Chalk Dust & Broomsticks

A new headteacher comes to Primrose Primary School and all hell breaks loose.

Chapter 1 - Chalk Dust and the Broomsticks

September 1997

Introducing Shirley Midnight

The air around Primrose Infants School smelled perpetually of stale chips, damp concrete, and the sickly-sweet scent of industrial floor cleaner. The school sat nestled at the heart of the Primrose Estate, a sprawling council development in the grey belt just beyond the last commuter train lines of South East England. The Junior school, a larger brick twin, stood twenty yards away across a stretch of worn asphalt that served as a joint car park for both schools. They were two schools separated by a narrow gulf of professional rivalry and the distinct age gap between their pupils, but soon, they were to be one.


Shirley Midnight, The Infant School part-time school secretary, knew the building, known affectionately by the staff as 'The Dollhouse for its slightly too-small doors and perpetually peeling pastel paint better than anyone. She knew the rhythm of its ancient, oil-clogged boiler, the exact pitch of the Year 2 fire alarm practice, and the precise moment of the day when the sun hit the yellow linoleum in the main corridor, making the scuff marks look momentarily gold.


Shirley's domain was a small, wedge-shaped office just inside the main entrance. It was the nerve centre and occasionally, the confessional of The Dollhouse. She was forty-seven, with efficient, practical, hair the colour of woodsmoke and spectacles that seemed permanently dusted with chalk and glitter.


Today, the usual administrative thrum was overlaid with persistent, low-grade anxiety. Mrs. Ogglesby, the Headteacher, was retiring at the end of the summer term.


Mrs. Ogglesby, or 'Oggs' as the children sometimes dared to call her, was Primrose Infants. She had built up The Dollhouse from a collection of portacabins into an 'Outstanding' rated haven, a small pocket of stability carved out of the Primrose Estate's endemic chaos. She ran the school with a mixture of sternness, unwavering compassion, and the strategic deployment of biscuits.
Now, Oggs was leaving. And with her departure came the dreaded 'Amalgamation'.


The Dollhouse and Juniors were merging. A new, grand unified school, Primrose Primary, was to rise from the ashes of two separate identities. And a new, single Headteacher would be appointed to govern it all.
Mrs. Ogglesby's retirement was not the only reason for the merger of the two schools. There was another similar school on a different part of Primrose Estate and as finances for schools were a perpetual worry for the town council, if numbers dropped off, they would naturally consider if it was worth running both schools so close together.


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Shirley's fingers paused over the keyboard, hovering over the name Althea Gardner, a candidate from a particularly draconian school chain south of London.


Mrs. Ogglesby was naturally worried that her retirement would give the council grounds for merging the two schools and subsequent redundancies would be inevitable. The Chairman of the Governors, Mrs. Catchpole, a local councillor with a tightly permed coiffure, had given Mrs. Ogglesby her "absolute, 100% guarantee."


"I assure you all," she'd declared in the Head's office last Tuesday, crumbs of Danish pastry clinging precariously to her lapel, "that no existing staff members will lose their jobs. This is purely an administrative merger. We need all hands on deck! You are all too valuable to us."


Shirley, listening in because the door was ajar, hadn't believed a word of it.


'Administrative merger' was management-speak for 'redundancy review.' She didn't have a teaching qualification; she had thirteen years of knowing where to find the emergency key to the sports cupboard, how to placate a furious parent using only tea and calm listening, and the precise wording required to request extra funding for sticky-back plastic. To a shiny new Head, arriving from a streamlined school, Shirley was just a salary line that could be replaced by an automated phone system and an outsourced HR firm.


A sudden, sharp rapping on her office door broke her concentration. It was Mrs. Ogglesby.


"Shirley, dear, just this once, could you file the Year 1 attendance electronically instead of printing it? I need to look progressive for the amalgamation paperwork."


"Of course, Mrs. O, right away." Shirley smiled, but the forced cheer didn't quite reach her eyes.


Mrs. Ogglesby sighed, leaning her athletic frame against the door jamb. She looked tired, a woman who had fought too many small, bureaucratic wars to save one more school budget. She was looking forward to her retirement with more time to play golf, her passion. Realising Shirley had been listening, Mrs. Ogglesby smiled at Shirley...


