Mrs Kemmet came from Hell

She had a foul and smoky smell

Her voice rasped like an electric drill

I heard mum say that she was ill

But she was assuredly alive

When she hit me at the age of five

The sorest blow I ever felt

A black and hard Lochgelly belt

Swung in rage on tiny fingers

The shock and agony still lingers

What did I do? I made a mistake

Ran in the girls’ playground at break

It was clearly an important rule

At Pollokshields’ St Ronan’s School

I still feel them, throbbing, red and sore

Mrs Kemmet spilt ash on the floor

I wore green blazer, cap and socks

We moved to Troon, where I was mocked.

My old uniform, too good to waste

Was not to my new classmates’ taste

Theirs was blue and red and white

They said all Catholics were shite

Which made no sense to me at all

As we went to the Gospel Hall

One day nurses came, a pair

Searched under arms and in our hair

We’d no idea what they might find

The Tyler twins were kept behind

Came back to class, hair wet and glistening

Smelling of chemicals, we sat listening

As the teacher told them to sit

Apart from us, as they had nits

And nits were something very bad

I’ve never seen two boys so sad

As if they wished that they were dead

Next day they arrived with shaven heads

And then: did something change in me?

Did I recognise the cruelty?

Or join in with the playtime noise

And jeer with all the other boys?

I don’t remember how I felt

I do know that I got the belt

Again and again as years went by

The crucial thing was not to cry

At 16 was the final time

Six on each hand for the heinous crime

Of being late for morning prayers

And running on the girls’ stairs.

Mrs Kathleen Kemmet celebrated her 100th birthday in 2007, according to the Glasgow Herald. “All my former pupils are successful” she said…