Tales Out of School 2

It seems Section 1 of 'Tales is now too big to add to. This is the second section.

Chapter 1

It is a common fallacy that English teachers are good at INTERVIEWS. Apparently, their language skills and sensitivity to people are such that they are able to smoothly lie their way into all the top jobs in Education. After English teachers come Historians who have language plus political awareness. In my case, however, sensitivity outweighed language to leave me a gibbering hulk in interviews. I remember one interview which took place two days after an operation to remove four wisdom teeth. In mid-answer I felt my stitches fall from my gums and hang in the middle of my mouth. That was another failure!

As I moved slowly up through the ranks, I found myself on the other side of the table; conducting or at least taking part in the interrogation part. Initially the interviews were low key; the Head of Department and I would conduct informal conversations with temporary supply teachers for short term contracts like Maternity Leaves. We had a rough rule of thumb, Brian and I; when in doubt, the one with the best legs got the job.

We used to have hysterical preparation sessions where we drew up a list of possible questions to ask the nervous and anxious young ladies. When we were satisfied with our list we would admit the first candidate. The trick of course was not to laugh. Most of the questions contained double entendres or keywords from the latest joke list circulating round the staffroom.

‘I see Miss Jones that you have two outstanding features ….on your application form.’ This to any large breasted applicant always got us off to a good start. ‘Where do you stand on the question of administering a beating to naughty boys?’ We would listen seriously to the answer, occasionally licking our lips suggestively. At the end of the interview, before we began our deliberations, it was customary to ask ‘Are you still a firm candidate for this position?’ With the right set of pauses and a suggestive stress on the word ‘firm’, it was possible to reduce both of us to hysteria as our possible new colleague left the office.

We were found out only once. A black-eyed beauty, who would probably have got the job anyway, in answer to our shoulder-shuddering, ‘And what can you offer us in the way of extra-curricular activities?’ She considered our tone and in exactly similar vein responded, ‘Balls. I love playing ball games; the rougher the better. I can’t get enough. I would like to start a soccer team for older students, the younger ones, I find, have no control over their balls.’ We took her to our hearts immediately.

My career up the ladder had been put on hold. After Comprehensive Re-Organisation, I found myself second-in-command of the English Department and wanted the number one spot back again. In a fit of pique, I applied for a job at a school in Salford and found myself in a room with only two other candidates. I evaluated them and decided I was in pole position: one was too young with only a couple of years’ experience; the other looked well past it – even older than me. As a consequence of this confidence, I delivered probably my best interview.

The Head came into the room in the late afternoon and began to dismiss us in reverse order; the young one was congratulated on a good interview and with more years of experience would become a successful Head of Faculty. I forget why the old guy was dismissed (probably the quality of his suit). By now I was surreptitiously wiping my hand in preparation for shaking my new Headmaster’s hand. He turned to me and said, ‘As for you Mr. Bell I find we have irreconcilable differences in our views of Special Education so we are going to re-advertise!’

I shrugged nonchalantly; I didn't really want it anyway.

Eventually I became Head of English in my own right. Remembering my own stumbling efforts during my own failed interviews, I insisted on a short one-to-one chat prior to the formal interview with all candidates for jobs in my Faculty. I explained how nervous I had been and told them I was sympathetic to their situation. I also revealed the first question that they would be asked later so as to get them off to a flying start with a prepared answer. The question would be ‘What project/lesson do you rate as your best/most successful? The candidates were forewarned when invited to interview and asked to bring printed materials/lesson plans. During lunch before the interview proper, I and my deputy would photo-copy/steal these materials for the benefit of the Faculty.

It was customary for the Head teacher to end with, ‘Is there anything you would like to ask us?’ I told all would-be colleagues that if they directed a question at me, the Head of English, their application would prove to be unsuccessful.

This was ignored only once during twenty years of interviewing. The candidate was an Internal; someone on a temporary contract already who was now looking to make it permanent. We’d had a bit of previous during departmental meetings earlier in the term. She was a bossy, over-confident woman, who I was not anxious to employ full time. She was, however, by far and away the best candidate of the afternoon. When it was time for her to vacate the interview room, (the job almost certainly hers, she turned to me with a vicious glint in her eye. ‘I have one question to ask the Head of English.’

Then she asked it. I cannot remember what it was she asked, so enraged and, yes, nervous was I. Luckily it did not matter one jot as she proceeded to answer it herself in what became a very long, obviously rehearsed, critical statement against some/all of my policies. After an age she fell silent and I added my response. ‘Thank you.’ When she had left, the Head asked me why I’d thanked her. ‘Because she’d just saved us the trouble of considering her as a serious applicant.’ He nodded and we moved on.

As a side note, this bossy, posh woman was employed as a Support teacher and would sit in my class of ‘difficult’ students with special educational needs. She was universally disliked (by both the students and me.) She was nick-named ‘Beaky’ on account of a rather prominent nose. Someone in the class, not me, produced a plastic doll and managed to tweak its facial features into an extremely life-like facsimile of her. This doll made regular appearances by peeping round desks and being passed quickly from one to another so no-one was ever caught. It would send Beaky into screeching fits of rage and the class into fits of helpless laughter whilst I struggled to keep a straight face in a futile search for the offending doll.

Chapter 2

As I grew older, wiser and more experienced, the job got steadily more complicated on account of all the help the Government decided we needed. First came The Raising of the School Leaving Age. At fifteen, students were given a choice: stay on another year and sit some academic exams variously known as GCEs, CSEs, GCSEs. The ones who weren’t academic left to seek Trade Apprenticeships and learned how to bore holes in coffin lids.

It dawned on the Government, too late, that thousands of extra school places would be needed to accommodate these undiscovered Einsteins. The ROSLA block was born. Some apprentice architect was given fifteen minutes to draw up plans for rapidly erectable extra classrooms. His budget was severely limited; the building should cost no more than a second-hand ice-cream van though much larger. Thus, the blocks were built of plastic! They were two storeys, though there were insufficient funds for an upstairs fire escape. Known popularly as Death Traps, one burnt to the ground in twenty minutes luckily over a weekend when only the caretaker was about. It was rumoured that all the roofing was of grey asbestos. This would ensure many teachers would not draw their pensions for very long and only those students immune to asbestosis would make it to sixty-five and an old age pension.

To save more money there were NO inside walls except round the toilets and staffroom. This was grandly called Open Plan teaching. It allowed for Team Teaching whereby two teachers could occupy fifty odd students by showing them a video. Naturally the sound had to be turned up to maximum irrespective of the other class next door-less.

