Nine Till Three and Summers Free

by Mike Kent

The children had been told they could bring a packed lunch and some spending money and most of them seemed to have arrived with a plentiful supply of both. They gathered in groups in the classroom, lunch bags over their shoulders and eager to depart.

  ‘What’ve you brought to eat, Sir?’ asked Susan Brennan.

  ‘I’ll probably buy something when we’re there, but it looks as if there’s enough for all of us in your bag. What on earth have you got in it?’

  She grinned. ‘Nothing much really. Some ‘am, a packet of jam tarts, some crisps, a couple of chocolate biscuits, three apples, a can of orange, some sweets for all the kids. Oh, and some tomato sandwiches.’ She thrust her bag forward so that I could inspect the contents.

  ‘Now listen carefully everyone,’ called Dorothy, clapping her hands to stop the excited chatter. ‘Before we go, there are one or two things I want to say, so pay attention. Now firstly, when we get into the street we want people to think we are an exceptionally well behaved class, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ the children answered dutifully.

  ‘Well then, remember to behave really well, just as you do for me in class. Next thing, and this is important. I did say bring a packed lunch, but half of you have brought enough to feed an army. You’ll need to carry your bags around with you, so I don’t want to see anybody starting their food until we all sit down and eat together. That won’t be for a long time yet. Do you understand that, John?’

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ Rouse replied meekly, peering into the food bags of everybody round him. ‘Cor, look, Miss, Alan’s got some bread puddin’. I never thort o’ that! Can I ‘ave a bit o’ your bread puddin’ at dinner time, Al?’

  ‘What you got to swap for it, then?’ asked Badger.

  ‘You two, do you mind?’ called Dorothy. ‘You seem to forget we’re going on an educational outing. You’re not storing food so that we can last out the Winter. Your notebooks are more important than your stomachs.’

  ‘Which notebooks do you think we should take, Miss?’ asked Dudmish, sorting through his tray.

  ‘Just the one you make rough notes in. You can write about anything that interests you and then we’ll do some work and a display for the wall later on.’

  ‘There is not very much room on the wall,’ said Hema. ‘We’ve made so many pictures.’

  ‘Our classroom looks lovely, don’t it, Miss?’ said Susan Davis, looking round her. ‘I think it’s the best classroom in the school, don’t we, Sue?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you can work quite hard when you try,’ Dorothy agreed. ‘Anyway, come over here by the door. We ought to get a move on now.’

  She handed me some writing pencils, paper, and several packs of coloured felt tipped pens. ‘They’ll want to sketch some of the things we see,’ she said. ‘We’ve missed the rush hour, so at least it’ll be an easy journey. You go at the front of the line and I’ll look after the back. Otherwise we’ll get a few stragglers.’

  She lined the children up in the corridor, and I led them downstairs. Each child talked loudly to their partner about the things they expected to see. All of them, it seemed, had made a special effort to scrub themselves clean and dress smartly. Outings were events to be savoured to the full.

  The main road was quieter than usual. Several women wandered through the market, and a shopkeeper swept the remains of a broken milk bottle into the gutter, pausing to lean on his broom and smile at the column of children as it filed by. Pieces of torn newspaper, vinegar stained, flicked out of a lamp post waste bin and across the pavement, stirred by the morning breeze. A woman in the queue outside the post office waved to one of the children and a hand waved back. Susan Davis slid her hand into mine.

  ‘My bag ain’t ‘alf ‘eavy already,’ she grumbled. ‘I ‘ope we ‘ave our dinner a bit early. Can I eat a bit of it on the train, Sir?’

  ‘That wouldn’t be fair to everybody else, would it Susan? Come here, I’ll help you with it.’

  ‘Cor, taa, Sir. Susan’s is a bit ‘eavy, too, ain’t it, Sue? D’yer think you could manage ‘ers as well?’

  ‘You two really shouldn’t have brought so much.’

  I took the bags and waited at the crossing for a break in the traffic, glancing back to make sure that everybody was there. Rouse, Adams, and some of their friends were deep in conversation with Dorothy, and a handful of girls were still comparing their lunches. A bus stopped and the driver beckoned the class across.

