Jonny McCambridge: Back to school before the Lammas Fair has even started – I never thought I’d see the day

I pulled into a car park as larger groups of pupils passed by in clusters, some chatting and giggling excitedly.

Because I was immersed in my own situation, I didn’t pay much attention to the teenagers. They had their place to be and I had mine.

But a few hours later, as I was preparing for the drive home, I saw more pupils, carrying schoolbags and heavy files, walking down the hill in the opposite direction. This time I was more aware of my surroundings.

I pulled out my phone and checked the date. It was August 25th, the day after GCSE results were published.

There was close to a full week of the month left – why where these students not on their summer holidays? I wondered if this was the earliest return to school that I had ever witnessed.

While it was never chipped in stone, my generation grew up with the broad understanding that the start of September meant the commencement of the new educational term.

I never remember having to go to school in August. Accepting that my memory may be imperfect, I think our first day of term usually fell on the first Monday of September.

And just in case there was any doubt about this, there was a useful cultural signpost to help guide the way. The last Monday and Tuesday of August was the Lammas Fair.

The ancient trading festival, supposedly named after the mythical sun god Lugh, once marked the first harvest of the year. More useful in contemporary terms, it was a reference point for the end of the summer. As a kid, you knew it meant you were in the last week of the holidays.

The prospect that you might have had to go to school while the fair was on would have seemed as remote, cruel and unlikely as having to attend on Christmas Day.

The situation that the school term would be several days old before the fair had even commenced might have appeared to us then as the crossing of some sort of imaginary Rubicon and the upending of the natural order of things.

This year’s situation had an application closer to home. When I casually suggested we might have a family outing to the fair this year, my wife informed me that we would have to do it on the Monday, as my son would be at school on the Tuesday.

"Back at school while the fair is on? That can’t be…” I responded with stunned surprise.

My wife then showed me the email with the dates of term and patiently explained that the scheduling of the Lammas Fair was unlikely to carry much weight with education leaders when deciding term times in Co Down.

Nonetheless, I retained some element of shock.

I am a member of several WhatsApp groups made up of parents from the school which my son attends. Over the past week my phone has been buzzing as the parents discuss the final preparations for preparing the children for P7.

Several have also commented on how quickly the summer holidays have gone and how early the children seem to be returning to class.

One parent shared a message from the principal with the details. In the missive he explained the unusual situation that the first three days of term would be half days, with school ending at 12:20pm.

He explained this was because the canteen staff, who provide school dinners, do not return to work until the beginning of September.

This unusual arrangement attracted a fair amount of comment from the mummies and daddies. Some thought it unfair that the children are expected to go back before the canteen staff.

Others complained about the fact that the children are not in class for full days and the associated inconvenience of having to arrange pick-up from the school gates in the middle of the working day.

Another said that having the children back at school so early meant that they receive a few extra few days off later.

I watched much of it with my usual sense of silent, semi-bemused detachment.

I considered that my interest in the subject had been piqued because what was happening was not how I remembered it, not the way it was when I was a kid.

But that, in itself, does not mean it is a regressive step.

I have spent much of the summer, along with my wife, trying to think of ways to amuse and entertain my son (see last week’s column). But he has already substantially outgrown this.

He needs the stimulation of being with his friends and the order and discipline of the school day. It’s a big term coming up, with the transfer test looming.

Going back a few days earlier than I had expected amounts to little difference. Perhaps, once I overcome my outdated sense of surprise, it is even a small mercy.

And so, the preparations begin in earnest. The hair is cut (his and mine), the feet are measured for shoes (just him), and the uniform is purchased, slightly bigger than last year.

I find his lunchbox in the schoolbag and throw it in the bin when I discover it still contains the remains of an apple core from June.

And my wife then shows me the long list of stationery, files and books to be bought.

"But…but…doesn’t the school provide these things? They used to in my day”, I gasp, once more in exasperated amazement.

“No, you know they don’t. We have this same conversation every year.”

But that is another column, for another day.