“I’m Beth Henderson,” she said. “I’ve been seconded for a year from my deputy headship in Thirkby to support English and Physical Education in North Yorkshire.”
She looked very young to be in such a post.
The brooding presence behind her stepped forward.
“I’m sure you remember Miss Barrington-Huntley, the Chair of the Education Committee,” continued Beth Henderson confidently. “I’m sorry if we’re a little early. You will recall, we’re here to observe the children in each class, talk to the staff and see how the school is progressing.”
The Grim Reaper stared at me curiously as if she was trying to recall if we had met before. “Good morning, Mr Sheffield,” she said.
“Would you like some coffee?” I asked, eager to get off on the right foot.
Right on cue, Vera arrived and took the visitors’ coats. Miss Barrington-Huntley carefully withdrew the long pin that secured the magnificent hat to her purple-rinsed, wavy hair. She stroked the long blue feather carefully and handed the hat to Vera as if it were the crown jewels.
“What a delightful hat,” said Vera appreciatively.
“Brown’s in York,” said Miss Barrington-Huntley pompously.
Vera placed it reverently on her desk with obvious admiration and proceeded with the coffee-making duties.
Coffee cups rattled nervously as one by one the staff walked in and were introduced to Miss Barrington-Huntley who remained aloof throughout. Beth Henderson was just the opposite, full of encouragement and enthusiasm.
“We shall begin with the youngest children and look at their work and observe their behaviour,” announced Miss Barrington-Huntley.
Anne Grainger left quickly to make her last-minute preparations.
Praying that the day would go smoothly, I set off for my classroom whilst the two visitors made their way to Anne’s class.
Inevitably, the first person they met in the corridor was Ruby, sweating profusely from her window-cleaning exertions.
“You must be the important visitors we’ve been expecting?” said Ruby bluntly.
She put down her bucket, ready for a good gossip, and wiped the perspiration from her red cheeks with a grubby chamois leather.
Miss Barrington-Huntley looked disparagingly at the vision before her in the double-extra-large orange overall, sniffed and walked on.
Beth Henderson paused and smiled at Ruby. “I’m sorry we can’t talk to you now as we have to go into Miss Grainger’s class, perhaps we can talk later,” she whispered politely.
As I opened the swing doors to the school hall for our visitors, Ruby’s singsong voice rang out. “An’ mek sure y’see all that beautiful artwork in Mrs Pringle’s back passage!”
Beth glanced up at me and muttered quietly, “That should be interesting.”
After registration I led the school assembly. The children gave an ear-shattering performance of ‘When a Knight Won His Spurs’ and the ‘orchestra’ featured Sally Pringle’s recorder group playing ‘Morning Has Broken’. I read the story of ‘The Selfish Giant’ by Oscar Wilde and, apart from mixing up my introduction to the prayer with ‘Eyes together, hands closed’, everything seemed to go as it should. Then we all trooped back to our classrooms and carried on with our work. The frightening Miss Barrington-Huntley and the cheerful Miss Henderson followed Anne back into the Reception class.
At morning playtime I was on playground duty whilst around me groups of children skipped, kicked plastic footballs, played tig, recited ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ and sang ‘Ten Green Bottles’. Some leaned on the fence to watch Stan Coe supervising the bonfire building whilst others crowded round Anne’s husband, John Grainger, who was sinking a makeshift rocket launcher in the school sand pit in preparation for his famous firework display.
Anne came out with a tray of mugs of milky coffee. She left the tray with John, selected two mugs and walked over to me.
“How did it go?” I asked anxiously, sipping the coffee.
Anne shook her head. “Let’s just say Heathcliffe introduced Miss High and Mighty to some choice language!”
The Earnshaw family had recently arrived from Barnsley in South Yorkshire. Mr Earnshaw had got a driving job for the local chocolate company in York and their two children, Heathcliffe, age five and Terry, age four, had both joined the youngest children in Anne’s class. Heathcliffe had spiky blond hair and a way with words that sounded just like his mother. Terry appeared barely out of nappies. He clung to his brother and hadn’t uttered a single word. Anne was doing all she could to encourage him to communicate.
