Today’s Throwback Thursday is dedicated to the most dreaded day of the week for some, if not all of us alumni….Manual Labour Day! Between 1993-1999 it was on Thursday, so if before 1993 it was on another day, feel free to indicate this!
Now, as we all know…manual labour Thursday was the day ALL students (allergic to grass or not) were REQUIRED to return to school from 4-6, and become human lawn mowers! Depending on your relationship with the Labour Prefect at the time, your work was definitely cut out for you.
Remember how the “portions” were assigned? The “assigner” will stand at a spot, throw the “cutlass” as far as the hands would allow, and wherever that lands will be the end of your portion! (woe betide you if that person throws discus or shot-put during Inter House Sports). But wait…does that not sound like detention? Hmmm…maybe it is.
Well, manual labour DID feel like detention. Boarders suffered the most, because there was no reprieve(except lunch maybe), between dismissal and start of manual labour. The “day goats” would be able to use one excuse or the other to get out of it, or just come back to “gist” with the grass cutters!
When it is all over, everyone troops outside “Gate” for “ice cream” and day students wait for their rides in “Shelter”!
Share your fond, and not-so-fond memories of manual labour Thursdays! And for those “youngins”…was it not “Samanjah” who supervised manual labour?
Signed,
Nora Agajelu (nee Nwosu)
Set of 1999, Liberty House, Day-Student (wannabe boarder)
P.R.O. AFGCEAA