Blantyre Project reader, Linda Marieskind has kindly shared this wonderful poem. She told me, “I decided to think about and write something in a similar vein to record my first day at Nessie’s skuil! I hope you like it, it’s just as it happened and I still see it in my mind’s eye as if it were yesterday, but with the veil of time putting a good mist around it so that I don’t feel that strap on my hand any longer! Here it is then:” Pictured WELL Before Linda’s time is Ness’s School at the corner of Glasgow Road and Victoria Street, now the site of Blantyre Library.

“Nessie ma ain skuil”
by Linda Margaret Mackie-Marieskind 15/11/2020

A’ wen’ tae Nessie’s Skuil, alang wi the rest,
Awe the wee bairns, frae hame, frae their nest.
A’ clapped ma een oan a wain wi a tear,
She sat there, ahint her desk, wi a fear o
That wumanin black an’ a face like a peer.

A wen’… tae pit.. ma airm.. oan her shouder,
She was wabbit and tremalt, pair erms a’ shoogle
The wuman in black caw’d me oot tae the middle
She wieldit thoan belt wi a face like a fiddle
Brocht it doon oan ma haun…. for me a riddle!

A’ wis jis tryin’ tae help, a poor wean affy sair,
Tae be leavin’ her mammie.. oot oan the stair
O’ the trouble I goat for leavin’ thawn chair,
Tae gae her a wee bit o’ blether tae calm her
But thaw’s nae allowt…. tae gie oany shel’er
Tae yin wha’s greetin’… or ye’ll gei her a bel’er.

Awa’ ur the days o’ these memiry bites
‘Miss Neilsen’ is gone as a’ the fights,
the rants An’ the raves o’ teachers nae mair,
Frae Nessie’s School noo, the thochts repair,
the visions awe great, o’ the time we hud there.