Teachers who attended unitary rural schools in northwestern Spain were asked to relate their early school experiences in the form of a personal reflective and analytical narrative. Our analysis of these narratives revealed some strikingly difficult conditions; nevertheless, students tended to relate these hardships with a strong sense of nostalgia, focussing on the sense of community that they experienced. These results shed some light on the relevance of personal relations and the broader social and physical environment to the school ethos, and provides practice and design implications for urban as well as rural schooling contexts.