"Don't look so glum, dear. It'll all be fine. You're indispensable. Nevertheless, we will need to bring all the staff together soon to discuss the new arrangements."


"They say that until they see the savings column on a spreadsheet," Shirley muttered, clicking through the electronic attendance sheet. Oggs softened. "Whoever gets the job, you ring me. I'll come back and sit on their desk until she/he promises you a proper, legally-binding contract. I mean it."


"I know you would, Oggs."


After Oggs disappeared, Shirley waited until the lunchtime din swallowed the office. The playground outside was a chaotic symphony of shrieks, whistles, and the rhythmic thump of a football. She stood up, her sensible block heels making no noise on the worn carpet tiles. She made her way to the filing cabinet in the Head's office. Inside was an important file.


"Ah, yes. The briefing pack. It was thick, containing profiles of the shortlisted candidates and the full proposal for the new Primrose Primary School.
She sat down at her desk, pushing aside a stack of 'Lost Property' forms'. She opened the file. The first name, Ms Althea Gardner, was accompanied by a severe, unsmiling photograph. Her professional summary spoke of "aggressive performance metrics" and "streamlining operational efficiencies." The sort of woman who saw children not as minds to be nurtured, but as data points to be boosted.


Athea Gardner was a threat. The other three candidates seemed to Shirley to be much more suitable. All women and all from the local area, Shirley surmised they would be more in tune with the ethos of Primrose Primary. There might even be a slight overlap with family connections. She looked forward to interview day, when she might be able to get a feel for the most suitable candidate.


"Right," Shirley said, her voice firming. She felt a familiar, deep thrumming start in her chest--the beginning of a spell. It was the same feeling she got when she managed to perfectly align a misprinted letterhead. She grabbed a small, smooth piece of grey beach stone from her pencil pot (labelled "Lucky Paperweight") and a stub of blue chalk. She quickly scrawled a complex, multi-layered sigil on the back of the Headteacher application form. It was a basic, low-level Truth and Intent Sigil. She placed the stone on her desk and picked up a pen. A small sigil on a CV wasn't enough to counteract a full-scale corporate takeover. This needed something more direct. It needed a full Scrutiny spell, and for that, she needed to be properly equipped.


She looked at the clock. 12 noon - Lunch break. Fifteen minutes until the first Year 3s arrived for their music lesson. Shirley was required to help them with the setup of their instruments.


"Fine," she whispered, her eyes alight with a faint, mischievous spark. "We'll do a run-through tonight. A proper flight, just to clear the cobwebs. And tomorrow, we run the Scrutiny. We need to know which of these candidates is a wolf, and which is just a slightly annoying poodle."


Then, she returned the paperwork to the filing cabinet, the sound echoing slightly too loudly in the otherwise busy school hall, and spun around, her face immediately back to the efficient, non-magical mask of the Dollhouse part-time School Secretary.


The only difference was the slight, barely perceptible shine in her eyes, a reflection of yellow-green cat eyes and the distant gleam of a low-flying broomstick. Shirley Midnight was worried, yes, but her secret weapon was polished, awake, and hungry for tuna. And perhaps, just perhaps, she was about to discover that being a small, quiet, mediocre witch on a deprived estate was exactly what The Dollhouse needed to survive.


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The Heart of the Estate: Community in the South-East
Primrose Council Estate sits on the less-regarded edge of a South-East commuter town, Langwich - a place of stark contrasts where the train lines mark a division between manicured private avenues and the three council housing tower blocks, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. It's an area visibly struggling, where the bricks are often the same colour as the perpetual grey of the skies above, and the air itself seems weighted with the quiet drag of hard work and limited prospects.

Physically, Primrose Estate is a mixture of architectural eras, none of them flattering. There are the older, solidly built 1930s semi-detached houses, now showing their age with crumbling render and patches of damp creeping up the walls, interspersed with the more brutalist, post-war flats: low-rise blocks with peeling paint on the communal balconies and overflowing bins clustered by the doorways. The small, often overgrown front gardens of the houses display a weary neglect, a lack of energy or funds to battle the relentless weeds. Playground equipment in the central green is battered, rusted, and silent on weekdays, the tarmac cracked beneath it.

