The Nursery Days

photos on Unsplash by Gauten Arora and Annie Spratt

I’m not an earth mother. But you knew that. I failed at being a full-time mother, not looking forward, as some of my friends did, to the desert that was the 12 hours spent with children during the day. I escaped to a Polytechnic course, with my children booked into the Poly nursery, to discover that the nursery was some miles away from where I was being taught, so that involved either chancing it in my rickety old car, or a train and a bus ride, with one or other child always needing a wee somewhere along the route. A double bind because in the winter they wore all-in-one snow suits which had to be stripped off with practiced speed before there was an accident. I was well acquainted with local conveniences by the time the nursery closed.

Because close it did, when the following spring, the government of the day cut the education budget, and the local council removed funding from our nursery along with other education cuts; their priority being to build houses. Funding was shared by the Polytechnic and Social Services, so when funding was withdrawn by the council, the Poly threw its hands up without a fight. This, with no consideration for the number of mature students who would not be able to continue their studies and staff who relied on the nursery. I was livid. I had been voted on to the Student’s Union Nursery Committee the previous term and it never occurred to me that nursery provision could be withdrawn just like that. Well, I determined it wouldn’t be. I had to struggle to get into higher education and no misbegotten, short-sighted bunch of councillors was going to deny me now.

The woman who ran the nursery made a brilliant ally. As we students picketed councillors on the steps of the building when they arrived for meetings, she took all the pre-school kids into the council chamber and sat them down in the public gallery for a few minutes. When the point had been made, they filed out quietly, puzzled, over-awed, and half of them in need of a wee. But the council were not to be moved by winsome children on that or subsequent occasions, so I looked for an alternative solution.

I discovered that the Poly owned several buildings in the city and after looking at some of them I found a convent in the process of being vacated by nuns, so I knocked on the door. It was opened by a starchy, almost hostile vision in a full length mushroom coloured habit, with a scary winged headdress which looked as though the only reason a gust of wind wasn’t carrying her away, was that she’d never get the wings through the door. She was unhelpful when I asked if there was anywhere suitable for a nursery in the building, perfecting a plastic smile and slight shake of her head before murmuring, ‘Oh no, I’m afraid not.’ And closing the door, politely but with no doubts.

Notre Dame Convent On Mount Pleasant, Liverpool.

I wondered how she could be so sure, but I had a lecture to attend and dashed off, so the next day I came back and went round to the back of the building where I found a beautifully well-kept garden with magnolias in bloom and spring bulbs out. It was a paradise compared with the tiny square of tarmac they had at the other nursery. I could see them here, happily playing outside. I tried the doors at the back, but they were locked. And then I found a window unlatched so I climbed in and landed in Lilliput. I was surrounded by miniature desks and chairs, a play kitchen and a little row of toilets and wash-hand basins. Dumbfounded, I wandered about this little kingdom, trying to figure out why that nasty nun denied this world existed. It was before the days of mobile phones, but I had a camera with me and took a reel of film which I lobbed into the photographers before my next lecture.

It turned out there had been a teacher training facility in the building, so I took the evidence to the Students Union and to a couple of lecturers whose kids were in the nursery, and we petitioned the Vice-Chancellor. It didn’t take long to persuade him that he would have contented staff and students if he gave his blessing and there would be very little work to do to make it ready. He was happy to palm us off on a minion to sort out the details and my glittering prospects were saved. My kids and many others were very happy there until they went to school,

No sooner did we get the new nursery full of our munchkins then the Poly was under another round of Thatcherite cuts. This time it was threats to our courses, and to add insult to our anticipated injuries, the Secretary of State for Education, Mark Carlisle, was invited to come and have tea in the boardroom with the top brass in the Polytechnic. After the way he’d slashed our budget? I should coco! We weren’t standing for that.

The beauty of having mature students on courses is that they’ve had a previous life and sometimes this comes in handy. The door to the boardroom was wooden with long glass panels. Each panel had wooden beading holding the glass in with screws. It was a matter of seconds for an erstwhile chippie, (who carried his tool kit into sociology lectures, as if he was waiting to deconstruct key sociological concepts by hand), to release the glass, let us all in and replace the panels.

I was totally over excited to be on my first sit-in, so much so, that it was over half an hour before I realised I should have picked up my children from the nursery. The chippie let me out and then, a bit later on, with eyes raised to heaven, let me and the kids back in. By this time the janitor had reported to the Rectorate that the boardroom was occupied by the great unwashed who were in an ugly mood, so it would be pointless anyone trying to gain entry. He confessed that he couldn’t work out how we’d all got in because he hadn’t unlocked the door. The Rectorate sent Head of Estates to solve the mystery, but he was an accountant and, after some head scratching, and pleading to our better natures, while my daughters played hide and seek with him through the glass panels, he retreated, defeated, taking the bewildered janitor with him.

We were in a marvellous mood; a sort of mad exhilaration overtook us. It got very hot up there on the fifth floor, and soon the kids were stripped off to vest and pants, while the adults had abandoned winter jumpers and were sporting (mainly) disreputable tshirts displaying dubious slogans. Fortunately, it was before the kids could read so they were quite comfortable sitting on the floor beside lanky lads with variations of ‘fuck off, this means you’ on their chests.

Lecturers began to arrive direct from their classes, with more students and plentiful supplies from the chip shop. Embarrassingly, my girls didn’t leave the side of my politics lecturer until they’d eaten their own weight in chips. Then suddenly, it was over. We heard that Mark Carlisle had gone back to London on the train with no tea. We all cheered ourselves for being the roaring success we knew we would be. That showed him! Students and lecturers collected up the chip papers and went to the pub to celebrate, and I took my children home to normalcy and their baths.

Looking back, our protest didn’t change a thing. Funding continued to be cut, but the nursery stayed strong for years. I liked to think that the sit-in against the might of the Tory state was a major factor in this outcome, but the Rectorate didn’t even acknowledge our help. In fact, our gesture was never mentioned again in the higher echelons of the Polytechnic, or in the local press. Such ingratitude caused me never to offer my civil disobedience experience again while I was at the Poly, devastated though the hierarchy must have been at my indifference.

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

I’ve listened to

Costanza by Rachel Blackmore This debut novel set in 17th Century Rome is redolent of the sensations of the streets in which Costanza lives with her husband. When she meets Bernini, famed sculptor, she falls under his spell, and there begins a coercive relationship that has echoes today. But this is a feminist book and a very confident and accomplished first novel, with rich and expressive language. I listened to it because I was on the move but I have the very handsome hardback at home to wallow in when I get back.

I read

Yours Cheerfully by AJ Pearce. The second in a trilogy of light-hearted wartime novels doesn’t take much reading but does give a flavour of what the Second World War must have been like for those who lived through it, mostly set in London. Some very interesting insights into mothers encouraged to work in munitions factories as a duty, but with no help in child care.

I’ve watched at the cinema

The Problem with Jessica 2023, a farce, starring Shirley Henderson, Rufus Sewell, Anne Reid. very amusing, but with a restricted location, better suited to a stage play, maybe it was originally. Probably has a restricted audience, as the story centred on London literati having dinner, with all the in jokes and tension surrounding an uninvited guest. I thought Henderson’s brittleness and edgy performance proved how underestimated she is as a performer, and Anne Reid’s cameo was wonderful.