01 Teacher, Teacher!

by Jack Sheffield

  “Now, those of you who can walk,” she said, “I want you to dance with your legs.”

  Then she waved to a group of children in wheelchairs. One little boy, his head cruelly swollen with hydrocephalus owing to an excess of fluid in the brain, smiled up at her.

  Jill held her arms in the air and said enthusiastically, “Those of you who can wave your arms, dance with your arms.”

  A few children had been carried in and laid gently on cushioned mats on the polished floor.

  Jill crouched down beside them and held the hand of the nearest child.

  “And those of you who can move your heads,” she said, “dance with your heads.”

  One small girl had been placed at my feet. A woman stroked her face tenderly and looked up at me.

  “My daughter, Annie,” she said quietly. “This is her favourite lesson.”

  Jill came over and knelt on the mat beside mother and daughter. She gently pushed a lock of blond hair from the child’s face and whispered, “Annie, you can dance with your eyes.”

  I felt tears beginning to well up. Embarrassed, I turned away for a moment. This was outside my range of experience. These were real children but I had never met their like before. Everyday tasks I took for granted were complex problems for them. Yet none of them complained and I felt humble in their presence. No training course I had ever been on had prepared me for this moment. My throat felt sore and speech was difficult but I didn’t fully understand why.

  Annie’s mother lifted her carefully from the large green rubber mat and held her in her arms. The teacher turned up the volume on the bulky ghetto blaster and a BBC monotone voice introduced the first piece of music. It was Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Annie’s mother carried her daughter around the room, swaying in rhythm to the music.

  Jill Sanderson stood alongside me and explained that Annie had been almost completely paralysed following a fatal road accident in which her father had been killed. Her mother brought her in every day for treatment and friendship.

  I watched the children moving slowly around the hall. It was clear they loved the music and they moved their limbs as well as they could in response to the rhythm. For the adults the work was strenuous and soon Annie’s mother was red in the face.

  “This keeps me fit,” she said as she paused next to me, breathing heavily.

  I looked down at Annie. Her eyes were alive and shining.

  “Shall I take a turn?” I asked quietly.

  She smiled and nodded, clearly grateful.

  I was struck by her appearance. She was a beautiful woman. For someone who had suffered so much pain in her life, there was freshness to her skin, vitality in her movement and peace in her eyes.

  She looked down at Annie.

  “This kind man is going to help you with the next dance, Annie. Is that OK with you?” she asked.

  Annie’s smile would have melted stones of ice.

  For the next fifteen minutes I ran myself to a standstill, swooping high and low with the small girl in my arms. Like a fairground horse on a carousel, I circled the room and her mother waved each time we passed by.

  Soon the last bars of music faded and Jill Sanderson switched off the radio.

  Exhausted, I returned Annie to the mat on the floor.

  Jill bounded over towards me. Her energy was remarkable.

  “Well done, Jack,” she said. “Now you can see why we need so much help for these lessons. I really appreciated you joining in.”

  Annie’s mother shook my hand and picked up her daughter.

  “Thank you so much. Annie doesn’t usually have a chance to dance for so long,” she said. “We could do with your help every week.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement. The right words were difficult to find.

  “Come on, Jack, let’s have a coffee and organize this pen-friend idea,” said Jill. She seemed to understand my awkwardness and led me quickly back to her office.

  “Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it?” she said when she closed the door. “But I wouldn’t change my job for the world. Success for us can be lifting a spoon or saying a sentence. Every day brings achievement.”

  It was clear to me that Jill Sanderson was born for this profession. Her enthusiasm for the job shone through and she was so proud of the work of her school. The guided tour emphasized the positive ethos of a caring community. I met teachers who were keen to tell me of the progress of each child and adult helpers who wanted to write letters on behalf of those children who were unable to hold a pencil. By the time it came for me to leave I had learned a lesson in life and humility.

