instilled into me a love of the countryside that has remained and influenced me ever since.

Thomas L Inglis

Fintry

LOTS of Unionist angst over Scotland perhaps differing its approach from England, Wales or Northern Ireland on lockdown conditions. Surely the point of devolution is that it respects that each country within the Union can differ. We often hear of the “Broad shoulders of the UK”, it is not the shoulders that concerns us. The brainless head is what causes the underwear threatening experience.

M Ross

Aviemore