“So what happened?” I asked nervously.
“Well, the children on Heathcliffe’s table were doing jigsaws and he looked up at Miss Barrington-Whatsit and said, ‘Hey, missus, sit thee arse down ‘ere.’ I tried to explain that he had just arrived and didn’t know any better when little Terry started thumping the table. He was doing a three-piece jigsaw of a tiger. He had got the head and body in place but the curly tail was beyond him. He kept turning it round and trying to hammer it in with his little fist. Heathcliffe looked up at Miss You-Know-What, handed her a two-piece jigsaw of an elephant and said, ‘Hey up, missus. Try ‘im wiv this two-piece of the elephant, cos that tiger’s a bugger!’”
I shook my head in disbelief and groaned. This inspection wasn’t turning out as I had hoped.
By lunchtime the school was a hive of activity. Beth Henderson walked up to me and nodded towards a group of men carrying trestle tables and another group of mothers who were staggering up the drive with bags of old clothes and parcels of newspaper. They had volunteered to help each class make a Guy Fawkes for the bonfire. Anne had told me that this was a tradition at Ragley and there was always fierce competition amongst the children for their class to make the best-dressed Guy Fawkes.
“You’ve got wonderful support from the parents, Jack. It’s really impressive,” she said.
Beth had addressed me by my first name so I plucked up courage to reciprocate.
“Thanks, Beth, I agree. They can’t do enough to help, and tonight is a big night. There’s a huge bonfire and firework display and I’m told everyone in the village turns up. You should see what’s going on in the kitchen. There’s food for an army being prepared.”
We walked down the corridor and glanced in the office. Vera had taken charge of a group of ladies who were sorting through a huge pile of old football socks, scarves, hats, gloves and Wellington boots. Ruby had appeared and was eyeing up the clothing.
“They’re too good for a guy,” said Ruby, “an’ that old jumper would come in for my Ronnie.”
Vera rolled it up, put it in a plastic bag and passed it to Ruby with a smile. Ruby looked delighted.
The rest of the clothes were scooped up by Vera’s willing helpers and dispatched to the various classrooms, where excited children were waiting to make their guys.
“Isn’t that your boiler suit, Jack?” whispered Beth.
I decided discretion was the better part of valour and said a silent farewell to my well-worn overalls. In the kitchen, Shirley and the dinner ladies were preparing huge pots of soup and Ruby’s eldest daughter, Racquel, was making a tray of toffee apples. Mary Hardisty and her friends from the Women’s Institute were filling up metal tureens with gingerbread men and slabs of parkin. Outside on the field, a few of the dads, under the critical stare of Stan Coe, were tying some broken chairs to a wooden palette. This would eventually be placed on top of the completed bonfire to provide seats for the four guys.
In the distance, Deke Ramsbottom’s tractor was towing a trailer full of old sofas, broken wardrobes and rotting fencing. He waved his Stetson in the air as if he was herding cattle in Texas. His sons, Shane and Clint, were seated on a battered sofa on the trailer, clinging precariously to the bits of furniture that threatened to fall off at any moment.
Beth looked up at me.
“I might even come along myself,” she said. “I only live a few miles away near Morton.”
>
“That would be lovely,” I replied. “I hope you can make it.”
I meant it.
Whilst I had enjoyed casual relationships in the past, I couldn’t recall anyone having such an impact on me as this attractive and dynamic woman. I knew I wanted to see her again but this was neither the time nor the place for such thoughts.
I glanced at my watch. It was time to ring the bell in the school bell tower that had summoned children to their lessons for almost a hundred years.
“Excuse me, Beth. It’s time for afternoon school. No doubt I’ll see you later.”
She gave me that enchanting smile again.
“Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll make sure Miss B-H is gentle with you.”
I walked back to my classroom, certain in the knowledge that a woman like Beth would have a boyfriend or partner who showered her with expensive gifts. It was also very doubtful Beth would be interested in a man with Buddy Holly spectacles and leather patches on the elbows of his jackets.