  ♦

  Back at school, Miss Flint was marking exercise books. One book was open on top of a pile. A wavy red line had been drawn through a sentence in Anita Cuthbertson’s Anglo-Saxon project folder that read, “Anglo-Saxons have rough mating on the floor.” Miss Flint was clearly unimpressed by the sexual preferences of Anglo-Saxons and she had moved on to the spelling test. I glanced at the book she was marking. Kenny Flanaghan’s spelling of the word ‘testicle’ was perfect. Unfortunately, he had been asked to spell ‘terrestrial’ and Valerie Flint, who did not share my sense of humour, added yet another red cross.

  The afternoon passed slowly. The experiences of the morning filled my mind and the time came at last for our final lesson. Sally Pringle had taped the broadcast as promised and, for the second time that day, I heard the introduction to the Music and Movement programme. The contrast was amazing. The children in my class expended huge amounts of energy as they danced, leaped and ran around the hall and soon they were red-faced and panting.

  As the lesson neared its conclusion I heard a familiar voice in my ear.

  “She’s neither use nor ornament.”

  It was Mrs Winifred Brown. She thrust a woolly jumper in my hands as she walked through the hall.

  “Ah told ‘er to tek ‘er jumper,” she said, glaring at Tracey-Leanne who had suddenly stopped doing acrobatic cartwheels across the floor.

  “Please will you sit down, Mrs Brown?” I asked politely but firmly. “The lesson is nearly over now but, as you can see, all the children are fine.”

  Mrs Brown was not convinced.

  “Ah’ll go see to our Dominic,” she said bluntly. “Ah don’t want ‘im kicking a football around tonight.” She waddled towards Sally Pringle’s classroom door.

  Soon the children were pulling on shirts and blouses and collecting their rubber-band-powered models of cars and tractors that I had promised they could take home.

  I asked Tracey-Leanne to wait for her mother in the school entrance while Ruby swept the floor of my classroom and I did some paperwork in the office. It wasn’t long before I heard Mrs Brown’s voice in the corridor.

  “C’mon Dominic, y’like one o’clock half struck, get a move on,” yelled Mrs Brown. “An’ you, young madam, you do as y’told in future, else you’ll get what for.”

  I heard the scampering of Tracey-Leanne’s feet as she ran down the corridor followed by a slamming of the main door.

  I stared out of the window as the last group of children left school. Dominic ran like a hare to catch his friends and Tracey-Leanne skipped along behind her mother like a newborn lamb. As she came within arm’s reach, Mrs Brown grabbed her roughly and yanked her by the shoulder.

  “Walk properly!” she yelled. “Stop dancing around an’ behave y’self.”

  Subdued, Tracey-Leanne walked in step with her mother and they disappeared into the gloom.

  From the hall I heard the squeaky castors of the Music Centre as Anne wheeled it across the hall in preparation for her class assembly the next morning. ‘Music Centre’ was a rather grand name for a wood-veneered, conti-board trolley on which a radio and a record player had been fitted on the top shelf. A hinged lid kept the dust off the vinyl records and on the bottom shelf two bulky speakers were stored.

  I knew Anne would be going through her ritual of selecting a long-playing record, sliding it carefully out of its c
ardboard sleeve and cleaning the grooves on its vinyl surface with an anti-static cloth. Then she would place it carefully onto the circular rubber mat on the turntable, adjust the dial to 33 revolutions per minute and click the start lever with her thumb. With great precision, she would lift the plastic arm across the spinning record and lower it gently until the sharp stylus settled into the black groove at the beginning of the selected track. Anne always made sure the whole operation was completed without ever putting a greasy fingerprint on the precious surface of the record.

  To my surprise, Anne had selected Peter and the Wolf, and the opening bars filled the silence and echoed in the Victorian rafters. I stood quietly by the window, looking out at the swirling mist that shrouded the school driveway. I imagined a little girl with blond hair skipping down the cobblestones and her mother clapping her hands in delight. The little girl stopped and stared at the bright lights of the school. She waved and smiled, a bright shadow in the grey mist. Then she turned and skipped out of the school gates.

  It was Annie. Or rather, it was the Annie that could never be, except in the imagination. This would be a dream that her mother would cling to for the rest of her life.

