Home Boys

[Gerry]

Every day as we walked into my primary school that train of boys would pass. My Mam would say they looked like a flight of stairs with the tiny one's my size at the front right up to big men at the back. They all wore the same black woollen duffel coats but whoever measured them must have been blind or or just daft because every coat was about five sizes too big on every one of them.

As they got to our school gate the first few would run in with no one to wipe the snot from their lip or lick their hand and damp down that bit of hair that was sticking up like a po on a mountain. No one to look through the gates and smile as they ran into class, no one to stand at the back of assembly with a tear on their cheek as we sang or prayed.

Every Christmas those same boys used to come down our street singing the most heavenly songs that let us all know what Christmas was all about. I the middle of each street they would stand with their candles flickering in glass boxes on sticks as they sang out. The nuns would go to every door and beg for anything spare. There wasn't ever anything spare but the nuns got something from every door. The wee nun who came to our house was walking in her bare feet. I seen her blue feet under that long black frock and table cloth she wore on her head.

Any time we complained about having nothing we were threatened with the Home.

We all knew we have everything compared with them.

We had love.

By Gerry Temple