During the afternoon, the children in my class painted pictures and wrote stories about Guy Fawkes in their topic books and, when they had finished, everyone contributed towards making the guy. With its fat tummy stuffed with paper under a checked shirt, a round cardboard face with bright pink cheeks, cord trousers and Wellingtons, it looked very much like our Vice-Chairman of Governors, Stan Coe.
At afternoon playtime I met Miss Barrington-Huntley and Beth Henderson in the school hall. They had watched Jo Maddison’s science lesson and were clearly impressed. I hoped that we might get a good report after all.
I breathed a sigh of relief as we walked towards the school office but, as we passed the small toilet block outside Anne Grainger’s classroom, I heard a little boy crying. Suddenly there appeared little Terry Earnshaw, tears in his eyes and tiny grey shorts and underpants round his ankles. What nature had endowed was hanging free. Miss Barrington-Huntley stopped as if struck by a thunderbolt. Little Terry stumbled forward as if he was last in the sack race. He stopped in front of Miss Barrington-Huntley, stared up at her, dried his eyes with the cuffs of his frayed jumper and cried in a loud South Yorkshire accent, “Hey, missus, who wipes arses round ‘ere?”
Anne suddenly galloped into view, looking very red in the face. “Oh, there you are, Terry. Please excuse me, everybody.” She scooped him up like a baby chimpanzee, turned on her heel and rushed him back into the toilet.
I didn’t know if Miss Barrington-Huntley was going to laugh or cry. She just stood there transfixed. Beth Henderson, who had learned something of the little boy’s background, firmly took her colleague by the arm and smiled bravely at me.
“Well, at least he has said his first sentence, Mr Sheffield,” she said with optimism and then frogmarched Miss Barrington-Huntley into the staff-room.
As I collected my coat and scarf from the office in order to go out on playground duty, I could distinctly hear laughter in the staff-room. In amongst it was a high-pitched laughter I had not heard before. It was Miss Barrington-Huntley.
During the final session before the end of school Miss Barrington-Huntley and Beth Henderson observed my lessons. My class completed some imaginative poems about Bonfire Night and then drew colourful firework pictures on black paper using coloured chalks and pastels. At 3.00 p.m. Shane and Clint Ramsbottom wandered into the classroom, grinned at their brother, Wayne, and collected our guy to put on the bonfire. I read another chapter of our class story, The Wheel on the School by Meindert Dejong, and we finished the day with a quiet prayer. Finally, twenty-two excited children went out in the gathering gloom to take a final look at the four guys on the bonfire before they set off home.
At four o’clock Miss Barrington-Huntley and Beth Henderson sat down with me in the classroom Book Corner to discuss the day.
“This has been a most eventful day, Mr Sheffield,” said Miss Barrington-Huntley. “I can honestly say it is a school visit I shall never forget. Whilst some of the children are, how can we say, a little rough round the edges, behaviour is good, lessons are well prepared and there is an excellent ethos within the school. The support of the parents is outstanding. Some of your official paperwork is a little lacking but I have discussed this with Miss Henderson and she or one of my team will come in and support. In the meantime, good luck in your new post and please excuse me as I have to leave promptly for another engagement.”
I obviously looked shell-shocked.
Beth Henderson smiled reassuringly and got up to leave. “Well done,” she said. “I’ll be in touch.”
With that, they were gone. Beth collected the coats and they hurried to the car and sped away.
♦
Three hours later over two hundred people wandered onto the strip of land owned by Stan Coe, between the school field and the village football pitch. As I walked past the hurricane lamps that were hanging on poles above the school fence, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Under a bright red bobble hat was the smiling face of Beth Henderson.
“You made it,” I exclaimed; “Come on, this deserves a cup of Ragley’s finest chicken soup.”
“The best offer I’ve had in ages,” said Beth with a smile.
We walked past families holding bright sparklers to the line of trestle tables. A lively group of mothers led by Sue Phillips was serving soup and hot dogs.
“Good evening, ladies, two cups of chicken soup, please,” I asked cheerfully.