  Until then, when Annie’s eyes were open, she would dance with her eyes; when they were closed, like a ballerina, she would dance in her dreams.

  Thirteen

  The Football Match

  Mr R. Smith requested the use of the school field for the Ragley Rovers football team.

  This was granted following discussion with Revd Evans.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook: Thursday 26 March 1978

  “T

  actics,” said Ronnie Smith. “That’s what wins football matches.”

  The Ragley Rovers football team looked puzzled but nodded anyway. Ronnie had never let them down before and he took his job of team manager very seriously.

  “Y’mean anything above grass ‘igh, kick it?” asked Big Dave the Goalkeeper.

  “Sort of,” said Ronnie.

  Stevie ‘Supersub’ Coleclough leaned forward with obvious interest. Stevie liked to be noticed and considered himself to be a trendy fashion icon in his multi-coloured tank top, knitted by his colour-blind Auntie Maureen.

  “Are y’talking about that Ziggy Freud psychology stuff?” asked Stevie.

  Stevie had also been to Sixth Form College and liked everyone to know.

  “We studied all that stuff at college,” he added knowingly.

  “Well, not exactly, Stevie, but you’re on t’right lines,” said Ronnie, not wishing to discourage his enthusiastic number twelve, even though he rarely got his knees dirty.

  The previous day, Ruby the Caretaker had approached me on Ronnie’s behalf. Ronnie wanted to use the school field so that the team could practise before Saturday’s big game against the rival village of Morton. It was raining heavily so, immediately after school had ended for the day, I had unlocked the gates leading to the old school cycle shed to provide shelter for Ronnie to deliver his team talk.

  “Why don’t we just give ‘em a good kicking like we usually do?” asked Norman ‘Nutter’ Neilson. Nutter liked to keep his football simple.

  “Cos that way we always lose,” said Chris ‘Kojak’ Wojciechowski, the Bald-Headed Ball-Wizard.

  Ronnie ignored the interruptions and pulled out of his pocket a creased brown envelope covered in scribbles. He held it up as if he was declaring peace in our time.

  “Ah’ve got a dossier on the Morton team,” he announced proudly. “Ah’ve ‘ad ‘em watched.”

  Ronnie was a disciple of the Don Revie School of Football Management and he had read about the detailed notes the famous Leeds United manager prepared on opposition players.

  “Who watched ‘em, Ronnie?” asked Clint Ramsbottom, suddenly breaking off from braiding his hair and taking interest.

  Ronnie coughed affectedly and mumbled, “Our Sharon.”

  Sharon was one of Ronnie and Ruby’s daughters. At seventeen years of age she had begun to take a great interest in football, particularly in Rodney Morgetroyd, the eighteen-year-old Morton centre forward with the golden locks and handsome good looks. Handsome Rodney had knocked on Ronnie’s door recently, hoping for a glance of the voluptuous Sharon, but he was quickly sent packing back to Morton on his 150cc Lambretta with its antennae of chromium rear-view mirrors and a triangular pennant fluttering on a six-foot aerial. Ronnie didn’t like anything flashy and was very protective of his daughter.

  “Your Sharon?” asked Big Dave, looking puzzled. “What does she know about football?”

  “Don’t knock our Sharon,” said Deadly Duggie Smith, the pacy right winger. “She’s not as daft as she looks.”

  ‘Deadly’ Duggie was Ronnie’s son. He was also the local undertaker’s assistant, hence the nickname. It was an irony that the fastest player in the Ragley team spent his working life walking at two miles an hour behind a hearse. “Go on, Dad,” continued Deadly Duggie. “What did our Sharon say?”

  Ronnie glanced down at the notes on the envelope.

  “She says they’re nearly all young ‘n’ fit, all except for Fat Ernie the Goalie.”

  Ernie Morgetroyd, Rodney’s father, weighed eighteen stones and liked his food. Fat Ernie and Handsome Rodney were the Morton village milkmen.

  “So what’s these tactics that’s gonna ‘elp us beat ‘em?” asked Big Dave.