In inner city schools sometimes, there was not enough room on the playground so it was sited elsewhere. One of the principal reasons behind England’s rubbish World Cup teams was the number of soccer and cricket fields which were ploughed under to accommodate these architectural blights. Teachers were required to commute during their breaks and dinner times. Some travel expenses were paid but it was no substitute for not having a coffee all morning. (Thus adding kidney failure to the growing number of obstacles against drawing a pension for very long.)

To avoid classes sitting waiting for commuting teachers, different time zones were created; the big school started five minutes earlier than the ROSLA block whose students still turned up according to GMT. Any educational gains that were claimed for ROSLA block students, (and I have heard of none,) could be attributed to studying an extra fifty minutes a week. No overtime was paid for staff also working extra to compensate for the time lag.

The students themselves were split roughly fifty-fifty between those academics who would have stayed on to sit external examinations and those who would have left to earn good money as apprentice plasterers, electricians, coffin-lid grinders. Naturally this group resented the loss of income and contrived to convey their displeasure at this infringement of their civic liberties. Their targets were threefold.

The building itself was fair game: great strips of plastic cladding were ripped off revealing the fibre glass insulation inside. The cheap-jack furniture seemed to have been designed to fall to pieces under a merely malevolent gaze from a recalcitrant pupil. One lesson collapsed in sadistic laughter as the avant-garde teacher gathered his students round his desk to create a better atmosphere for discussion. His students responded by loosening the supporting screws until the whole desk dissolved.

The second target was naturally the teachers themselves. We were fair game and the pranks played on us were many. One poor, (and I use the adjective literally to mean impecunious,) teacher wore cheap cardboard soled shoes. During snow and wet weather, he skidded his way between classrooms. One of his lessons was in a Domestic Science room complete with cookers. Being intelligent he saw no harm in putting his damp footwear in a gas oven on low to dry them out before his next commute. Being inexperienced, he took his eyes off the cooker long enough for a student to turn up the gas. Thirty minutes later his shoes were nicely done; they disintegrated into a pile of black charcoal dust.

The third target for the ROSLA kids, as they became known, was their fellow students; the snobs, academics, swots. Like Cambodia’s Pol Pot, the next generation of our country’s intelligentsia was subjected to a merciless regime of derision and intimidation (thankfully without the Killing Fields). So was born the wave that has swamped all our schools except Public, fee-paying ones: studying, exam success, attention in class, and respect for teachers are all uncool and punishable in many ways both subtle and otherwise.

Chapter 3

Despite this catastrophic failure, the Government decided to go another stage further down this egalitarian path; the Comprehensive Revolution. It was decided to scrap the 11+ exam and send all pupils to the same secondary school. Why just tinker with a few Secondary Modern schools, went the clever thinking? Why not ruin the Grammar schools while we are at it? Of course, some Councils saw right through this complicated plot to eradicate the Intelligentsia and clung to their Grammar schools. The Government, however, ploughed mercilessly ahead; they seemed determined to kill off the idea that study and knowledge is enriching. Despite ample proof to the contrary, they seemed determined to make Life fair. But it patently isn’t.

There are some students born, by dint of parental genes, more intelligent than others. There are some children more bent on academia than sanding coffin lids. Be that as it may, everyone under one roof went up the howl.

As Head of English in a Secondary Modern school, it was my job to re-build the students’ confidence shattered by the 11+ exam and to coax a late learning spurt from those who had never really considered themselves academic. I did it by making them feel special – they were big fish in a little pool. I milked the exam system for all it was worth; I entered students for two exams simultaneously in the same subject. CSE exams came in the month before GCE so timing wasn’t a problem. Sometimes a student passed this but failed that; it didn’t matter, one or the other pass would equip them for life in the adult world or Sixth Form College.

My/their exam results improved year on year. I had a demonstration of how much faith students had in my teaching abilities. I taught English Literature by performance. One year a CSE set book was Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. There are fifty seven characters in the play. By popular demand I ended up reading them all! With a different voice! The class were much amused at my accent which drifted between Welsh and Pakistani. I sneered at Richard Burton grappling with just the one character though I admit his Welsh accent was better than mine.

I enlisted as an Examiner to supplement my income and marked late into the night in the weeks following exams. I saw a pattern in the successful answers and incorporated it into my lessons. I reduced it to a formula: P + Q = 2. My candidates were instructed to make a point about the text or character (P); support it with a quote or textual reference (Q) and this would ensure 2 marks. To score a CSE grade 1 pass, a mark of 75% was required. There were four essay questions on four set books.

Les was an intelligent and trusting student, in my mind a certainty to get his pass. On the day of the exam, I strode importantly up and down the hall, peeping over shoulders at answers, wincing occasionally. I arrived at Les’ desk just as he screwed the top on to his pen and set it down with a satisfied sigh. There was still a half hour to go. I glance at his paper and saw, to my horror, he had written on only three of the texts. In vain, I harrumphed and raised eyebrows and nodded dementedly at his answer sheet. I was not allowed to say quietly, ‘Why have you only attempted three quarters of the paper you blithering idiot?’ He smiled confidently at my antics.

I cornered him later on the corridor and began my tirade. He heard me out politely then explained as if to a three-year-old. ‘P + Q = 2. In each of my three essays I made at least fifteen points each with a quotation. I reckon I got full marks on all three answers. 75%.’ He smiled at me pityingly. On results day he airily waved his pass certificate. He had been 100% correct on 75% of the paper. (In later years he became an accountant.)

Chapter 4

UPDATE - Susan Wroe (circa 1974) wrote to me this week from Chicago. She reminded me of another story about the above Les Whitworth. Because he lived close to my house in Ramsbottom, he (& his steady girlfriend) became my regular baby-sitters. For his mock English Language imaginative essay, he wrote a Horror story that took place during his babysitting hours. It was so good, I read it to some of my other classes. Needless to say I gave it an A*.

All of the above 'Tales Out of School 1 & 2' has been posted on my free blog to be found on my website; Living History with Mike Bell. Within the first week, there were five hundred members of the FB page. I was entranced and read all the reminiscences; recognising familiar names; being reminded of unfamiliar staff (there were 100 teachers on the staff when I left.) It would be impossible to write chapters about them all.

I attended reunions in Waterfoot of the final year group at Ryfield Avenue when they all reached 30 and then 40. Les was one of these. To right the balance, it seems only fair to mention a student with whom I had a similar mutually close relationship on Broadway; Ian Fleming. No not that one, though I did discover a Thai equivalent – Somkinda Tealeaf! (You can read about him in ‘Amusing Thailand’ Now in paperback.).

