Orkney Image Library

Lasted a bit longer than the last Grammar School

This is the Infant department, which was separated from the upper school by an iron gate across the corridor of the School Place entrance.

Ah yes, Fond memories. Maybe some not so fond especially on days when the strap was the order of the day, which was quite liberal sometimes!!
The strap usually called the 'clipe' in those days, don't know where this came from though.

Gregor Lamb's Orkney Wordbook gives the following definition of clipe: verb to strike, noun 1 a blow, 2 the tawse (compare coll[oquial] Eng[lish] clip a slap)

Thanks Ian. 'Wordbook' is a handy volume which I omitted to consult. It doesn't appear in the 'Glossary of Orkney and Shetland Dialect' or 'The Orkney Norn'.

Wae iss 'clipe' also means 'tell'.

Sorry to correct anonymous but this is part of what we knew as the Primary Dept. The Infant Dept. was further in , reached through the quadrangle where the fire-escape stairs were. The windows of the infants looked out on the Boys' large playground where several games of football went on at the same time. The oicture here shows the front playground which boys streamed out of to go to the Rocky Shop and to go home. There was indeed a railing but it was to separate the boys and girls as the main girls gate can be seen at the top of the picture. The quadrangle I mentioned is now the covered in piece where there is a bike shelter.

I went to school here in 1939 -1944. I now live in the USA. Many memories of seeing the thonged strap being used on boys who had misbehaved. They sat at the bottom of the class while my class mates sat further up the steps because they had done well with their lessons . I am still in touch with two other friends . One in Bamburgh Northumbria and the other in British Columbia. We girls walked to school from Old Scapa Road past tennis courts to Main Street past St. Magnus Cathedral . We were about nine years old .
Brings back so many more memories of my school days during World II. It was when my father was stationed at Scapa and I lived with the family of Wm. Sutherland who had his chemist shop in Kirkwall.
Thank you so much for these reminders !

Yes Tommy, this usage of the word used to be quite common. 'You're a wee clipe!'