There was once a small school in the woods. Rooms filled with children, and haunted by ghosts. But do we all not stay behind? Leave our tiny imprint in the places we walk? There was once laughter there, education and family. I know because I was part of it. I was there in the middle of its career, and I was there as the last students passed through the doors, and the lights were slowly switched off, one by one.
I began my time there as only a 2 year old, part time, with naps in between. My older brother had started his education, and I hadn't wanted to be left alone at home with no one to play with, so there I was, toddling about for a few hours every other day. As time passed I met more babies, and at the age of 3 I stumbled upon a few friends who I still know to this day. It was a close knit place, small classes and all the attention a young child needed to grow and learn. I wish there were more places like it. But if there were more places like it, then it too would still exist, and not have run out of money and students.
It was family run. Family looked after it, and family attended it when they were young. The headmistress was a clever and brave woman. She made the school and she kept it. She was firm with me as a small girl, taught me etiquette, taught me respect, and made me strong. She gave her all to that place. Some of the teachers had been there years and years. It was like a community, with chalk boards and number charts and a little library on the topmost floor. You rose with your age, like you were reaching a point of elevation that only the Gods could see. The youngest were on the ground floor, and the eldest were at the highest point, teetering on the brink of their next life, wondering what they would be; who they could be.
My favourite parts were the sports days and the school plays. Sports days were often taken on the wide sandy paths through the woods. I liked high jump the best, I was always so capable at it. It was the long legs they said; I was just so lanky back then. We played all sorts of fun games, which were often practiced on the last period of a friday afternoon. You'd sometimes get a colourful rosette if you won, or a sticker for trying your best.
The school plays were exhilarating, from the make up to the costumes to the fumbling with your tights and shoes in the pokey rooms backstage. My mother tried her absolute best with my costumes. Some were better than others of course, and considering I never got any of the leading roles, some were more boring than others too. One year she just bought a princess costume because I was so desperate to look sparkly and to stand out that it seemed safer than the risk of her needle. That was the year we did the story of King Arthur, and my dad lent his blunt stage sword to the production, which backfired slightly as no one could lift it. But I was a 7 year old princess and I remembered how I glittered in the lights and it meant so much to me. As every single school moment should mean to every child, big or small. And as schools like mine disappeared all over england, so did the chances of true stardom.
I never wanted to leave, but finally I was sent to the next world, A cold and spooky place in the fields of Buckinghamshire, where I went through all three tiers, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but mostly isolated. But even that school changed, it ceased its grandeur in my early teens and joined with a company, leaving our old headmaster behind. Our muddy hockey pitch was replaced by astroturf, and still, no matter how much I wished differently, Latin classes were gone. But I am proud to say that I moved on to another 6th form, went to art school, and was given an opportunity to finally give something back to my very first school.
It was at 19 that I got a job over the summer as a classroom assistant. They needed someone, and I was there. I was mainly looking after the babies in the nursery, but I got a chance to walk the halls, this time as a young woman. The baby grand piano sat in the hall the same place it always did. The kitchen hadn't changed and the classrooms still smelt the way I remembered them. There was even the large retro TV we used to sit at and watch a puppet rendition of 'Le Carnaval des Animaux' if we were early enough to school. Nothing had changed and it felt enthralling to me. But one thing that stood out more than ever before was the presence of something more, something greater than what we could just see. The ghosts I mentioned before weren't just a metaphor for memories, they were the inexplainable occurrences and figures that I noticed around me. Things a little girl would sense and feel a tingle of excitement over, but just that bit more real to an adult who worked there after school when only one or two other people were in the building, especially as the energy of children had lessened over the summer months.
I had my first encounter with the one they called George when I was searching for the computer room on the 1st floor one empty evening after school. It actually wasn't the 1st floor I was meant to be on, which is what confuses me to this day. I was specifically instructed to go to the one above. But there I was for some reason that is blank to me, tiptoeing through the door and into the empty hallway. Only glimpses of low sunlight filtered through the windows where it could, and I felt the oppression of the place immediately. I took deep breaths where I could and tried my best not to think about the enormous shadowed weight that had found its way to my shoulders. I opened a door to what turned out to be the bathroom, and another heavy door opened behind me across the hall. I started to move blindly, opening and closing doors, searching for something that wasn't there, the corridors closing in on me. I tried to be composed, as I was certain I was being watched. It was when I paused that I heard it, clear and heavy, from within the room that was shut to the right of me. A room that I was later told was his room. The footsteps were hard and resonant, and approached me at a rushed pace, almost urgently. But before I could let them reach the door, I was gone. I bolted to the platform halfway down the stairs where I composed myself before walking down the ground floor hallway to the room where the one other staff member and young girl were sitting together, waiting for her parents to come. I announced I had found the computer room and that all was well, and said nothing about what had happened to anyone. At a later point, as other characters of the building made themselves known to me, I discussed my experiences with a colleague, and learnt about the gentleman I had potentially met. He was described as a soldier that had been seen by children and teachers alike, bound there after the building had been a temporary hospital, like many other large old buildings during WWI. He had been named by the headmistress' daughter who had roamed the school since a tiny girl. There were many more stories told to me which I will relay one day amongst all my other supernatural occurrences that happened before and after that time, but it seemed he was affected by the presence of the children in the school. It was only when the school was at its most empty that he acted, said the other teachers. The children kept away the sadness of the past and without them, it seemed the dead came alive. It is in buildings like this that the laughter of the young is transforming. Among George, it seemed there were others. A few were children. I never saw them but I witnessed their magic. Toys moved house and doors would often open and close on their own on the downstairs floor. A teacher once swore she saw a little girl standing right next to me on two different occasions who then ran away and disappeared. I would sometimes play the grand piano in the evenings when the students were gone and I would hear bangs in the kitchen next door, as the children attempted a chaotic accompaniment to the music.
I don't feel sad for those who are left when others are there too. It's the silence that gets them. I came up with so many theories during my time there of how it all could be, that we could be right next to each other and unintentionally collide for a moment to hear a bang or a thud or footsteps behind a door. But there is no longer anyone there to interact with. The school closed a few months after I left for Brighton. I wonder if the rooms still have finger paintings pinned to the walls. If the library was left in tact. If that piano was lucky enough to be sold, instead of being broken down into pieces because no one has the room for them anymore. If the scratched wooden desks and chalk boards found their way to a skip. If the headmistress kept the building and still walks it sometimes, speaking words of comfort to the walls, convincing them that they will see it all again.
These buildings are timeless, and education is invaluable. I hope there will be a time when small hardworking private schools will rise again, and old buildings will be restored and loved and used for good, instead of another block of crammed in flats or demolished for several squashed houses that we don't need. This world is about fixing and renovation, not destruction. We need to exercise this in our lives now, before we meet the next.
AKC x
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