This Ian was fourteen and in my year 9 class or Third years for older readers. He was a difficult student; given to expressing his opinions forcibly. I can even quote one of the first things he said to me and our class, ‘Shakespeare is a self-perpetuating myth’; this was in my first Shakespeare lesson of the year! Things could have gone downhill from there on, but they didn’t. He didn’t enjoy these lessons but I enjoyed his contributions. During our, sometimes heated exchanges, I let slip I’d written a book called ‘Skinner’ with the help of a class. He politely showed interest and I lent him the only copy (a handwritten one which I still have today nearly fifty years later!)

He returned it some days later with some grudging praise and a couple of suggestions for improvement. My own suggestion was that he should author his own novel and I would serialise it with our class; his very own captive audience. So, he did! And I did!

Whilst the rest of the class got on with my homework, Ian was excused providing he turned in the next chapters of his book. I can’t remember the title; I expect he can’t remember mine. (Skinner'). His topic was The Mods and Rockers battles in the news at somewhere called Brighton – very ‘Quadrophenia’. I duly read it aloud, uncomfortably, as I remember because of the frequent use of the F-word. Nowadays it is used so frequently on TV it would come as no surprise to hear on ‘Songs of Praise’ screened every Sunday. Then of course was different. I expected complaints from parents or teachers next door.

All too soon the year ended and he moved on to another English teacher. We would pass on the corridor and grin conspiratorially. It came as no surprise to learn he was writing TV programmes for students of Secondary age. A list of his credits can be found here - iandfleming.com.

The last I heard, (last week) he was lecturing trainee teachers and helping his 78-year-old teacher become an overnight success in the film world.

Despite being a rebel whilst at school, he recognised HHS' contribution to his development; Only a few weeks back, he emailed the following;

''Hazzy High was incredibly progressive. You lot taught us about life.'

He reminded me of that great stalwart, Mrs Cherry and her VD lesson.

This took place in the Assembly Hall. There were horrifying close-ups of people's not-so-private parts; suppurating sores; rotted syphilitic faces. A man in a white coat delivered the punchline: 'If you have had sex with four or more partners in your lifetime, you are almost guaranteed to contract one or more of these venereal diseases.” Can you imagine the impact this might have on sixteen year old, boys, in particular? No need to imagine Ian sent me this report.

' Stewart ‘Jasper’ Beardmore asked Miss Cherry if that meant we had it as we’d gone past that tally by then! So we went back to his, as we usually did after school. He was the very first person I knew who had two bathrooms. And we were each over a sink, running tap, tackle in hand, soap galore and nail brushes, scrubbing the bejeezus out of our manhoods! True story.'

Despite this, Ian went on to father children. I think I would have entered a monastery!

Chapter 5

STOP PRESS

A former student on the Love Haslingden site reminded me that whilst Alder Grange had Jane Horrocks (Ab/Fab fame) we, HHS had celebrities too, most of them named Aston. Both Emily, Thomas and Sam appeared on Corrie regularly and for several seasons.

I knew of Emily’s fame even before she arrived at the High School. I watched the movie ‘Oranges are not the Only Fruit’, entranced by the red-headed heroine as an eight year old. I was agog when I heard she’d begun school and actively sought her out. We met on the corridor near the changing rooms. I was star-struck and asked her for her autograph! We became firm friends as she progressed through the school.

By this time Mr. Guppy and I were involved in making scenery for the school productions. I graduated from playing Widow Twankey in the Sixth Form Pantomimes to more serious roles opposite Emily.

She was mischievous and frequently got me into trouble with The-Powers-That-Be. I was notoriously poor at remembering lines and took to writing them on various props which I could hold or see on stage. She stole or moved them at every opportunity. One time she asked me to rehearse with her behind some scenery whilst the drama unfolded before a live audience. We were caught high and dry in full view at the end of the scene when the scenery was changed.

During ‘West Side Story’ I played the racist Detective Shrank and we had a scene where I had to interview Maria (AKA Emily.) I was confident about my lines in this scene as I’d written them down in my ‘police’ notebook and could consult them openly when it was my turn to speak. Whether by accident or design, Emily forgot her lines and began answering my questions with the wrong answers. ‘What is your name?’ ‘Three months’. ‘

How long have you known Tony?’ ‘At the dance in the gym.’

It was obvious to everyone in the audience that I didn’t belong on the same stage as this professional.

Even after she left and turned professional I saw most of everything she did (so long as it was at The Octagon or The Exchange. She always knew when I was in the audience at the final curtain; my piercing whistle earned me a smile and a wave.

Chapter 5

1974?

The countdown to C-day had begun. A lovely little two form entry rural Grammar school was about to attempt to swallow the local Sec Mod which was twice its size. A huge building programme was begun on the Grammar school site as they had fields and we had an asphalt playground. Millions of pounds were spent to ensure Comprehensive education didn’t fail. It wasn’t just the expense of the buildings that would cost. Each school had its own management structure. There were two Headmasters: two Deputy Heads and of course Heads of the different departments: English, Maths, Science etc. None of these could be demoted – their salary scale was protected.

How were the decisions about the new Heads of Department made? Easy – if you were a Sec Mod teacher, you taught thick kids so you were by definition thick yourself and incapable of running an Academic Department in a Comprehensive school. All the academic Heads of Department in the new school were taken from the Grammar school staff on account of their ability to teach ‘A’ levels; all except PE and Tech Drawing – these were true Sec Mod subjects! In most cases this meant huge salary raises for these lucky academics. No account of scale was considered. The new Departments were much larger than previously. In the Sec Mod I had a Department of twelve staff. The Grammar school English head had one and a half!

Naturally there were casualties. Within the first year a small number of Grammar school staff had nervous breakdowns or took early retirement. They were unused to students who got in your face albeit in a fit of zeal. The opposite was true for Sec Mod teachers; they were introduced to whole classes of students who stood respectfully to greet you; who listened quietly to your every word. When I was finally entrusted with a Grammar school class, I thought I’d gone deaf!

How successful was it? In terms of exam results, not at all. I’d kept careful records of the numbers of my Sec Mod kids who secured GCE passes. The number had crept up annually. I separated the annual Grammar school’s 90+ % from their creamed intake. In the next five years, the new Comprehensive school’s results never once matched the combined total for the old Grammar school and the old Secondary Modern. I suspect this pattern was repeated across the UK. I expect statisticians, given long enough, could come up with reasons.

My own simple take was down to basic human nature. Take the high-fliers in the Sec Mod and suddenly place two classes above them in the ranking order. These kids immediately feel less special, their worth diluted. Now take the two Grammar school classes and surround them with several hundred pupils lacking their drive, intellect and high standards of behaviour. There is a resultant slackening of attitude; it is easier to float with the tide than swim against the current. Despite the millions spend annually on Comprehensive Education; this simple fact of human nature seems to have escaped the attention of the experts.

