Smells like School

There are plenty of not-so-pleasant primary school smells (children’s toilets; sweaty classrooms; bare feet on gym mats...) but there are also some that are comforting and welcoming and full of nostalgia.

Poster paint is one of my favourites: it still smells exactly as I remember it when I was at school, and sometimes when I walk into a classroom full of children painting, I’m swept back to memories I didn’t know I had of standing at easels and dipping fat brushes into pots of colour. I also love the smell of unifix-cubes – little plastic cubes, for those not in the know, that fit together and are usually used as counting aids in maths lessons. They have a very specific plasticy smell, and though I don’t really remember using them myself, they must have been around because that smell is familiar enough to take me back to my primary school classrooms. I love the smell of fruit-time in the morning (especially if the children are having oranges) and the smells from the kitchen of freshly baked bread and simmering gravy. I love the smell of pencil sharpenings and play-dough and washing powder on a Monday morning when all the uniforms are clean and fresh.

It largely depends on my mood whether I’ll pick up on more of the good smells or the bad smells on a given day, but on the good days, there’s something glorious about the smell of a primary school.

Monkey by Kieran Hazell (www.ownbeat.co.uk)

Electric

My dad had an electric train set when I was little. I’d forgotten this until I got a food processor. I hadn’t smelt that electric motor smell in years: a plastic, almost smoky kind of a smell that makes you slightly worried something might catch fire. It’s a smell I like a lot, impossible to separate from the smell of a miniature train racing round a track past tiny plastic people and mossy green foliage. I can’t figure out if I’d like it if it weren’t for the memory or not. It’s the kind of smell I imagine you might come across if something goes wrong with your electrics, and it makes me worry slightly that I’d spend too long enjoying the smell and reminiscing about train sets and not enough time staying alive. Arguably, I worry too much.

Monkey by Kieran Hazell (www.ownbeat.co.uk)

Sheets

The sheets are cool and un-creased on the mattress; the duvet is smooth and the pillows are plumped. The sheets have just been changed and this is the first time I’m climbing between them. I can smell washing powder: stiff and fresh and comforting. This smells like starting again, sleep washed away from the bedroom, refreshed and ready for the week ahead.

I used to wash my sheets fortnightly. Technically, I still feel this would be sufficient. But Sunday morning is lie-in day. It’s breakfast-in-bed and reading and not-rushing-anywhere day, and I love doing all that in a fresh, clean bed. So washing the bedding has become a weekly chore.

The smell of a clean bed is not an associate of some other time or place in my memory for a change. It just is what it is: freshness and luxury, comfort and cleanness. And oddly, it feels indulgent, a simple pleasure taken easily.

Monkey by Tony Pickering (@mrpickers)

Bakery

Making my own bread is something I’d like to get into but still it remains untouched on my “to do one day” list. But this week has been spent making bread rolls with a steady stream of ten year olds, which was actually a lot more fun than you might think.

After sending the kids back to class and leaving the dough to prove all morning, I’ve been baking them in the school kitchen, doing a bit of my ordinary work, and going back to collect them when the kitchen’s dark and empty. Opening the door when all the lunchtime smells have faded to the waft of freshly baked bread has been a pleasure every single time.

I love the smell. It’s warm and comforting and has the power to convince you you’re hungry regardless of how full you are. In the supermarket, it takes all my willpower not to make unnecessary trips to the bakery section for something white and crusty and delicious-smelling. It makes me think of cosy days at home; bowls of soup perhaps and melting butter. The smell of bread is somehow a complete smell – it’s deep and rich and seems to envelop all the parts of the sense. Some smells tickle the back of throat; some smells catch the top of your nose; bread gets everywhere. Which is why it’s one of my very favourite smells.

Monkey by Kieran Hazell (www.ownbeat.co.uk)

Blanket

I remember an English teacher I had once saying that she loved the smell of her pillow. She described laying her head down in the evening and thinking, “ahh, this is sleep.”

Sleep is a lovely smell: sweet, welcoming and deeply personal. It has to be your own sleep of course. Anyone else’s is stale and stuffy (is that why couples tend to stick to one side of their bed?)

One of my favourite weekend routines is to set my alarm for my ordinary weekday time so that I can turn it off and fully enjoy the idea of lying in, breathing in the aroma of sleep.

The smell of sleep is relaxing and safe. If we’re lucky enough to live in a warm, dry home with fairly minimal possibilities of disaster, sleep means switching off. It’s fuzzy and thick, nestled in a place between sweet and sour; it’s the blanket we wear at night.

Monkey by Kieran Hazell (www.ownbeat.co.uk)