Tea and long ago school

Afternoon visiting (at any time) in Sutherland still means being offered a dram or a sherry followed by a feast of pancakes with homemade jam and cakes and tea from a pot, drunk from proper cups and saucers. I got talking to my hostess about her childhood there. Her family had a small croft in the hills and she walked a long long way each day to her primary school. Her secondary school was too far to walk to, so the children would weekly board with households in Golspie. There were hostels, but they were for the children from the West Coast, who boarded there for the whole term. My hostess would go home each weekend as she lived near enough to do that. She could get a train and then walk. She was the only child in the house where she boarded and she brought her own food from the croft because that was cheaper. She brought eggs and potatoes and was expected to cook them herself (from age 11). She always had to be in by 7pm.
She remembered one year (perhaps 1942), the snow was so bad that the children were told that they could not go home. They pretended they had not heard and went anyway - a whole crowd of them - determined to get home at all costs. She said they almost did not get there. Even the district nurses car was quite covered in snow