As these exam results began to filter back to the Government, they realised, with some desperation that this catastrophic experiment had gone horribly wrong. What to do? What to do? A simple answer stared them in the face: make the exams easier. So, they did. As the number of passes soared so the public would accept this dumbing down as the norm.

[PS In the year 2016, the Government of the day has just announced plans to begin the introduction of new Grammar schools. I make that nearly fifty years of wasted student opportunities + billions of pounds in new buildings + paying extra salaries for newly promoted Grammar school teachers + early retirement pensions for staff with nervous breakdowns + extra stock + extra salaries to cope with a new strata of pastoral staff necessary once a new year group exceeded 200 + ….. [oh well never mind, you get the idea.]

Chapter 6

It began innocuously enough; combining GCE with CSE and calling it GCSE. They trialled it with English teachers first; these stalwarts had prided themselves as always being ‘first over the parapets.’ If it could be sneaked past them the other difficult group, the Historians, would fall into line.

Lots of promises were made. The set texts for English Literature would stay on the syllabus longer; the choice would be widened; you could avoid Shakespeare. There were hints about Course work, even 100% Coursework – no EXAMS! I am ashamed to admit, we fell for it.

As a Head of Department money was the root of this evil. I had only a finite sum to spend on set texts. If these texts didn’t change so often I could save the exam text money and spend it on, say, chalk. These were the hard choices you had to make. I once sold a lot of old library books to a second-hand dealer for a penny a book. I asked what someone of his obvious entrepreneurial skills would want with such a load of old tat. He confided that locally there were lots of old Mill owners’ houses – huge stone edifices with oak-panelled walls. The new owners converted rooms back to libraries and bought rubbish books to line the walls – the first attempts at insulating walls, I surmise. With the penny-a-book money I bought paint. One of my classes and I spent a week’s holiday painting the walls and ceiling of our own library – what a way to spend Easter.

Thus, we allowed ourselves to be bribed into accepting the new exam. We all knew that you could set essay titles that would tax the brightest whilst still allowing the weaker candidates to score. We also knew that there was not an author alive or dead whose writing would be a challenge to the comprehension skills of the ‘A*’ candidates without being total gibberish to the ‘G’s.

Gradually coursework crept up and up. With 40% awarded for a folio of writing plus 20% awarded internally for something called Orals, English teachers were now in control. Of course, to avoid accusations of cheating there were Moderation meetings for all the local schools.. These were great fun. The English Heads of half a dozen local schools would gather at a host school like Fearns or St Ambrose where their candidates were judged; marks were awarded and discussed, then you were sent back to adjust your marks in the light of the discussion. Naturally you were very mean on the day and accepted, reluctantly, that all your marks should be raised.

Ultimately this trend culminated in 100% Coursework; that is NO EXAMS after five years of study! .Naturally as there were no exams in English after five years, there were no exams necessary lower down the school. For a teacher who had had to mark maybe two hundred scripts every other term, this was Nirvana. To say we were envied by other subject teachers would be to state the obvious. Whilst the rest of the staff was ploughing through exam marking, we English teachers were already on our report writing.

There was a price to be paid. There were two days of being closeted in the library with over 230 folders each containing a minimum of seven essays. All had to be rank ordered and a decision made as to where we drew the ‘C’ or PASS line. The other cost was of credibility. However good our results were or were not, we never received any credit either from other staff or Head teachers. Again, I kept careful records. When 100% Coursework was finally killed off by greedy, cheating English teachers, (in other schools) our results improved year on year, suggesting I had drawn the line too high. How many of my students had I failed by my determination to be fair?

Chapter 7

For most of this time, I was still 2-i-C of what I always considered to be my Department or Faculty as the new trendy word would have it. When the old Grammar school Head of English did the honourable thing and took early retirement because she hated the new monster that had been created, I thought at last justice would be done and I would become HOD (Head of Department) again. It was not to be.

A school of 1,500 students with a strong Sixth form attracted all sorts of high-flying candidates. I suspect I only made the short list out of courtesy. Once again, my interview was doomed and a new guy took over. Despite my disappointment I had to warmly applaud the appointment of Mr Bryant. He was an excellent boss and always made me feel valued and credited me with areas of responsibility. He asked for advice and listened. We became unlikely friends. It was no surprise when he was promoted to Deputy Head after four or so years.

Again, my hopes soared and again were dashed as a new HOD was appointed over me. This time it was someone who became known as the Dunlopillo woman for her uncanny knack of gaining copious rolls of rubber during the year before losing it near the summer hols as she got her body beach-ready. Maj, short for ‘Her Majesty,’ was a megalomaniac and a liar.

One of her first decisions was to lock all the storerooms. If you wanted a set of books – text or readers, you had to queue humbly outside the door and await Her Maj’s arrival. She would count out the books, write the number in an exercise book and would reverse the process at the end of the lesson. This had a catastrophic effect on her relationship with her staff and I suspect her own classes’ progress as their lessons began anything up to 15 minutes after everyone else’s.

Maj consulted me on English Department matters, usually ten minutes before a Department meeting. I was astonished to hear my words airily coming from her mouth with no acknowledgement as to their source. The downward spiral began. The average teacher has never left school. After Sixth form then University they return to teach. S/He has never experienced the rough and tumble of the real workplace in the wider world. We were totally unprepared for adult liars. Of course, we expected kids to lie especially about missing homework but failed to grasp that Maj could look us in the face and glibly lie.

It took us maybe two years and one Extra-ordinary General Meeting to suss it out. The meeting was called by one of the most intelligent women it has been my pleasure to work with. It was extra-ordinary in that the Head of Faculty was not invited! There were maybe eight specialist English teachers who, by this time, had been together many years. During Maj’s reign, relationships had deteriorated to the point of almost open hostility. During the course of this meeting we discovered Maj had operated a divide and conquer policy. We all put our cards on the table and discovered the full extent of her deceit. The verdict was either Maj was mad or we had been part of a psychological experiment. She had lost our love, our support. In football manager’s jargon, she had lost the dressing room. There was only one option open to her: leave.

Chapter 8

RIP - On learning of John' death 26/1/2021

One of my special drinking buddies was Mr Birtwell. A rugby player built like a prop forward who liked his beer. His preferred tipple was draft Guinness. On one of the end of term celebrations, he over did it. He’d had, maybe twelve good pints before he drank ‘a bad ‘un.’ We were walking home when he began to vomit. Great gushers of black fluid spewed forth into a neighbour’s garden. I gently supported him as he evacuated the bad pint. He paused, looked deep into my eyes and gently murmured, ‘You know draught Guinness tastes as good coming up as it does going down.’

Mr Birtwell was a historian. He told me students had no sense of history; they couldn’t do the maths. To prove it during a Study of World War 2, he told his class about his war service despite the fact he would have been three years old at the time! The class of 14 year olds swallowed it totally. To add verisimilitude, he roped me into the story too.

