04 Village Teacher

by Jack Sheffield

  I smiled, leant back in my pew and, wrapped in the calm silence of this old church, looked around me. On the wall above a shelf of hymn-books and next to the old oak board on which the hymn numbers were displayed was a stone plaque. It had been placed there as a token of affection by fellow officers of Taverner Charles Weaver, Captain of the 43rd Light Infantry, who had died aged thirty-seven years at Madras on 18 September 1879. I was saddened by the thought of this young man who, a century ago, had fallen in battle so far from home. It occurred to me that he may have once stood on this very spot, full of life and with hopes of a bright future in a world where Queen Victoria reigned supreme.

  Attached to the wall at the end of my pew were three ancient oak boxes next to a sign that read For your offerings. Above each box was a small brass plaque inscribed Altar Fund, The Poor and Foreign Mission, signs of an earlier age in the life of this church that had provided sanctuary and peace for many generations of villagers.

  In the vestry of St Mary’s Church, Joseph was going through his regular routine and, as always, Vera was in attendance. First he donned his black cassock, followed by his snow-white alb, a long, flowing cotton garment. Then Vera selected a loose sleeveless chasuble from their splendid collection designed for different festivals: purple for Lent and Advent, white and gold for Christmas, red for Palm Sunday and green for the rest of the year. Finally, around Joseph’s neck Vera draped a beautiful white stole, intricately decorated with Christian emblems, butterflies and ancient symbols of resurrection.

  Only then did Vera stand back and give her brother a gentle smile. Joseph knew all was well and, as was his custom, he lightly kissed the cross of pure silk before beginning the service.

  Joseph opened his 1928 Book of Common Prayer, turned to page 352 and began in a sonorous voice, ‘Almighty and everlasting God, who by the Baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, in the River Jordan, didst sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin.’

  Everyone was quiet and Sally was silently praying that Grace would not want feeding again in the middle of the service.

  ‘The Lord be with you,’ said Joseph.

  ‘And with thy spirit,’ we answered.

  ‘Lift up your hearts,’ he said.

  Together we replied, ‘We lift them up unto the Lord.’

  ‘Let us give thanks unto our Lord God,’ continued Joseph, without looking at his service book. It was clear that he knew all this off by heart.

  ‘It is meet and right to do,’ we replied and I wondered what the word ‘meet’ meant in that sentence.

  Vera suddenly appeared like a genie with a lamp, except on this occasion it was a thermos flask full of hot water, which she poured into the font. Then she took the order of service book from Joseph and held it for him as he took Grace from Sally’s arms.

  The font was large enough to bathe a toddler in the days when children were fully immersed at a christening. Around its base was carved ‘Heavenly Father, we thank thee for thy gift of children’.

  Joseph sanctified the water and made the sign of the cross. Ruby was in the pew in front of me, alongside John and Anne Grainger. I imagined Ronnie was a reluctant churchgoer but would probably turn up for the reception in the church hall afterwards.

  Ruby turned towards me and whispered, ‘A good wedding an’ a good christening, Mr Sheffield – y’can’t beat ’em.’

  ‘I agree,’ I said.

  ‘An’ ah like this bit,’ said Ruby. ‘It’s m’favourite.’

  ‘What’s that, Ruby?’ I asked.

  ‘Y’know … wi’ t’constipated water,’ said Ruby with a knowing look. ‘It’s allus very moving.’

  ‘I imagine it is, Ruby,’ I said with a smile.

  Joseph turned to the godparents. Then, with a baptismal shell, he poured water over little Grace’s forehead. ‘In the name of the Father,’ recited Joseph, ‘the Son and the Holy Ghost.’ With his thumb he made the sign of the cross on the baby’s forehead. Happily Grace slept through it all and Sally breathed a sigh of relief.

  Outside in the sunshine everyone relaxed and photographs were taken. I was talking to Joseph away from the crowd when Dan Hunter appeared, pushing his bicycle. He looked inconsolable.

  ‘What is it, Daniel?’ said Joseph. ‘You look disturbed.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I’ve lost Hope, vicar.’

  Joseph looked concerned and put a hand on Dan’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, my son,’ he said with gravitas, ‘we shall find hope together.’

  ‘Thanks, vicar,’ said Dan, propping his bike against the church wall. ‘You look round the back and I’ll check the outbuildings.’

