School on Monday mornings is particularly hard to bear.
I try to make Sunday night last forever by simply staying awake .
But I can never manage it , and before I know it, it's morning, and time to get up.

The gloom of a dark and dreary wet and windy Atlantic Monday morning is impossible to shake off.

I am unable to eat breakfast.

There’s a nostalgia for the joys of the weekend , now so far away.  

On winter mornings, when sleet replaces the rain, the classroom is sometimes so cold that one’s breath can be seen when speaking. Seated in my favourite place, the very back row of desks in the large room, as close to the door as I can get, I detect no warmth whatsoever from the solitary coal fire at the front of the room, which is in any case monopolised by the teacher.

I sit there wishing lunch time would  come, so I can run home to some nourishment, and get the circulation going in my feet.
 
Occasionally the teacher talks about having an ambition in life, and counsels against the sail away strategy, warning that everyone cries real tears when seeing their own homeland disappear below the horizon. Sitting in such conditions does not inspire in me any ambition but to catch that boat to London at the earliest opportunity, and I do not expect to shed any tears .

Anyway, ambition could seem to be a strange concept to one whose glory days have already come and gone.
 
Though Shandon Street is busy, it too has seen better days, but one shop in particular is rather empty these days; apparently the pub that is our home is not quite as vibrant as it once was. One of many pubs within a stone’s throw, we appear to have fallen completely out of favour with our former regulars. It’s a long time since we’ve had anything like a busy day, perhaps too many pubs chasing too few drinkers with hard cash means that the busy pubs are the ones that offer extras like drinks on credit, serious gambling, and of course, after hours drinking.
Having a young family to support, Dad finally gives up trying to make a living from the pub, and takes a job outside as a long distance lorry driver. 
 
We still get the odd customer or two, mainly long standing and interesting old regulars who come in from time to time, perhaps out of a sense of duty, and in quiet  
moments talk to us kids about life in India serving in the British Army, and the terrible heat, and about how it’s possible there to throw a raw egg into the air and find it comes down fried.WOW!

========== But usually the bar echoes to the loud tick tock of the clock in the bar, counting down the endless minutes till closing time. I will try to stay awake until Dad comes home from work, the light hurts my eyes now,I long for bed, for sleep, just to sleep, my eyes won’t stay open, but the light must stay on, my eyes sometimes close for a moment; but suddenly I’m awake and the light hurts my eyes again.
Sometimes Mam tells us old nursery rhymes that make me feel even more sleepy: ‘ Go to bed , says Sleepy, wait a while, says Slow, put the kettle on, says Greedy , and we’ll eat before we go’ But I don’t like that rhyme very much, I don’t want tea now, just bed, just sleep, I must sleep.
==
When I do manage to stay awake, I  
find that one of Mam’s stories is sad; about a little boy who is scared of spiders, and when he finds one in his room, he runs away from it in terror. Then his mam explains to him that there’s no need at all to be afraid, because the poor little spider is more scared of him than he is of it. So, the next time the boy sees the tiny black creature, he walks towards it, instead of running away, and sure enough , it’s the spider who now turns and runs away from him. So, from then on the little boy is very brave, and plays a game with the spider, sometimes pretending not to have seen it, and then suddenly walking towards it , making it run away. Soon he becomes so used to seeing the spider, and to playing his little game, that he decides to name the spider Sally.
Then one day he goes to his room and sees Sally in her usual place, so he ignores her for a while, and then turns and walks quickly towards her as he says: ‘Ok Sally, off you go!

But for the first time, Sally does not move, no matter what the boy says, and after standing there for some minutes, he begins to cry.
 
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