Sue Phillips leaned towards me with something in her hand.
“Excuse me, Mr Sheffield. Here’s your fountain pen,” she said.
“Oh, thanks, I’ve been lost without it. Where did you find it?” I asked.
The familiar mischievous grin appeared again.
“You left it on the bed this morning!”
There was a stunned silence.
Then all the ladies burst out laughing.
Beth looked up at me curiously.
“I can explain,” I said lamely.
Suddenly a rocket exploded overhead and patterns of colourful sparks filled the jet-black night sky. Anne Grainger’s husband, John, was in charge of the firework display and it was his way of announcing that the huge bonfire was about to be lit.
“I’ll be back in a moment, Beth. Please don’t go.”
I left her in earnest discussion with Sue Phillips and her fellow conspirators.
It was a Ragley tradition that the headmaster lit the bonfire each year. John Grainger thrust an old broom handle towards me on which a rag soaked in white spirit had been tied to the top with baling twine. I held it at arm’s length as he lit it and then I approached the mountain of stacked timbers like an Olympic torch-bearer. To the sound of raucous cheers I thrust the flaming torch into the centre of the dry kindling wood at its base and then retreated quickly. Flames roared and crackled and bright firelight illuminated the scene as I made my way back to join the crowds. Under the flickering lights alongside the soup and hot dog stall, Beth was deep in conversation with Sue Phillips.
I stood alongside them hesitantly.
“Don’t look so worried, Jack,” said Beth with a smile, “giving blood is a really good thing to do.”
I relaxed visibly as she handed me my cup of soup.
“Thank goodness,” I said. “At least nothing else can go wrong today.”
Beth nodded towards the brightly lit school windows. “By the way, I need to call into school, Jack. We left in such a rush Miss Barrington-Huntley left her precious hat. I promised I would collect it.”
At that moment, a loud cheer went up from all the children. The flames had lit up the four guys tied with old skipping ropes on to the wooden chairs at the very top of the bonfire. They looked eerie in the bright light. One by one they caught alight. Miss Maddison’s class guy was the biggest one. He wore a blue paint-splattered boiler suit that looked familiar. He also wore a distinctive hat. As the large feather that was stuck in it caught alight I looked at Beth in horror. “Oh no, it can’t be!” I said.
Beth just smiled. “Well, yo
u’ve got to admit, Jack,” she said, “it’s certainly the best-dressed Guy Fawkes.”
Six
The Governors’ Meeting
A meeting of School Governors was held – 7.00-9.00 p.m.
HT and Chairman of Governors presented reports.
A majority agreement was reached to use money raised this year towards a new library area to be sited in the school hall. Parents to be informed.
The proposal to take top class on a summer camp and hold a Victorian Day to celebrate the centenary of the school was agreed unanimously.
Extract from the Ragley School Logbook: Monday 28 November 1977
“Y
ou need to drink a lot of water to cure a headache,” said the Revd Joseph Evans. “I heard a doctor say it on my long-wave radio.”
It was five o’clock on the last Friday in November and I was tired. I had meant to start writing the Governors’ Report but I hadn’t got round to it and the meeting was on the following Monday evening.
“This Governors’ Report would give anyone a headache!” I said in despair.
The Revd Joseph Evans looked at me sympathetically from across the school office. “There’s no reason at all to get a headache simply because of a Governors’ Meeting,” he said. “It’s not meant to be stressful.”
“I’ll have to come in tomorrow and write it then,” I said.
“It’s a pity to give up your weekend, Jack, but you need a clear head for your report,” said Joseph, “particularly your first one.”
I sifted through the contents of the box file that Joseph had brought in for me of the previous reports written by John Pruett.
“It’s much more extensive than I imagined,” I said with a sigh. “It looks as though I even have to provide an up-to-date list of Ruby’s cleaning materials as well as everything in the stock cupboard and library.”
Joseph was keen to do all he could to help, including enlisting the help of his sister who was Clerk to the Governors as well as School Secretary.
01 Teacher, Teacher! Page 6