  Leaving a confused Joseph behind us, I followed Dan across the gravel forecourt of the vicarage and through the open gate that led to Vera’s kitchen garden. There stood a donkey contentedly scratching his back against an apple tree.

  ‘Hope!’ shouted Dan.

  ‘Pardon?’ I said.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ said Dan. ‘You keep him here and I’ll get a rope.’

  It had a bright-red halter and was apparently top of the Easington Police hit list of missing quadrupeds. Hope might have been his name but I was filled with despair. The donkey’s manic stare was enough to freeze the blood. Joseph had recently told my class the epic Bible story of Daniel in the lion’s den. However, if this donkey had walked in, it would have been debatable who would have got to the exit first – Daniel or the lion.

  Dan returned with Vera’s washing line and the donkey bared its teeth. Dan was six-feet-four-inches tall and a rugby second-row forward but there was something unnerving about this animal. Dan had also been expertly trained to deal with drunken football supporters, road-traffic accidents and elusive cat burglars, but this was different.

  ‘Why don’t you distract it, Jack?’ asked Dan.

  ‘What do you want, the Donkey Serenade?’ I said, taking a step backwards.

  ‘Do something to catch its eye and I’ll lasso it,’ he said.

  While I waved my arms Dan dropped a noose over its head and secured the rope to a tree. Minutes later Hope was enjoying a welcome bucket of water and Jo had given Dan a lift back to the police station to make his report before going off duty.

  An hour later, the donkey had been collected and the women were enjoying tea and cakes in the church hall and fussing over the baby. I was joined by Colin, John and a relieved Dan. We found a table in a quiet corner, munched on christening cake and drank strong tea.

  ‘You’re a bit quiet, Colin,’ said Dan.

  ‘Just thinking,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’ said John.

  ‘About Sally and the baby and where we go from here,’ said Colin thoughtfully.

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well … you know … since the baby, Sally’s kept herself to herself, if you take my meaning.’

  Everybody did.

  ‘Mind you, it’s natural, I suppose – a bit of doing without, so to speak,’ said Colin.

  ‘Chastity,’ added Dan.

  Everyone nodded. It seemed the supportive thing to do.

  ‘After all, it can’t be much fun having a baby,’ I said, eager to show solidarity.

  ‘Thank God we don’t have to do it,’ said Dan, munching on his third slice of cake.

  ‘Too true,’ said John. ‘It’s probably like indigestion.’

  ‘Really bad indigestion,’ added Dan with feeling and through a mouthful of crumbs.

  ‘And that’s enough to bring tears to anyone’s eyes,’ said Colin.

  In terms of the male pain threshold this was clearly close to the top of the scale and we all sat back, relieved we had shared these words of wisdom.

  It was getting dark by the time Beth and I walked towards her front door and I stood there, reflecting on a busy day. Grace had been christened and Dan had finally found Hope. I smiled to myself as Beth fumbled for her keys in her handbag.

  ‘So what do you think, Beth?’

  ‘What about?�
�� she said, unlocking the door and stepping inside.

  ‘About chastity,’ I said.

  She pulled me inside the hallway, pushed me playfully against the wall and kissed me. ‘I think it’s a bit over-rated, don’t you?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Terry Earnshaw’s Rainbow

  Class 2 watched the National Geographic film ‘Fish of the World’ at the University in York.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Monday, 18 May 1981

  ‘NOW BE GOOD at school an’ y’can tell me all about it when y’get ’ome.’

  Heathcliffe and his brother Terry looked up at their mother and gave her a well-practised holier-than-thou look of complete innocence. They stood patiently in the doorway of the untidy, cramped house while Mrs Earnshaw tried to flatten their spiky blond hair with a damp floor cloth. Then, as they set off down the path, she lifted up Dallas Sue-Ellen, now eighteen months old, wiped the jam off her face and they both waved goodbye to the intrepid duo.

  Pink petals from the cherry trees lay in a drift at the corner of School View. However, the usual five-minute walk to Ragley School held little interest for Heathcliffe and Terry. Pavements were boring. The Earnshaw brothers, both sons of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, still had the prerogative of the very young: imagination. So, for these two little boys, every day was a new opportunity to be a superhero and this didn’t involve the pathways of normal mortals.

