Nostalgia gets you here
After blogging for
almost 18 years, your blogs become callouts to people in search of information,
especially to do with their pasts. You bring up a search engine and would
likely type in the name of your primary school or secondary school, flick
through the results until one or a few references come up that takes you down
memory lane.
I attended three
primary schools, the Army Children’s School in Kaduna where I started, and my three
memories are my first day at school when I ran out of class to meet my mother
as soon as I saw her come to collect me after school, the Indian headmistress
who cracked the knuckles of kids who had not cut their fingernails and that is
how we all became nail biters, and when I hopped on a school bus just as my dad
arrived to pick me up, we did a good tour of Kaduna before I got off.
More school memories
abound
Then Corona School,
Shamrock House in Bukuru, Jos, where I spent 3 memorable years and have the keenest
recollections of childhood from class 3 to class 5, having jumped a class in my
transfer from Kaduna to Jos. During this time, I have written a lot and have had
many comments from others who have found my blogs. To that end, I have met up
with some old schoolmates and even seen a picture of one of my old teachers
who is now in her 90s.
We returned to Kaduna
in mid-1975 where I attended the Sacred Heart Primary School for my last year,
and though I was involved in a number of extracurricular activities and played
the part of Pharoah in our production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour
Dreamcoat, I was absent for 4 months taking common entrance examinations in the
southwest of Nigeria for secondary school admission. I returned for the last
month to take exams and passed in the top half of the class.
Compiling recollections
for posterity
As I have sometimes
lost comments posted to my blogs, especially when I have had to migrate it from
another platform, I now move some comments into blogs of their own. The many
responses I get for the Corona School blogs cover a broad period of time from
well before the school was on that site where I attended to long after I
graduated, none of that knowledge would have been acquired with the blogs.
I wrote the first one
in 2007 and then a couple more in 2008 after which I compiled in 2009 into a
blog with the comments left on it. I guess it is now time to do that compilation
again, because of the new comments posted and one quite recently too. All these
would be cross-referenced, for the reader to get the whole story.
Blog - Rayfield,
Jos - Memories of a child (May 2007)
Blog - Childhood:
The pupils of Corona School, Shamrock House, Bukuru, Jos (May 2009) – The first
comment compilation blog.
More comments in a
blog
Once again, I thank
everyone who left comments on the blogs, I have compiled the more recent ones
below, so from Armstrong, Joe Miner, Julie Sanda and the anonymous poster the
first compilation, I now have a guest, Brenda and Marianne whose surnames I am
not too sure of and William Gardner.
My annotations and
comments are in parenthesis [], the comments are edited for basic grammatical
and punctuation to improve clarity without losing context or intent of the original
posters.
5. Guest – 24th
May 2012
WOW! Today, I googled
the Yelwa [Club] pool out of curiosity and stumbled on your blog and was brought
back in time. I also was there much later (1983) through my father who was a
microwave engineer (Jay Clark) I was as student with Ms. Opara as headmistress.
Thank you for your blog I will continue to read your posts.
6. Brenda (Gelul)
from Holland – 24th May 2012
Wow! Amazing reading
all those memories.
I remember Corona School
and Hillcrest [School] too. We used to live near the Corona School. My best
memory is the chopones [I don’t know what these are] this woman used to sell
near the school. We loved them and cost 1 Naira [each].
Most my memories are
about the food I loved, the Nigerian foods. [I] miss Nigeria loads being born
there and growing up there it will for ever be in my heart.
7. Marianne [Geluk} –
25th June 2012
[This seems to be
another lady from Holland with a similar story as the last, probably the same person,
I don’t know.]
So cool, I grew up
there too. Corona School then Hillcrest School. I remember the swimming pool.we
used to go to the club [I suppose this is Yelwa Club] loads of with my parents
and we ate pep [I have no idea what this is.] & chicken with all the other
people. So many cool memories, still miss it.
8. William Gardner –
24th July 2021
I came across this
super blog. No idea if it’s still reviewed [It is.], my name is William
Gardner, my parents, Jim and Ina. Just to say to say I have strong memories of
my time at Shamrock School in Bukuru.
My parents were from
Edinburgh, Scotland and my father worked in tin mining (ATMN) [Amalgamated Tin
Mines of Nigeria]. Previously served with the West African Forces during the
Second World War.
He was in the British
Royal Engineers and was in Kaduna and Maiduguri in 1943 before the brigade was
sent to Burma until 1946. My father and mother then went to Jos in 1947. I was
born there, lived in Sabin Gida (Bukuru), Harwell houses (near Rayfield) and a
few other places nearby. I remember going to Shamrock School when I was 5 in
1962.
My teacher was Miss
Emby, then Miss Thorogood, and my last teacher I can’t remember her name. Yes,
I remember Yelwa Club, snooker, pool, Sunday curry lunch, theatre also used for
Badminton. I was sent back to Scotland in 1967 and went to private school and
came out to Jos twice a year.
Really loved in being
on so many airplanes. I remember the leaders of ATMN and their kids. Great
adventure. Mum and Dad retired in 1974.
The Childhood blogs
Nigeria:
Gone is the Jos I knew
Childhood:
The fruits of a chicken napping dog
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