  ‘‘Ang on, Miss,’ called Rouse urgently, trying to keep up with his friends, ‘me shoe lace ‘as come undone.’

  He bent down and tripped on the kerb, thrusting his carrier bag in front of him to break his fall. Peanut shells rolled all over the crossing, and Dorothy hurried forward to push him across. Rouse seemed reluctant to leave the majority of his peanuts to be shelled by the oncoming traffic and he tried to retrieve as many as possible. Two pensioners, amused by the situation, hurried forward to help him, and he offered them several peanuts each in gratitude.

  ‘Trust ‘im, Sir, eh?’ Susan Davis remarked as the children grouped outside the station. ‘Still, at least ‘e’s lost ‘alf of ‘em and ‘e won’t go droppin’ ‘em all over the train.’

  I shuddered at the thought and waited while Dorothy paid the fare and put the pass ticket into her bag. Then we moved the group forward into the lift. A round faced attendant with an enormous stomach looked up from rolling a cigarette.

  ‘Stand quietly, you lot!’ he ordered. ‘If you jump about you’ll snap the cable and then we’ll all fall down the bloody shaft!’

  ‘Oi, watch your language,’ Rouse shouted.

  The lift attendant turned to me and grimaced. ‘I don’t fancy your job, mate. Where are you goin’? The zoo? Takin’ a few back are yer?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Adams, shaking his head. ‘We’re goin’ to the Tower of London.’

  ‘Are you now. Well, you watch it, son, or you could get beheaded.’

  ‘Get off! They don’t do that now.’

  ‘You be careful. I ‘eard they’d brought it back.’

  ‘‘Ow deep’s the lift shaft, mister?’ asked Badger, peering through the cracks in the floor. ‘I bet you’d go down with a wallop if you fell down there. I bet…’

  ‘Oh don’t keep goin’ on,’ said Susan Davis nervously. ‘Why can’t you be ‘appy for a change?’

  ‘I am ‘appy. I was just sayin’ you’d go down with a wallop if you fell down there.’

  There was a slight bump as we arrived at the bottom of the shaft and Dorothy crowded all the children into the end compartment of the waiting train, opening as many windows as she could. The only three passengers looked up nervously, and one left the carriage as discreetly as possible. Rouse and Badger sat down opposite a tiny elderly lady reading a book of short stories. She tucked herself into the corner of the seat, smiled tentatively at the boys, and then retreated behind the pages of her book.

  ‘Well?’ Dorothy asked me. ‘Do you feel worn out yet?’

  ‘I think I can stand a few more hours of it.’

  ‘You ought to try School Journey,’ she smiled. ‘We usually take about thirty five away each year. Mostly fourth and third years, but some of these have been too. We usually go to a countryside centre. They stayed on a farm once. The farmer had them up at five o’clock in the morning milking cows.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think getting up that early bothered them,’ I said. ‘They always seem to have so much energy.’

  ‘Oh, it was marvellous,’ Dorothy went on. ‘When they found out milk came from cows, half of them said they’d never touch it again. They all thought it came out of bottles and cartons. We’ve been to the Isle of Wight, Devon, all sorts of places. They’re going on an adventure holiday this year. They learn an awful lot. I don’t think Mr Reed appreciates all the work Brian and Deidre put into it.’

  ‘He doesn’t go with them does he?’<
br />
  She laughed abruptly. ‘No, thank God! Only for the weekend. And I think that’s only to get away from his wife. It’s quite sad, really. He never speaks to the children while he’s there, so I don’t know why he bothers to come.’

  ‘Why is he so disinterested in his school, then? In the children, I mean?’

  ‘I think there are probably a lot of reasons. From what we can gather, he’s in a miserable marriage, and he got his headship quite a long time ago. There’s always a shortage of people who want to be headteachers, but I suppose he must have impressed somebody along the line. He might have been better when he started, but ideas change rapidly, and in teaching you’ve got to adapt if something new and better comes along. It’s so frustrating when you have a good staff like ours and somebody leading them who hasn’t a clue. It’s more common than you’d think.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to worry them much, though. I mean, the children seem very happy.’

