Going back

Having made sure the twins were going to be well enough to look after themselves I set off to walk to school. I had thought the three-mile walk wouldn’t be too bad but I badly miscalculated how weak I had become. I stopped on a number of occasions and almost thought about turning back but I wasn’t going to let “it” win again. The streets were nearly empty and I seemed to be one of the few who was making their way to work.

The school seemed closed when I got there but I saw Alison waving at me from her classroom. She came down and let me in (apparently someone had broken into the school last week and ransacked the kitchen). There were six other members of staff, including Alison and myself at work. We gathered in the staffroom still wearing our coats as the heating had been off for nearly a week - everyone wore masks. Our Group included Alison, Principal Teacher of Religious and Moral Education; Bob, a Craft and Design Teacher; Colin, a physics teacher; Russell, a Maths teacher; Rosemary, a Learning Support assistant; Cathie, a Principal Teacher of Home Economics; and myself, a teacher of Religious and Moral Education, there was one other teacher in the school, but Veronica, a Chemistry teacher refused to come out of her classroom. Bob the senior janitor was at school but the other two had refused to come into work. Of all the staff who were there I was the only one who had kids – and the only one who had had “it”.

The Council’s e-mail system had crashed two weeks ago and there had been no contact since that time. We sat there in silence – no one wanting to take charge. Eventually I suggested we try to find a way of communicating with our pupils and teachers at home and find some way of putting them in touch with each other. It was a basic admin’ task and it gave us something to do.

I volunteered to phone every teacher and member of staff and try to find out how they were and to tell them what we were doing. We had decided that we shouldn’t try to pressurise anyone to return to work but that we would keep them up to speed with what we were doing and give them a chance to help from home.

Alison kept trying to phone the education department but couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone. Colin was asked to call of our primary schools and Cathie to call our neighbouring secondary schools.

By the end of the day we had made contact with some of the schools – but most did not answer. My phone calls to staff had not been a success. Of those who did answer many were ill, or caring for ill relatives. I kept a list and it seemed that 15 teachers and other staff had died so far, including Mr Docherty. Quite a few of my colleagues had taken exception to being contacted at home and told me to leave them alone. People want nothing to do with the outside world.

At least we had made a start and at our meeting at the end of the day it was left to me to sum up and set out our plans for the next day. Alison still had petrol in her car and she gave me a lift back to the house. It felt good to have done something to fight back.