Every Wednesday the class would have history with Mr B then troop along the corridor for English with me. The first part of the lesson, I had to deal with the latest of his preposterous tall tales. According to him, I had been his Commanding Officer! He told them of our war time adventures. One memorable incident was when we had been in Italy with no supplies and were literally surviving on what we could scavenge. A shell went off close by and I found Mr B covered in blood lying in a field but still breathing.

Being immensely strong and a heroic sort, I put Mr B across my shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged him nearly two miles to the field hospital. All the way there he was moaning, ‘What a waste, what a waste.’ I assumed he was talking about his young life being cut off in its prime; (ie 3 years of age!)

Anxiously I hovered as the doctor checked his vital signs, cutting away his uniform to find the wounds which had produced so much blood. The sound of the doctor’s laughter stunned me as he fished about in the bloody pulp of Mr B’s torso. When the shell went off, he had flung himself to the ground, crushing the tomatoes he had recently scavenged and stuffed down the front of his jacket. There was not a mark on him. What a waste of ten pounds of tomatoes! The kids loved it.

Then it was my turn. Mr B had turned up to his lesson sporting a black eye, a real one; sustained during his weekend rugby match. Mysteriously he refused to explain but urged them to ask their English teacher, hinting it was something to do with our wartime experiences.

I was totally unprepared for the barrage of questions thrown my way so I had to improvise and told them this story.

It was 1945 which made me three years old and Mr B an imminent twinkle in his father’s eye. We were on a mission in Occupied France. I was in charge and I explained our orders to the rest of the team. A prominent member of the French Resistance had recently been captured and was imprisoned nearby awaiting the arrival of Gestapo interrogators. It would not take long for them to unlock the secrets inside his head. We had to free him or ensure his permanent silence – I mean permanent. I watched the class as they realised the implications of my last sentence. Their evident pity at my situation was touching.

Mr B was the dog man. This made perfect sense to the class as he had regaled them with tales of his modern-day pet terrier, taking walks across the moors of Oswaldtwistle. (Yes, it is a real place, difficult to say but instantly familiar to the class of fourteen-year olds, sitting mesmerised in front of me.)

His skills were such that he soon had the Germans’ Doberman guard dogs literally eating out of his hand; drugged meat. We made our way stealthily through the camp in the misty haze of what promised to be a fine sunny French day. Silencing guards en route, we freed our man.

It was on our return journey when all hell broke loose. We fought a running fire fight with the remaining guards and escaped. Unfortunately, our brave Resistance leader was killed by the German fire. Most of the soldiers under my command escaped alive. I paused to let the class assimilate the weight of the word ‘most’. My eyes grew moist at the memory of the fallen.

But where did Mr B’s black eye tie in? Widely reported in the local newspapers was a story about a failed Post Office robbery in Oswaldtwistle. Mr B had been in the Post Office, so my story went. Contrary to what the papers had said, it had not been a failed robbery but the attempted murder of Mr B. A ripple of astonishment swept the class or did I detect scepticism? That sort of thing didn’t happen in Oswaldtwistle.

Some of the class were aware that a foreign man was ‘helping the police with their inquiries.’ I nodded triumphantly. ‘He was French.’ My words fell with the weight of steel girders. Some of the slower ones began asking their neighbours. I hurried to give them the ending.

The Frenchman was the son of the Resistance leader, convinced that his father had been murdered by English commandos. Papers recently released by the War Office had implicated me and my team. The Frenchman had confronted Mr B in Oswaldtwistle Post Office. There had been a struggle, an unspecified weapon had been recovered and thanks to Mr B’s commando training his only injury had been a black eye.

There was a clock on the classroom wall. I watched the second finger tick towards the bell for the end of the lesson. Then I delivered the perfect ending; ‘The police found a list of names on the Frenchman. I was next on the list. Mr B probably saved my life.’ I strode from the room, head hung low, humbly, counting my blessings.

Chapter 9

There’s a great many newspaper reports about violence towards teachers as if this were a new thing . It has always been there; from parents mainly. What is new is the rise in violence towards teachers from students. Society has made ‘youf culture’ all important so it is no surprise that youth feels confident enough to take on the two main bastions of society: the police and teachers.

I experienced my first violence on Teaching Practice near Old Trafford football ground. I taught Games, which in Manchester meant football. The Head of PE needed to leave school early and asked me to supervise the showers then lock up. One student, irked because he’d been on the losing side, decided on a go-slow protest. He was last out of the showers then took an inordinate time towelling himself dry.

Ordinarily I am a patient man but I had a bus to catch. I gave the lad an ultimatum; hurry up or I would throw his clothes outside the building, so I could lock up and leave him to get dressed outside at his considerable leisure. When I carried out my threat, he went into overdrive, dressed then confronted me as I made my way across the playground.

The skirmish was over before it started: I was older, stronger, bigger. The next morning as I handed the keys back to the PE teacher, I casually mentioned the incident. The first lesson of the day, as luck would have it, I was teaching the same class, this time English. The lad was a bit sullen but both of us were taken aback when the Head of PE asked if he could borrow the student to help out at the gym.

At break I learned that no fewer than three other teachers had visited the gym and ‘made the boy feel very uncomfortable.’ Fast forward thirty-seven years to another occasion when a fifteen-year-old offered violence towards my person.

I was now Head of English and as such responsible for discipline not just in my own classes but those of the dozen or so staff in my Faculty. I had been summoned to remove a recalcitrant student from a junior teacher’s lesson. Normally the routine was easy. I was a venerable sixty something; a senior teacher with my own office. I merely had to crook my finger and the problem would be resolved.

Higgins hadn’t read the script however. It took a lot of persuading to get him to leave the classroom. Outside, on the corridor, he became violent. I had two choices; run away to the Head teacher’s office or use ‘reasonable force’. This phrase had come into being with the demise of Corporal Punishment.

Eventually, I managed to overpower him to the point where I got him to the Head’s office. I handed the miscreant over to the powers-that-be and left expecting Higgins to be expelled or at the least have a heavy suspension. (By heavy, I mean ten school days; the maximum allowed under these ludicrous rules.)

There followed an uneasy two or three days when, not only was Higgins in school, but seemingly untouchable, strutting his stuff; glaring menacingly at me on the corridor; being followed by an adoring crowd of acolytes. Eventually I saw the Head. What he said left me devastated. Higgins had told him that I had beaten him up and thrown him down the stairs. He wasn’t being investigated, I was. Furthermore, he had a witness.