  “We’re gonna play to our strengths,” said Ronnie. “Weather’s perfect for us. Rain’s coming down like stair-rods and bottom end is like a paddy field. Morton can’t play their fancy football on that mud ‘eap. First ‘alf, we defend bottom end like them lads at Rorke’s Drift. Second ‘alf, we ‘it em on t’break. Don’t fanny about in midfield, ‘it it long to our Duggie so ‘e can use ‘is ‘lectric pace.”

  Deadly Duggie drew deeply on his Castella cigar and nodded modestly.

  I watched the team practice from the staff-room window. It appeared to go well and I was determined to watch the epic encounter on Saturday afternoon.

  Dark black clouds were full of foreboding as the day of the match dawned. Beth Henderson had called in unexpectedly at Bilbo Cottage to volunteer to tidy up my kitchen. So it was with a feeling of guilt that I hesitantly suggested going to watch the football match.

  Beth grinned and surveyed the disorganized kitchen.

  “I think it would be better if you were out of the way, Jack,” she said, trying not to hurt my feelings, “but it will cost you a slap-up meal in York tonight.”

  “It’s a deal,” I said and I drove off wondering how a man like me could be lucky enough to have a woman as beautiful as Beth doing his housework.

  Wind and rain battered my umbrella as I walked from the school car park across the school field and climbed over the fence to the Ragley Rovers football pitch. I joined the small band of hardy supporters to cheer on the team.

  Ronnie, Big Dave and Little Malcolm had spent their lunchtime with a bucket of whitewash battling against the pouring rain and splashing the touchlines in a forlorn attempt to mark out the pitch.

  Predictably, Freddie Kershaw, the referee, never even considered calling off the game. It was his view that if he was expected to deliver coal in this weather then these soft lads could kick a ball around. Freddie was also committed to conservation of energy so, with a gale-force wind blowing straight down the muddy slope, Freddie blew his whistle and then positioned himself strategically on the edge of the Ragley penalty area where he could watch all the first-half action. Freddie wasn’t wrong. Wave after wave of Morton attacks were repulsed by the brave tackling of the Ragley team and the occasional wrestling hold behind the back of the referee. At half time the Ragley players sucked their quarter slices of orange like fluorescent gum shields whilst Ronnie praised them for keeping the score to 0-0.

  “C’mon, lads,” he cried, “this is our day.”

  Big Dave led his team to the top end of the field and smacked his huge right fist into the palm of his left hand and gave his own
version of a tactical team talk. “OK, lads, if y’It anybody, ah want rest o’ team to pile in cos ref can’t send us all off.”

  In the second half, the faster, youthful Morton team looked dangerous every time they got the ball but all the Ragley players tackled like demons and the minutes slowly ticked by.

  After eighty-eight minutes, the score was still 0-0 and Ronnie was looking anxiously at his watch. Almost an hour and a half of bone-crunching tackles, hacks and trips had left both teams looking like competitors in a mud-wrestling competition. Against all predictions, the Ragley team was somehow holding out for an unexpected draw. The biggest crowd of the season, twenty-three brave souls, including old Mr Connelly’s guide dog, huddled under umbrellas and cheered on their heroes. A magnificent result was in sight when disaster struck. Morton made one last desperate assault on the Ragley goal. Handsome Rodney, who had been kicked from pillar to post all afternoon by Nutter Neilson, suddenly found the ball at his feet in the Ragley penalty area. He pushed it skilfully past the onrushing Big Dave who grabbed his ankle and pulled him down. It was a definite penalty. The referee blew his whistle and pointed deliberately to a muddy depression in the pitch that had once been a whitewashed penalty spot and was now a circular puddle.

  While Big Dave protested his innocence to the referee, the ball rolled behind the goal and Ronnie jogged round and picked it up. Ronnie stared hard at Handsome Rodney as he trotted over to collect the ball. The young striker looked confident. He hadn’t missed a penalty all season. As he took the ball from Ronnie’s outstretched hands there was a moment’s hesitation. It seemed as if Ronnie was unwilling to let go of it.

  “C’mon, ‘urry up,” the referee shouted through the swirling rain. “Time’s nearly up.”