  ‘Mmm, that’s true. But it’s little things. Just think what a difference a really good assembly could make to the start of the day. On Fridays, the whole school comes in, and the children talk about the work they’ve done in the week. You know, show models, read stories, things like that. It’s totally about the children. Deidre takes Friday assembly and it’s lovely.’

  The train drew into a station and she looked out at the name on the platform. ‘The next stop is ours. We’d better warn the children now, or they’ll all flood off in a panic if they don’t know exactly when they’re getting off.’

  As soon as she stood up, many of the children stood up too, worried in case they might be left on the train. Dorothy immediately settled them again, and they sat quietly until the train drew in to Tower Hill station. As we reached the escalator, I noticed that Rouse had now abandoned his rapidly disintegrating carrier bag and had borrowed a smaller one from Dudmish, trying to transfer everything from one to the other as he walked. I had a fleeting vision of peanut shells jamming the escalator and Rouse trying to explain the situation to a station attendant. As we came out into warm sunshine Dorothy lined the children up again, counted them, and then made sure each child had a partner.

  ‘Vital procedure number one,’ she explained. ‘Always count. Don’t ever assume they’re all there. A student lost a couple in Janice’s class, once. They were going round and round the circle line.’

  ‘I know,’ I nodded. ‘Mr Reed told me all about it.’

  ‘I’m sure he did. It’s not something he’s ever forgotten.’

  She led the children to the lower entrance and paused to hand in the pass. A sentry paced up and down below the railings where a moat had once encircled the monument, and the class stopped to admire his splendid costume.

  ‘Cor!’ exclaimed Rouse. ‘I wouldn’t mind bein’ ‘im, marchin’ up and down all day. ’Ow d’yer become one of them, Sir?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like it,’ said Dudmish. ‘It would get boring after a bit. I can’t understand people wanting to do that.’

  ‘Yes, but they don’t do it all day,’ I said.

  ‘I know, but I still wouldn’t want to do it. Are we going inside soon, Sir?’

  As we moved away, some of the children spotted a stand where they could buy postcards. There was a general rush towards it, and Susan Brennan dropped her pocket money all over the pavement. Dorothy waited while she and her friends picked it up.

  ‘Can I go and buy some postcards, Miss?’ she asked. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  ‘Wait until later,’ Dorothy said, ‘Just buy a guidebook now if you want to, but don’t spend all your money. We’ve only just got here.’ After a few minutes and another count the children walked towards Traitor’s Gate and the tower which had held Raleigh prisoner. Rouse crammed his money back into his pocket and hurried to catch up with the others.

  ‘I was gonna get a postcard and send it to me Nan,’ he said. ‘I don’t ‘spect she’d get it before I got back ‘ome, though.’

  ‘Course she wouldn’t,’ laughed Dudmish.

  ‘I wasn’t askin’ you,’ Rouse retorted. ‘When I need your ‘elp, I’ll ask for it.’

  ‘Can we see the Crown Jewels, Sir?’ asked Julie, pulling at my sleeve.

  ‘Cor, yeah!’ agreed Rouse enthusiastically. ‘I ain’t never seen them before!’

  ‘After lunch, probably,’ I replied. ‘We’ll certainly see them before we go. I think we’re going to have a look at the White Tower and St John’s Chapel first.’

  ‘Let’s ‘ave dinner now, then,’ suggested Badger.

  ‘Yeah,’ Adams agreed, taking his satchel from his shoulder. ‘Save luggin’ this lot about any longer.’

  ‘We’re not eating yet. We’ll all eat together later on’.

  ‘But Rousey ate two oranges and an apple pie on the train,’ Adams protested. I pretended not to hear this and pushed him forward to join the others, who were sketching Traitor’s Gate in their books.

  ‘Wasn’t St John’s Chapel built by the Normans, Sir?’ asked Dudmish. ‘We ought to go and look at that first because we did all about the Middle Ages.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ‘ave minded bein’ a Norman if I could live ‘ere,’ said Badger, hanging over the wall and staring at Traitor’s Gate. ‘Fancy bein’ able to live ‘ere. The Normans built that White Tower, too, Sir. It says so in that book what Darren brought.’

