Still in a Daze because of my School Days!

By: Marcia King-Gamble

www.lovemarcia.com

It’s almost September, and kids are either in school or getting ready to go back. Just last week, one of my nieces started her freshman year in college. The other starts her senior year soon. So many memories came rushing back as I heard about the preparations. There were stories of shopping, packing, unloading and getting settled, then finally the realization that sleep away college meant being on your own and making adult decisions.

School was always an interesting experience for me. I have never attended a public school, and yes, I know that sounds a bit strange, but those are the facts. I was for the most part always a uniform girl.

Growing up, attending some elementary and high school on a tiny Caribbean island, lends itself to a different experience. My family, thankfully, had the means to send me to prep school. What Kingstown Preparatory school meant back then, was a standard blue uniform with perfect pleats, a crisp white blouse, navy blue or black socks and shiny black shoes. If you were female you were expected to wear knickers, and God forbid a hint of colorful underwear showed, that meant detention and lines. Yes, we were very British. You would have to write over and over again "I will wear my knickers to school." 

Every semester a seamstress (sometimes your mother), was employed to make you bloomers, (that’s what I called those knickers.) These bloomers were worn over your regular underwear.

In fourth grade, I attended a parochial school in New York. Again, I wore a uniform, plaid I think, with a little neck tie, but thankfully bloomers were not required..

After a year, I returned to the island to find a great aunt, who had been a nun, had been sent home to die. Regrettably, she had breast cancer.  My Aunt Leila insisted, and my mother complied with her mandate that I attend the local convent school. And no, I had no interest or desire to be a nun. St. Joseph’s Convent was a prestigious school which the wealthy and island white attended, especially when they were not able to pass the test given by the Girls High School (another private institution). The “Convent” girls were said to be stuck up. I hardly fit in and I was difficult.

St. Joseph’s uniform was a royal blue skirt with box pleats, a crisp white shirt, white sneakers (and they better be sparkling white), and a bow tie.  Eventually they lost the tie. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent in the courtyard in the blazing hot sun reeling off a Hail Mary or twenty because of a speck of mud on those sneakers.  Naturally, I did not last very long in that environment.  Frequently, I forgot my veil, necessary for the Thursday prayer hour. Probably to spare the family the embarrassment of being expelled, I returned to Kingstown Preparatory school.

Somewhere around age eleven, I took the The Girls High School test, narrowly missed out on an academic scholarship, and was admitted to Form 1. High school in the islands starts at age 11 or 12, and is probably the equivalent of Middle School in the USA. There was more uniform wearing of course.  But now it was a navy skirt with pleats, a white shirt, blue and white striped man’s tie with a perfect oxford knot, black shoes and socks, knickers and a helmet-like hat. This time there were knicker checks. You had to drop that skirt, and woe was you if there was a hint of color showing. I once got suspended for not wearing my hat. Can you guess which of the above  lovelies is me?

At age 15, my family moved permanently to the United States.  This time I was enrolled in a cool prep school in Greenwich Village. Elisabeth Irwin was a progressive high school with a student body more celebrity than plebeian. There, the uniform was raggedy jeans (much as you see today), platform shoes/sandals, and ratty tees or peasant shirts, showing over an inch of skin.

Come college, I was the jean wearing Danskin girl with the knot (very ballerina-like at the top of my head). That knot moved to the side whenever I had a date. The good thing was that finally I  got to wear what I wanted, albeit my clothes were always pressed. Old habits are hard to change!

 

And just for the record, even today, I never wear knickers -- -at least not the bloomers of my childhood years. 

About Marcia King-Gamble

Romance writer, Marcia King-Gamble originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the same mesmerizing shade of blue. This former travel industry executive and current world traveler has spent most of life in the United States. A National Bestselling author, Marcia has penned over 34 books and 8 novellas. Her free time is spent at the gym, traveling to exotic locales, and caring for her animal family.

Visit Marcia at www.lovemarcia.com or “friend” her on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS. Be sure to sign up for her newsletter.