For three days my future hung in the balance. If I was deemed guilty of assault on a student, I might be dismissed, face police charges. What would happen to the pension I had built up during my long career? I wandered round in a daze. I couldn’t concentrate in lessons so I began my own investigations. The ‘assault’ had taken place in my English block. The witness had been seated in an adjoining classroom and seen me beating Higgins up through a window in the door. I asked the English teacher to show me where the witness sat in her class.

From my seat at his desk I could see nothing of where my assault took place. Later that lunch time, I conveyed my findings to any one who’d listen to me. A Tech Drawing teacher was sympathetic. ‘Higgins did the same thing two years ago; same witness too.’ He took me to their office and found the relevant report. Higgins had accused a(nother) Senior teacher of assault. His witness verified it but cracked when interrogated further, admitting Higgins had coerced him into lying. Armed with a photocopy of the report I returned to the Head. I was home free; there was no apology for doubting my word; no compensation for the stress experienced when my retirement pension was under threat. Higgins confessed and was punished to the full extent of the law: he had to do two detentions after school! I began to make plans for early retirement. The dice was too heavily loaded in favour of the student.

Chapter 10

It was the worst of times and the best of times. At the last count I had served with nine Head teachers; (a couple of them were temporary appointments due to the most amazing circumstances involving forgery/corruption/sex scandals – have I got your attention?) Only one of the nine was a woman and she it was at the centre of all the illegality. Let’s call her Rumba to protect the guilty after all she led us a merry dance.

She came highly qualified as an Assistant Headteacher – the nameplate on her office door proclaimed her to be Dr Rumba. In a few short years she was duly installed as the school’s first female Head. What a mistake that was! It is difficult to put things delicately in these days of Political Correctness – perhaps the words of our Senior Mistress best sums it up – ‘The bloody school’s being run depending on what time of the month it is,’

I fell foul of her almost immediately. I had thought my cheerful personality and charming smile would be enough to win her over – to no avail. At first I thought she just didn’t like me. Again, trying to put this delicately, I later found out she did not like men generally.

She embarked on a policy of ‘suite-ing’. This latest Educational buzz-word in theory had a lot going for it. Subject areas were grouped in classrooms geographically. It meant you were surrounded by staff teaching your own subject. Your Head of Faculty was always close at hand. Your text books were in close proximity. Unless you drew the short straw – the dinner rooms.

The school, despite extensive new building during the Comprehensivisation and ROSLA fiascos, never saw fit to build a dining hall. Instead they built a huge kitchen with two serving hatches surrounded by four classrooms. Guess where our dancing queen decided to suite her most academic Faculty!

When I heard her plans, I am not ashamed to admit there were tears in my eyes when I pleaded long and hard to be spared this attack on the most successful subject in terms of GCSE results. I pointed out that noisy preparations for dinner would disrupt the final half of the lesson before lunch. I pointed out that the smell of cooking food would disturb students’ concentration as their bellies craved satisfaction. I pointed out that the smell of cooked food would linger well into the lessons after lunch. I pointed out the tables were never thoroughly cleaned and many books, both text and exercise books would be disfigured by slops on the desks.

She pointedly ignored my pointings out. My team was expected to move from new classrooms with electrically operated Venetian blinds to pig-sties. Thousands of text books had to be trundled from one building to the next. What a waste of man hours and education time! I don’t want to cast aspersions but the Chairperson of our Governing body was an ex-dinner lady whose son had fallen foul of my ire on account of him being a lazy, good-for-nothing arse. Head and Chair were good friends. Remember this last sentence.

To rub salt into my wounds, it was rumoured that the Head had successfully asked said Chair for a rise. Remember this last sentence.

Everything Educational was set to one side as we were given the news of an impending School Inspection. The word impending is a misnomer. We had the best part of a year to set aside teaching and make policies and create Faculty Handbooks and prepare Policies on Health and Safety; policies on Teaching and Learning styles; Homework Policies; all on a variety of things we had been doing successfully for years without carving them into tablets of stone.

After all the months of pressure building from the top down, you would think the actual Inspection would be a light relief. Not a bit of it. The most nerve-wracking thing was to have an actual Inspector in your classroom or maybe it was just the prospect of one as you never knew who was getting ‘done’ beforehand. Every shadowy figure going past your door during the 1st part of the lesson sent your pulse racing; dried the inside of your mouth and caused your tongue to swell to three times its normal size.

I appealed to the humanity of our English guy and explained our nervousness. Unbelievably he understood and told me every two lessons where he would be and who he would see. I relayed this information so we were all prepared. The object of this ordeal was to secure a grading of ‘Excellent’, ‘Very Good’ or ‘Should Consider Joining the Army.’ At the end of the week these scores were aggregated across each Faculty and a report was delivered to each subject Head explaining our strengths and weaknesses.

Senior Management was also subjected to this ordeal. One last sentence that must be remembered was ‘The school has sound financial management.’ Is the suspense killing you? Oh all right then.

Chapter 11

Rumours began to circulate. One of the secretaries was less than discreet after a couple of gin and tonics. Apparently, Miss Rumbar, before sending the salary structure for Inspection, had asked the afore-mentioned alcoholic secretary to make a change or two – specifically to the Head’s salary scale. Another Deputy Head discovered this; questions were asked; brows were furrowed.

The Dinner lady in her capacity as Chair of the Governors had agreed a salary rise for the dancing queen but had foolishly signed a blank cheque for Miss Rumbar to complete. A simple mistake had been made obviously, which no one had picked up on until the Head herself had the salary scale altered back to what it should have been. Surely it could not be deliberate embezzlement? Surely our first female Head could not have made such an error? A police investigation was begun.

Suddenly all my dinner room problems shrank to tiny proportions. Suddenly I could not wait to throw petrol on the flames sweeping the staffroom. Irregularities in Miss Rumbar’s qualifications were discovered in that she was no more a Doctor than I was a Professional footballer. She had left her previous school under something of a cloud. A check of the school’s telephone bill revealed long conversations during school time with her lover. Expense claims were examined. A trip by plane to a conference in London was found to have been ‘unnecessary’ as the conference was cancelled due to a fire. Miss Rumbar still went. A date for a trial was set.

Once, whilst driving my first car; a three-wheeler Robin Reliant, in Shuttleworth, Edenfield, I was adjudged to have broken the speed limit. The policeman, whilst struggling to keep a straight face, told me I was doing 46 mph in a 30 area. I had heard there was a statuary fine plus a pound per mile over the limit. I elected to go to court and fight my alleged speed. The night before I rehearsed my opening plea in front of some helpful Youf Club members who offered copious words of advice most of which cannot be printed here.

A friend on Senior Management who was due to testify in court the following day employed me to listen to his evidence and encouraged me to grill him as Miss Rumbar’s expensive barrister would. What fun we had as, in my interrogation of him, I had to refer to the lady who had jailed me in the dining rooms as ‘The Accused.’