  ‘Let’s be Batman and Robin,’ yelled Heathcliffe.

  ‘OK, ’Eath’,’ said Terry. Resigned to be a perpetual Robin to his big brother’s Batman, Terry nodded and they set off to the ‘secret’ gap in the hedgerow, recently shaped by Heathcliffe’s bullet head and sturdy shoulders.

  Once in the open fields at the back of Ragley School and with yells of ‘Thwack!’, ‘Biff!’ and ‘Boom!’, they ran with imaginary capes flowing behind them. It was Monday, 18 May, and the trees and hedgerows, just like the Earnshaw brothers, were full of new life.

  ‘Let’s mek bows ’n’arrers,’ said Heathcliffe.

  ‘OK, ’Eath’,’ said Terry.

  Heathcliffe had ‘borrowed’ an ancient penknife from his father’s garden shed and he emptied his trouser pockets. On to the grass tumbled an interesting collection of items, including a broken pencil, five pence, a piece of putty, two glass marbles, an ink-stained handkerchief, a ball of string, a dead worm and, of course, the penknife. He opened the rusty blade, spat on it and wiped it on the back of his sleeve. Terry watched intently, greatly impressed by the spitting part of the process. Heathcliffe cut two elder sticks from the hedgerow and, archery practice forgotten, an impromptu sword fight ensued.

  ‘Wharrabout m’gobstopper?’ asked Terry, after pretending to die for the umpteenth time.

  Heathcliffe paused in his assault. With five pence he could buy a Milky Way and a huge penny gobstopper from the General Stores in the High Street and still have two pence left over to spend on the way home at the end of the day.

  ‘Let’s go, Robin,’ said Heathcliffe.

  ‘OK, ’Eath’ … er, ah mean Batman,’ said Terry.

  Heathcliffe gathered up all the scattered treasures from the grass verge with the exception of the worm. He was not a sentimental boy and, after putting it in Elisabeth Amelia Dudley-Palmer’s brand-new pencil case the previous day, it had now served its purpose. He tossed it into the bottom of the hedgerow, from where Terry retrieved it. After all, thought Terry, it might come in handy, particularly as Elisabeth Amelia’s younger sister, Victoria Alice, was in his class.

  The doorbell of the General Stores & Newsagent jingled wildly when the two little boys walked in. They liked the sound of the bell and, for good measure, they opened and closed the door again. Miss Prudence Golightly smiled at the dishevelled state of two of her favourite customers. While their impact on her profit margin was almost negligible, she enjoyed the schoolchildren coming into the shop. They reminded her of what might have been and, in quiet moments, she often wondered what her children would have been like if only Jeremy had returned from the war. Absent-mindedly, Miss Golightly turned to her ancient teddy bear and buttoned up his bright-red hand-knitted cardigan and placed a yellow bobble hat on his head. ‘There, Jeremy, that’s better,’ she said. ‘It’s rather chilly today.’

  She turned back to greet her two young customers. ‘Good morning, boys.’

  ‘Good morning, Miss. Good morning, Jeremy,’ chorused Heathcliffe and Terry.

  ‘Now, what would you like this morning?’

  ‘Please can we ’ave a Milky Way an’ a penny gobstopper,’ said Heathcliffe.

  ‘Please,’ echoed Terry.

  Miss Golightly took the five pence and gave the Milky Way to Heathcliffe plus two pence change and the gobstopper to Terry. ‘I’m so glad you are remembering your manners, boys,’ she said. It hadn’t always been the case and she felt encouraged that these two little boys were learning their p’s and q’s. ‘Here’s a barley sugar each for being polite,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Miss,’ they said.

  ‘And are you going to work hard at school today?’ asked Miss Golightly.

  ‘Yes, Miss. Ah’m blackboard monitor,’ said Heathcliffe proudly.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Heathcliffe,’ she said, ‘and what about you, Terry?’

  ‘Ah’m frogspawn monitor, Miss,’ said Terry.

  ‘Oh … and what do you have to do?’

  ‘Ah mek sure no one messes wi’ ’em,’ said Terry bluntly.

  ‘I see,’ said Miss Golightly dubiously, ‘and what happens if they do?’

  ‘Ah tell our ’Eath’,’ he replied darkly and wedged the gobstopper in his mouth rendering future conversation impossible.