Deprivation here isn't just a number on a government index; it's a visible thread woven into the fabric of daily life. The shops are mostly betting offices, cheap takeaways, and a small, struggling co-op selling essentials at inflated prices. Jobs are often precarious, zero-hour contracts in logistics warehouses, low-paid care work, or the grinding instability of long-term unemployment. The local secondary school battles some of the lowest attainment rates in the county. For the young, the bus stop is a symbol of escape, but also a reminder of how far they are from the opportunities in more affluent town centres, which feel like another country entirely. Health issues, stress, respiratory illnesses, and mental health struggles--are disproportionately high, the result of years of grinding economic pressure and the poor quality of the living environment.

Yet, to only focus on the hardship is to miss the core truth of the Primrose Estate. This is not a broken community; it is a battle-scarred one. When resources are scarce, people learn to rely on each other in ways that the residents of the detached houses 'over the line' have forgotten. This is the view from Shirley's office and where she chose to spend her days in quiet hope and expectation of helping the teachers and the children of 'The Dollhouse' to achieve success and happiness during school hours.

Generosity is immediate and unconditional. Shirley was always amazed at how much money was added to the British Legion collecting tin every November for Remembrance Day. Her own son had gone to a nearby school in a more affluent area, where she couldn't help noticing that their tin was never as full! A knock on the door at any time on Primrose Estate will be met with a genuine offer of a cup of tea, and if there's a tin of biscuits, they'll be shared, regardless of whether it's the last one in the cupboard. When Mrs. Jenkins next door has her benefits payment delayed, it's not the Council she calls, but Sheila a few doors down, who'll drop off a hot, home-cooked meal, a shepherd's pie stretched to feed three families, without expecting a penny in return. Childcare is a flexible, unpaid communal service, with grandmothers and neighbours taking on 'emergency aunts' and 'uncles' duties to cover a shift at the supermarket or a hospital appointment.

The sense of belonging is fiercely defended. There is a deep, mutual understanding of the struggle, and this shared experience forges unbreakable bonds. The little community centre, despite its threadbare dor, is the energetic heart of the estate, hosting the essential food bank on Tuesdays and a raucous bingo night on Fridays that brings all generations together in a shared noise of laughter and collective hope. It is here that the true spirit of the Primrose Estate resides: not in the cracked pavement or the peeling paint, but in the unwavering resilience and profound humanity of its residents. They may have little, but what they possess in community spirit is richer than any wealth across the tracks.
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Shirley's own abode, since her husband died, is a small, detached cottage with two bedrooms on the edge of a wood about a mile from the school. It is not isolated but shares a small cul-de-sac of similar dwellings called Woodend. It is remarkable how different the ambience is between where she lives and where she works. Woodend suits her perfectly because she needs a place where magic feels at home.


Each one of the six cottages is tucked into the embrace of the ancient boundary woods. Shirley's home, the last in the cul-de-sac, sits close to the trees, backed by a low, uneven stone wall, draped in climbing ivy and wild honeysuckle. The air here is instantly different - damp with the scent of pine needles and rich earth, far removed from the fumes and noise of the estate.


The cottage itself is a pleasing, slightly eccentric sight. Its exterior is rendered in a soft, butter-yellow and the roof, covered in thick, moss-flecked slate, dips charmingly just above the sturdy, dark oak front door. The windows, small and leaded, refuse to line up perfectly, giving the house a whimsical, slightly crooked air, as if it settled into its spot with a contented sigh.


A chaotic but flourishing garden tumbles right up to the doorstep: not the neat, colourful beds of an ordinary home, but a tangle of medicinal herbs, thorny roses and robust, oddly shaped foxgloves. The close proximity to the whispering wood, a constant, shadowed presence just beyond her back wall, makes Woodend feel like a true threshold - a peaceful, protected space where the everyday world falls silent, and a certain kind of subtle magic can breathe easily.