In the event, despite it being great fun, it became unnecessary as our esteemed Head pleaded guilty thus avoiding the whole stack of evidence being paraded in public and before an electrified staffroom. Throwing herself on the mercy of the court worked in that jail time was avoided. Resignation meant she was not sacked and goodness knows what happened to her pension. Last heard of she was managing a clubhouse bar on a golf course. I wonder what qualifications she needed for that job?

Chapter 12

As a footnote on Inspections there were occasional victories. Nowadays, a school is no longer served with many months notice to sweat and fret over – less than a month’s notice is about standard now. The other victory was when I was forced to use violence on an Inspector!

Security in schools is tight nowadays. We’ve not got to the American level of using metal detectors on students but strangers/visitors are required to attend the office where they are given an official badge. On the above Inspection we were told all Inspectors would be wearing a badge from the office.

On the first day I was on corridor duty supervising students as they entered the building. Coming towards me was an obvious Inspector wearing an expensive suit and that ‘I’m important’ face. I stopped him with a hand on his chest. ‘Excuse me sir, where do you think you are going?’

‘I am one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors and I am about to attend Registration in room 6.’

‘I see, and have you any proof that you are who you say you are? The whole staff have been told that Inspectors would be wearing official name badges. Could I see yours, sir?’ A lifetime of being addressed as ‘sir’ had prepared me to deliver the word in such a way as to mean ‘paedo’ ‘terrorist’ or ‘mere scumbag.’

He bristled visibly, whilst I kept my hand on his chest. ‘I’m sorry; I was in a rush to get here quickly and forgot to pick it up at the office this morning.’ He pushed ever so slightly against my hand.

‘I can’t let you into the school without your badge, sir. There was a case recently where a loonie got into a school and caused problems. Let me escort you to the office where you can pick up your badge, sir.’ I pushed him back.

‘For goodness sake, I am part of Mr. Knowall’s team. I need to make it to room 6 before 9am.’

‘Even if you are part of the Inspectorate team, this could be a test of the school’s security routine. You are not entering the building.’ Another push in the chest caused him to take a step back. ‘I’ll escort you to the office and we’ll pick up your badge together, shall we?’ He began to retrace his steps with me two paces behind.

At the office he announced his name to the secretary who handed him a name badge. (I was relieved it wasn’t the English Inspector’s name.) Pinning his badge on, he turned to me triumphantly. ‘Now I’d like to know your name so I can discuss your treatment of me with your Head teacher.’ I knew he’d get all the support he wanted from Miss Rumba.

‘I have a better idea,’ I countered. ‘Let’s go and see the Chief Inspector himself and we can explain to him how you were late on your first day; failed to pick up your ID badge and then tried to intimidate the Head of English into circumventing the school’s security policy.’ No ‘sir’ this time. He declined.

Chapter 13

After thirty eight chapters and the same number of years teaching, I guess it’s a good place to sum up the whole world of Education in Britain. Over the years there have been movements which have failed – some of which looked good on paper but failed in practice.

One such was Special Needs. It was supposed to encompass both bright and not so bright. Students were examined by members of what used to be called the Remedial Department. Originally it was for students who were not clever or academic – they were familiarly known as thickies’. I know this is not particularly PC but that’s how it was. A small group of students each year were given Special help with English and Maths by a dedicated group of teachers. After years of failing at school, some of these students naturally developed behavioural problems – they were difficult to teach.

Because I had the biggest biceps in the Department (85% of whom were women), I often volunteered to serve my time. Teaching the ninth stream in any year group is no bed of roses but there was scope for fun. I had one such group for their two final exam years before they left (none went into the VIth Form.)

One of their (and my) favourite lessons was the Handwriting Exercise. Each week a proud member of the class got to choose a page from our class reader. Everyone would then diligently copy it out into their exercise book and I would diligently take it home and mark it the same night. Each student began with twenty out of twenty but lost a mark for each mistake: a missing comma; a mis-spelling; a difficult to read letter. I occasionally awarded full marks to a proud and diligent pupil.

Another fun lesson was the Spelling test. It had been decreed by Know-alls running Education that regular homework had to be set across the full ability range. No account was taken of the fact that these students forgot a whole day’s schooling during their ten minute walk home. They also forgot text books that staff had foolishly entrusted to them; naturally they always forgot any homework.

At the start of the year my remedials got to rip out all blank pages from old exercise books. Each week they would carefully copy from my blackboard twenty words on to this scrap paper and carefully carry it home or as far as the nearest toilet. I would carefully enter this homework in a journal to prove I was obeying Government decrees.

The next day came the test. Out would come their exercise books. I would announce the title by pointing to the board on which were written the words. With a straight face I would read them out one by one. In all the years I did this, nobody ever got full marks despite the answers staring them in the face from the board.

They loved me to ridicule their efforts in a fun way. I used to say I had taught intelligent apes to spell better than they and I would pull a face which I fondly imagined was my monkey face. The kids labeled it (again not PC) my ’Mong’ face. If anyone displayed a particularly low level of intelligence, they would chorus ‘Give him the Mong face, sir.’ At the end of the year, the proud student who was voted the thickest was given a Mong Gong.

Occasionally this familiarity had disastrous consequences. They loved to hear stories about my life and frequently asked questions of an incredibly personal nature. Last lesson in the afternoon was their favourite time: they were tired; so was I. This particular year I was renovating a cottage. We would often put diagrams of the floor plans and work out how many square yards of floorboards I would need or what size reinforced steel joist (RSJ) would be required over a window in a stone wall. There were some remarkably prescient answers.

The job that fateful afternoon was a floorboard one; but these were a special size. New tongue and groove would not do as the rest of the floor was done in old inch thick planks. The question of where to get them was best answered by Higgins. He reckoned a demolition site where rows of old terraced houses were being pulled down was my best bet. I concurred. There was a site near his house where they were just burning hundreds of feet of this timber. If I wanted he could get me the required quantity set aside. That would be brilliant and if he was successful I’d come round to his house with my trailer.

Then I made my big mistake; I said I’d pay him or the foreman for such boards. I then promptly forgot all about it as I’d heard such wild tales before.

A few days later I got a telephone call from the local police station asking me to call in on my way home. The desk sergeant said one of my pupils was in trouble and had given my name as his get-out-of-jail-free card. Of course I agreed to help.

The next hour was the most stressful of my previous twenty five years. I have always maintained that there is a strange relationship between police and teachers. Speaking for myself, I have always respected them as a bastion against the anarchy that bubbled close to the surface. Had I been tall enough I would have joined when I was eighteen. I got the impression that day that the police viewed teachers as left-wing activists whose sole purpose was to undermine society.

