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Peter Lemon at Killinchy School
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TitlePeter Lemon at Killinchy School
DescriptionI remember my first day at school very clearly and felt very much at home there.
It was approximately two miles from home to school and I walked with my older sisters. On the way home I ran ahead of my sisters and played by the ditch until they had caught up.
I watched and chased bullies and scratched around on the bank with a stick and to my delight uncovered a penny.
That penny, which I still have to this day, was enough to buy an ice-cream from ’Akie’, who was Gordon Atkinson, who sold ice-creams. He came to the school once a week while doing his Killinchy fruit and vegetable round.
I was pretty happy to get that ice-cream and never forgot it.
During my first week at school here some of the local farmers - they would probably have been fathers of the school children - brought a tractor here and started up the saw bench and cut up the firewood.
There were a lot of pine trees round here and they were being cut up, so I did exactly what I would do at home when the saw bench started.
I just hopped out of my seat and went out to watch them. My two sisters were pretty horrified and told me that you just can’t do that - when you go to school you just have to sit in your seat.
But the teacher didn’t seem to mind and I watched the men cutting firewood and I was happy.
As I said, when I first started school, I either walked or we had a bike.
But when my younger brother and sister started school, Mum got us a ride on the mail cart. He used to come before school and he would go right around Killinchy. We used to sit in the back and it would have these great big trays with all this fresh bread; great big loaves that broke in half and when you broke them, one half would have a little hollow in the end and we thought we could pick the lump off the other half and no-one would know. All that fresh bread was just beautiful but anyway we got caught and were kicked off and we finished up walking.
I remember when we had the school milk. All that lovely warm milk! We also used to make cocoa and had a lot of hot cocoa in the winter.
After the open fireplace we had a ‘pot belly’ stove and we heated it on the stove.
We also used to dry the football out. We were not supposed to take the football out when it was wet, but we did. We had a brand new football and we got it wet and thought ‘we’ll fix this’ and we quietly put it in front of the fire and it dried out beautifully before lunchtime. We took it out and the first boot that went into it, went right through it. It had become so hard, so that was the end of that.
I remember telling Dad that we didn’t have a football and he told me that you could make a football out of a pig’s bladder, so in due course they killed a pig and I said I wanted this pig’s bladder. He brought it home and chucked it at me and it was this horrible wet thing, but anyway, I managed to get it blown up and dried off and we used it for a couple of hours and then it broke.
The boys’ toilets were at the corner of the playground, beside the pine trees and if you wanted to go to the toilet, you had to put your hand up in front of all the other children and leave the room and run right across in the long grass to the toilet - it seemed quite a long way.
One boy was too nervous about putting his hand up to ask to go to the toilet. He just quietly sat there and wet his pants.
During the nesting season the magpies would come down and swoop over you from their nest in the pines - that was probably another thing that he wasn’t very happy about.
We played rugby in Mcllraith’s paddock across the road and I remember being told off for being late back. We said we did not hear the bell but that did not wash with the headmaster at all.
Many remember Mr Blackmore - he was a lovely man and was the school’s agricultural man. I think he also had something to do with the school gardens. I have fond memories of him.
In 1945, when the war ended the teacher came back from lunch and she’d been listening to the radio and said “I want you all to go into the other room” - that was the one at the back where the piano was – “we’re going to play “God Save the King”.
Well, we all got in there and I can remember it as clear as a bell; she stood there and she had us all around in a circle and she brushed her skirt down and sat down on the chair. Well she went straight back up off the chair because there was a pin in the seagrass.
We had a girl there who was supposed to sweep the school out - she was paid to do so.
Instead of sweeping the school she used to sit and play the piano and just swished the broom about a bit thinking she had satisfied everyone and then go home.
Well, we didn’t think that was fair and some of the older ones got a piece of cardboard and they pushed a pin through it and folded the cardboard underneath and put it in the seagrass. And would you believe - it was declared the end of the war and the teacher came in and instead of this girl sitting on it, she sat on it!
My grandfather apparently burned the toilets down.
He had a pet dog and he walked to school with the dog, playing in the ditch on the way and the dog got stuck in the culvert. By the time he got the dog out and arrived at school he was late, so he got a telling off and was sent outside.
He wasn’t very happy about that so he set alight to the toilet. That was my grandfather!
My father and his brother and sisters, who were Killinchy pupils, decided to play the wag one day and they hid up the pear tree at home; they did not go to school. They had a cut lunch with them of course and they sat up the pear tree.
Well old Granny Lemon saw them up the tree and she twigged what was going on so she got her knitting and a chair and went out and sat under the tree.
She knitted away quite happily there until 3 o’clock and then she picked up her chair and away inside - nothing was said.
Adapted from a talk by Peter Lemon
Ellesmere Historical Society
Date2 & 16 September 2021SourceThe Ellesmere EchoLocationKillinchy
DescriptionI remember my first day at school very clearly and felt very much at home there. It was approximately two miles from home to school and I walked with my older sisters. On the way home I ran ahead of my sisters and played by the ditch until they had caught up.
