My Schooldays: Dorothy
Paul
Source: The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Date: 25/10/2000
Where did you go to school?
I went to Alexandra Parade
Primary School in Dennistoun, and Whitehill Senior Secondary,
also in Dennistoun. They were excellent schools, but in the
primary school I got the strap on the first day I went in. I was
only four, and it was because I was talking. My teacher Miss
Brown, a grey woman with a bun in the back of her head, said:
"What were you doing?" I said, "I was
talking," and she said: "Come out here." So I
thought it was because I'd done something very special. Then she
said: "Hold your hand out," and I did, and I got the
strap.
Did you like school?
Well, that first day put me
right off. I have no recollection at all of learning my A,B,C's
in that first year, although I must have learned it. But after
that I had very good teachers. In high school I didn't want to
go, but I was more or less sent, with everybody's old clothes on.
And, oh my God, I can remember the sense of humiliation;
everybody else had new stuff, and I had all the old
hand-me-downs. Basically, I think I was a wee snob. There's
nothing worse than a working class snob.
Did you ever get into trouble?
Oh yes. I was always getting
into trouble. I remember in 1947, at the primary school, it was a
very, very bad winter, up to your ears in snow, and we were dying
to play in the snow. I said to my friend: "Look at that old
lady trying to get up the snow, let's help her up the road."
It was a ruse not to go to school, and we were about an hour
late. When we got there, the teacher asked, "What were you
doing?' We said, "Helping an old lady up the snow." She
said, "Right, hold your hand out."
I got the belt left, right, and
centre. It became the norm. I got the belt at least three times a
week. It was not really conducive to inspirational teaching.
What subjects were you good at?
In secondary school I liked
English, French, and I liked Art. I still speak reasonable
French. Maths was my worst. I could never get more than 20 per
cent, because I didn't understand it. It's still a closed book,
and I wish it weren't, because I think to learn maths, and then
go on to do physics, to be able to understand how numbers can
tell you what the world is about, is just amazing.
What did you want to do when
you finished your education?
I really wanted to go to arts
school. That was my thought. At that time I was coming home from
school and practicing singing and piano for hours on end. But I
finished school on the 23 December, and the next day was
Christmas Eve, and I started in the C & A in Rose Street in
Glasgow. I used to wake up crying sometimes, because I wasn't
still at school. Because I realised in a kind of a subliminal
way, that education is the way to get the biggest slice of the
cake socially and every other way. I eventually went back to
Clydebank College at the age of 43. I broke a record at the
college because in two and a half months I got a Higher English
and a Higher History. It was life-changing. Had I been able to
afford it, I'd have gone to university, but I had two children
and couldn't do it. It's been my regret that I wasn't
well-educated. Both my daughters have two degrees each, and that
has made me very, very happy.
Are there any teachers you
particularly admired?
I had a marvellous French
teacher, Miss Cameron, who came to see one of my shows. I invited
her, because I'd heard she was still alive. She came around back
to see me, and I said: "Oh, Miss Cameron, you inspired me,
you were wonderful, you were just amazing." And she said:
"I'm so glad, but I must say, I don't remember you."
But it didn't matter that she didn't remember me, because she was
still an excellent, inspiring teacher.
What important things have you
learned outside your formal education?
It took me a while to learn
just how to be a successful human being. Education doesn't teach
you to be rounded. A well-functioning human being is someone who
lives a total life, who does many, many things. And that's what I
have learned throughout my life.
Are there any aspects of your
education that you wish had been different?
I just wish that I'd been
cleverer. I think I was intelligent, but I didn't get the hang of
it when I was at school. Had I not been a frightened kind of
child, I might have got more out of it.
* Dorothy Paul was born in
Dennistoun in 1937, and became a comedienne, performing in the
One O'Clock Gang and The Steamie. She will appear in this year's
pantomime, Dick Whittington, at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh in
December.