  Some yards away from them, another school party, dressed smartly in neat grey uniforms, were listening to an elderly Beefeater in full costume who had climbed on a box to make sure his voice could be heard clearly. Feeling that her children should take advantage of his knowledge, Dorothy moved the class closer to the other party, motioning them to stand quietly and listen to what was being said. The Beefeater’s deep, strong voice, honed to perfection over years of explaining the rich history of the Tower to a million tourists, rang out strongly over the children’s heads.

  ‘Up there you can see the White Tower,’ he shouted. ‘That was built after the invasion of King William’s men. I hope I don’t have to tell you when that was…’

  Rouse and Adams assured him he didn’t by shouting the answer out together.

  ‘Well done, those lads,’ said the Beefeater. ‘Good to see you know your history.’

  ‘That was an easy question!’ Badger shouted back. Several children from the other school party turned to see who had joined them, but the Beefeater obviously enjoyed a bit of banter with his customers.

  ‘Of course it was an easy question!’ he called. ‘I don’t start with the hard ones. They come later. Now then, the Tower is London’s most historic building. Lots of kings have added bits to it through the centuries, depending on what they wanted to use it for. Up until the time of Charles the Second, it was a royal palace.’

  ‘We ‘aven’t done about ‘im,’ shouted Rouse. ‘We’re doin’ the Middle Ages.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, sonny,’ said the Beefeater. ‘You’ll be doing about Charles the Second one day, so I’m telling you a bit about him now, ready for when you do learn about him.’

  Rouse, considering this was fair enough, nodded gravely and wrote something in his notebook. The Beefeater cleared his throat, and turned to his young audience again. ‘Now then, while you’re here, you’ll see all sorts of things, like the arms collection inside the White Tower.’

  ‘‘Oo’s arms are they?’ shouted Badger, puzzled.

  ‘Arms that have been used by soldiers and all sorts of people,’ the Beefeater answered.

  ‘You mean arms what’ve bin cut off in battle?’

  Several children from the other school giggled, and the Beefeater blew into an enormous handkerchief before replying.

  ‘No sonny, I don’t mean those sorts of arms,’ he said. ‘I mean armour. Swords, guns, daggers, pistols, you’ll see all those sorts of things inside the White Tower. And the torture instruments of course. You make sure y
ou behave yourself in there, or we’ll rent a few out to your teachers.’

  The children turned to Dorothy, who smiled at the remark.

  ‘Now then,’ the Beefeater went on, ‘there’s a moat… Oi, are you listening to me, sonny?’

  Badger had started to nibble the edge of a sandwich after offering one to a girl from the other party, and he froze on the spot.

  ‘Leave your sandwiches alone and pay attention!’ roared the Beefeater good-humouredly. ‘If you don’t, you won’t learn anything. Now then, there’s a moat running round the Tower, but there’s no water in it now, of course. Who knows what a moat is?’ A score of hands shot into the air immediately, and he chose a child near to him.

  ‘Well done, lass,’ he said when she’d finished answering. ‘What a clever lot of children we’ve got this morning. Now, I’ll tell you a few things about the Tower of London that you might not know. First of all, the Tower was never actually needed to defend the city of London. Surprising, that, isn’t it? No, instead it’s been put to lots of other uses. The Royal Mint was here at one time…’

  ‘What’s the Royal Mint?’ Adams shouted.

  ‘It’s where they make the money, sonny. It’s made near here now, but at one time the coins of the realm were actually minted here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind ‘avin’ a look at that,’ Badger said, with interest.

  ‘Here’s another thing you probably don’t know,’ said the Beefeater. Eight hundred years ago, King Henry the Second kept his pet elephant here. I expect some of you know about Henry the Second. Who knows someone famous who died because of a serious disagreement with King Henry?’

  ‘Ann Boleyn,’ shouted Adams.

  ‘No sonny, try again. That was Henry the Eighth.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. It says ‘ere in this book.. Oh no, you’re right, mister.’

  ‘Well I’m relieved to hear that. Anybody else know?’

  ‘Thomas Becket,’ called a child from the other school.

  ‘That’s right, my dear, Thomas Becket. Anyway, King Henry kept his elephant here. I bet some of you little ‘uns didn’t know that!’