  The two boys then ran up the High Street to the village green, where they climbed on to the lower branches of the weeping-willow tree alongside the duck pond. Coming towards them was Miss Amelia Duff, the local postmistress. She was carrying an enamel bucket.

  ‘Be careful, you boys,’ shouted Miss Duff. ‘Don’t fall in the pond.’

  Heathcliffe and Terry jumped down. They knew Miss Duff was unaware that as superheroes they could swim like Mark Spitz.

  ‘What’s in the bucket, Miss Duff?’ asked Heathcliffe politely.

  ‘Ugh,’ added Terry, whose lips could not yet meet over the huge gobstopper.

  ‘Toads … well, baby ones,’ said Miss Duff, peering at the frantic pondlife in the bucket with obvious affection. ‘I’m helping them cross the road to get back to their favourite breeding pond.’

  ‘Can ah put m’finger in, please?’ asked Heathcliffe.

  ‘Ugh,’ echoed Terry.

  ‘It’s difficult being a frog or a toad,’ said Miss Duff.

  Heathcliffe and Terry peered in the bucket dubiously. After all, amphibians didn’t have to go to school, be nice to girls or get washed every day.

  ‘And frogspawn is a lovely meal for fish, rats, snakes and weasels,’ said Miss Duff.

  Suddenly, thought Heathcliffe and Terry, being a human being had its advantages.

  ‘And it could be dangerous for them to cross this road.’

  ‘Aagh,’ agreed Terry.

  ‘An’ ah bet they don’t know t’Green Cross Code,’ added Heathcliffe.

  Miss Duff and Terry both looked at Heathcliffe with deep appreciation of this meaningful insight.

  I was standing on the stone steps in the entrance porch, the school bell was about to ring and the last stragglers were running in.

  ‘Come on, Heathcliffe. Hurry up, Terry,’ I yelled. ‘It’s nearly nine o’clock.’ I looked at their red faces and muddy knees and smiled.

  ‘We’ve been getting stuff for t’nature table, Mr Sheffield,’ said Heathcliffe, holding up his elder stick and then nudging Terry, who did the same.

  ‘Aagh,’ said Terry.

  ‘An’ ’elping toads t’cross t’road.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I’ll take the sticks and give them to Mrs Hunter and Miss Flint.’
>
  They passed over their sticks like gunfighters giving up their Colt 45s to the sheriff. ‘And Terry …’

  ‘Ugh?’

  ‘Put your gobstopper in your handkerchief until after school.’

  Terry looked relieved. Breathing through his nose for the last ten minutes had been difficult. They hurried off to their classrooms and, with great care, Terry added his half-sucked gobstopper to the dead worm nestling serenely in his grubby handkerchief.

  * * *

  Outside the store cupboard in the entrance hall, Jo was sorting through a box of large plastic bottles of poster colours, and Ruby, Valerie and Anne were looking on.

  ‘What are the colours of the rainbow again?’ asked Jo.

  ‘There’s lots o’ colours,’ said Ruby, trying to be helpful.

  ‘It’s just that I’ve forgotten the sequence,’ said Jo.

  ‘It’s really quite easy,’ said Valerie. ‘It’s remembered by the mnemonic “Richard of York gave battle in vain”.’

  Ruby was puzzled. She thought mnemonic was an orchestra.

  ‘Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet,’ added Anne by way of explanation.

  ‘Indigo?’ said Jo, staring helplessly at our limited range of colours. The bottles were labelled red, yellow, blue, black and white.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Anne, ‘I know how to make indigo.’ You didn’t teach reception children for twenty-five years without picking up some useful knowledge along the way.

  Jo had transformed an unlikely corner of her classroom into a ‘secret garden’. She had draped a large sheet of oatmeal-coloured hessian over a high window ledge and an eighteen-drawer storage unit. This provided the background to a riot of colourful paintings and pastel drawings of flowers and animals. Alongside, the broken base of a swing bin, expertly covered in green crêpe paper, provided a perfect receptacle for a selection of bamboo canes, each with a bright cut-out sunflower pattern attached. Posters of plants, birds and fish were displayed under the heading ‘Our Wonderful World’ and, in front, each child was growing mustard and cress on damp cotton wool in individual saucers.