Fire, brimstone and schoolgirls in 'the drink'!

10:37am Thursday 1st May 2008

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THE headmistress was spitting fire and brimstone when a gang of her schoolgirls turned up sopping wet ... from an unexpected dip in the old canal!

Sister Mary Pascal wasn't used to sending her girls home for a complete change of clothing.

And her suspicion had correctly fallen on the mischievous lads from neighbouring St Mary's boys school, at Blackbrook.

The sister stalked over and exploded on the male staff. "We tried to look suitably concerned", admits former teacher, Kevin Heneghan, "but after she left...well, if you don't have a sense of humour, don't waste your time teaching lads!"

Tempting He was harking back to my earlier piece on this page about the hefty pipe, stretching across the water of the canal basin.

"As soon as it was installed it became a tempting craddum' for the lads. Lunch-time saw them tight-roping across it."

A craddum was a sort of dare of challenge taken up by the kids. It could involve leaping across a wide hole or trying to skip over a stream.

The girls, from the neighbouring school, on the other side of Blackbrook Road, soon decided to follow the pipe-walking suit.

"From eight to a dozen of the girls began shuffling along the pipe", says Kevin. "Their leader had nearly reached the far end when the boys daubed the pipe with slippery mud. It caused a very wobbly about-turn!"

Crafty And, yes, you've guessed it! The other pipe end was also craftily mud-daubed by the lads. All the girls slithered off into at least three feet of water! They later had to stagger home for fresh, dry clothing.

"I'm sure that some of those boys and girls will still remember the incident - especially the girls who got a ducking", says Kevin.

He's going back several decades to that great pipe plunge. "There used to be posts, with brightly-coloured tops, at intervals along the route of the pipeline."

These were followed by a helicopter making regular inspections. "That", says Kevin, "points to oil rather than gas."