I found myself in a room helping the police with their enquiries in the same way Crippen and the Black Panther had. I was viewed as a latter-day Fagin who had encouraged Higgins and other accomplices to break into houses and rip up floors because their English teacher had said he would pay them. I was subjected to the equivalent of water-boarding as the good cop/bad cop routine played out. The questions were of an intimate probing nature asking about my sexual relations as if that were pertinent to the price of floorboards. Eventually I was permitted to leave with no charges to be brought against me. For good measure they had phoned school and alerted my head teacher.

The following morning I was subjected to another interview at least as stressful as the police one as a senior manager scented blood and saw a chance to rid the profession of such a bothersome thorn in its flesh. As each barbed shaft struck home between my shoulder blades; as he feverishly scribbled notes in his ‘report to the Governors’ I realized, with a blinding flash of intuition that this was his revenge for his failure as a father. Years ago I had taught his son, an extremely intelligent and capricious student. On his report card I gave him what was probably the only E grade of his entire school life. It was for (lack of) Effort. I countered it with an A for attainment. This was payback time. He had complained vociferously at Parents Night saying it was victimization. (Incidentally I had exactly the same experience with my own son. I congratulated the teacher on his boldness.)

I returned to the staffroom and broke down into a flood of shuddering sobs. Uncle Eddie was on hand to re-construct me. He had spent a life-time teaching these remedials. He knew how their minds worked and took it upon himself to relay this information to Senior management, in particular my interrogator with the parenting problems.

Chapter 14

So was born The Special Needs Statement. A student with a learning problem or a pushy mother was given a statement of the child’s special educational needs. Each statement was to be included into a teacher’s lesson plan; each need had to be met. To ensure this was done, an army of ‘classroom assistants’ was recruited and attached to a child or two and would follow them around all day into every lesson.

Shortly after becoming Head of Faculty I was awarded a new building. With the money saved from over-paying a dishonest Head teacher and as compensation for the years spent in unsavoury dining rooms, we were to have a purpose built block of six new classrooms; a big office and new storerooms. It was immediately christened Bell’s End.

When I say ‘purpose-built’ it was not built for the purpose of teaching in optimum surroundings. Presumably County architects have never visited a school since they left their own VIth form. In their heads all school children are tiny and so a mythical figure is calculated for a child and a desk. This is then multiplied by thirty as that was how many students were in a class when they went to school. The room is built to that size. There is no input from the poor sods who were crammed in there.

So imagine a room built to house thirty dainty bodies sitting in perfect silence. Then turn them into hulking sixteen year olds; then add a further five or six (we frequently taught classes of 35.) Now blend in the Support staff! It was not uncommon to have four students with Special Needs AND their private tutors. What about that most basic special need – oxygen? With windows shut against the harsh British winters and even harsher Rossendale summers, the classrooms became the second most toxic environment after Chernobyl.

Individually I had nothing against any of the Support staff who found their way into my lessons – except I liked being silly with children and found myself inhibited in their presence and a worse teacher for it.

There was one qualified teacher who loved having a certain support teacher in his lessons – she was a better disciplinarian than he was and he found he could teach better. My view is different. I often used to say I was the funniest man I knew. I used to listen to me teach and really enjoy what I heard, until the alien invasion. In my classroom usually the only sound was of my voice or the occasional answer from a student. With the advent of ‘translators’, there was a constant low level murmuring of four other adult voices explaining what I’d just said to their individual needy ones. I suspect the UN conferences were like this before the introduction of headphones!

The Support staff themselves varied enormously. Some would do all the children’s assignments themselves with no input from the child. (I always gave A* s here so the exam grade would come as a complete shock to their system.) Others, I think, failed to understand the lesson completely so the needy student’s response was useless. There were some whose ambition needed reward; so was born the scheme whereby QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) could be attained by serving an apprenticeship. It was a cheap (to the Government) way to put more bodies in the classroom as desire to enter the profession declined in proportion to the salaries earned in Industry.

Chapter 15

What other taboos can be broken here in this irreverent view of Education. I know, Muslims – that should raise a few hackles. Before the invasion of various Middle Eastern countries and Islamic terrorism, the main problem with ‘them’ was their diet. There was about a 10% Immigrant population in my school of 1,500. A few of these arrived at various times mid-term; some with little English. They were placed in a classroom that was rapidly christened ‘The Curry room.’ Over time the exhalations of so many students was absorbed into the very fabric of the walls. It was impossible to spend thirty minutes in there without coming out hungry.

In many ways they were a joy to teach. The early immigrants were pathetically grateful for Education. They respected their teachers (partly because they had been soundly beaten in their previous schools); were determined to succeed in this foreign world. There were no discipline problems and the language shortfall was quickly made up.

The girls were very shy and their shalwah kameez helped hide their emotions and embarrassment. I remember two in particular who took ‘A’ level English with me. Halfway through the course the more intelligent of the two disappeared. Her friend told me she had been sent back to the motherland for an arranged marriage. I’m not sure if it was arranged for the groom to come to UK, I only know he was 52.

After a generation or two some of the boys began to adopt a new identity. They were black but noted blacks in Hollywood films were treated well, even idolized. So was born the Muslim rappers. They took to wearing caps back to front; cultivated an American speech pattern and made me an honorary Muslim. I was given a new name; I learned to chant Allahu Akbar before it became an infamous prelude to suicide and attempted murder. I was taught to salaam alaikum casually – it means ‘peace be upon you’ and the reply Alaikum Salaam means ‘likewise I’m sure’. I never saw anything sinister in it. The Jews have almost the exact same greeting and answer - Shalom Aleichem and Aleichem shalom.

I hope some of my encouragement was responsible for Asian parents attending Parents Nights (complete with their son/daughter acting as interpreter). I had no way of knowing, of course, that when I said, ‘Your son is a lazy good-for-nothing idiot who would benefit from a daily beating with a bunch of willow sticks,’ if it was translated as, ‘I am extremely pleased with his attitude to study and expect him to become a highly qualified Doctor in years to come.’

In time we had Asian Governors; Asian teachers; Asian friends. Where did it all go wrong? We had our first race riots. In my day, gangs of boys met for fights; sometimes individual on the back pitch; sometimes against a gang from a rival school. Our weapons were our folded up school caps in the school colours. I maintain to this day that our race riot had nothing to do with race only colour. One gang was black and the other navy blue. The papers saw it differently – lurid stories were printed in the National press; interviews were sought from some of the combatants (lots of interviewees had words put into their mouths from reporters who wished to sensationalise the reasons behind it.) My own private conversations revealed it to be a quarrel over a girl dumping a white boyfriend and taking a black one. It was rumoured that Enoch Powell was to be our next Head teacher!