I watched and chased bullies and scratched around on the bank with a stick and to my delight uncovered a penny.
That penny, which I still have to this day, was enough to buy an ice-cream from ’Akie’, who was Gordon Atkinson, who sold ice-creams. He came to the school once a week while doing his Killinchy fruit and vegetable round.
I was pretty happy to get that ice-cream and never forgot it.
During my first week at school here some of the local farmers - they would probably have been fathers of the school children - brought a tractor here and started up the saw bench and cut up the firewood.
There were a lot of pine trees round here and they were being cut up, so I did exactly what I would do at home when the saw bench started.
I just hopped out of my seat and went out to watch them. My two sisters were pretty horrified and told me that you just can’t do that - when you go to school you just have to sit in your seat.
But the teacher didn’t seem to mind and I watched the men cutting firewood and I was happy.
As I said, when I first started school, I either walked or we had a bike.
But when my younger brother and sister started school, Mum got us a ride on the mail cart. He used to come before school and he would go right around Killinchy. We used to sit in the back and it would have these great big trays with all this fresh bread; great big loaves that broke in half and when you broke them, one half would have a little hollow in the end and we thought we could pick the lump off the other half and no-one would know. All that fresh bread was just beautiful but anyway we got caught and were kicked off and we finished up walking.
I remember when we had the school milk. All that lovely warm milk! We also used to make cocoa and had a lot of hot cocoa in the winter.
After the open fireplace we had a ‘pot belly’ stove and we heated it on the stove.
We also used to dry the football out. We were not supposed to take the football out when it was wet, but we did. We had a brand new football and we got it wet and thought ‘we’ll fix this’ and we quietly put it in front of the fire and it dried out beautifully before lunchtime. We took it out and the first boot that went into it, went right through it. It had become so hard, so that was the end of that.
I remember telling Dad that we didn’t have a football and he told me that you could make a football out of a pig’s bladder, so in due course they killed a pig and I said I wanted this pig’s bladder. He brought it home and chucked it at me and it was this horrible wet thing, but anyway, I managed to get it blown up and dried off and we used it for a couple of hours and then it broke.
The boys’ toilets were at the corner of the playground, beside the pine trees and if you wanted to go to the toilet, you had to put your hand up in front of all the other children and leave the room and run right across in the long grass to the toilet - it seemed quite a long way.
One boy was too nervous about putting his hand up to ask to go to the toilet. He just quietly sat there and wet his pants.
During the nesting season the magpies would come down and swoop over you from their nest in the pines - that was probably another thing that he wasn’t very happy about.
We played rugby in Mcllraith’s paddock across the road and I remember being told off for being late back. We said we did not hear the bell but that did not wash with the headmaster at all.
Many remember Mr Blackmore - he was a lovely man and was the school’s agricultural man. I think he also had something to do with the school gardens. I have fond memories of him.
In 1945, when the war ended the teacher came back from lunch and she’d been listening to the radio and said “I want you all to go into the other room” - that was the one at the back where the piano was – “we’re going to play “God Save the King”.
Well, we all got in there and I can remember it as clear as a bell; she stood there and she had us all around in a circle and she brushed her skirt down and sat down on the chair. Well she went straight back up off the chair because there was a pin in the seagrass.
We had a girl there who was supposed to sweep the school out - she was paid to do so.
Instead of sweeping the school she used to sit and play the piano and just swished the broom about a bit thinking she had satisfied everyone and then go home.
Well, we didn’t think that was fair and some of the older ones got a piece of cardboard and they pushed a pin through it and folded the cardboard underneath and put it in the seagrass. And would you believe - it was declared the end of the war and the teacher came in and instead of this girl sitting on it, she sat on it!
My grandfather apparently burned the toilets down.
He had a pet dog and he walked to school with the dog, playing in the ditch on the way and the dog got stuck in the culvert. By the time he got the dog out and arrived at school he was late, so he got a telling off and was sent outside.
He wasn’t very happy about that so he set alight to the toilet. That was my grandfather!
My father and his brother and sisters, who were Killinchy pupils, decided to play the wag one day and they hid up the pear tree at home; they did not go to school. They had a cut lunch with them of course and they sat up the pear tree.
Well old Granny Lemon saw them up the tree and she twigged what was going on so she got her knitting and a chair and went out and sat under the tree.
She knitted away quite happily there until 3 o’clock and then she picked up her chair and away inside - nothing was said.
Adapted from a talk by Peter Lemon
Ellesmere Historical Society
Date2 & 16 September 2021SourceThe Ellesmere EchoLocationKillinchyConnections
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Researched ByPeter LemonWritten ByPeter Lemon
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Peter Lemon at Killinchy School (2 & 16 September 2021). Selwyn Stories, accessed 10/12/2025, https://selwynstories.selwynlibraries.co.nz/nodes/view/5341
