07 School's Out!

by Jack Sheffield

  About the Book

  As the new school year begins, Jack Sheffield prepares for an even more eventful year than usual. A new teacher is appointed and, before long, tongues start to wag.

  Meanwhile, five-year-old Madonna Fazackerly makes her mark in an unexpected way, life changes dramatically for Ruby the caretaker and, in the village coffee shop, Dorothy Humpleby plans a dirty weekend.

  It’s the era of the new CD player, Microsoft Word, the McDonald’s McNugget, cabbage patch dolls, the threat of a miners’ strike and a final farewell to the halfpenny piece.

  Jack has to manage a year of triumph and tragedy…

  Contents

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Map

  Prologue

  1 The Sensitive Child

  2 The Wisdom of Vera

  3 Ruby and the Coffin Polisher

  4 Important Decisions

  5 A Friend in Need

  6 Sewing for Boys

  7 Broken Blossoms

  8 A Surprise for Santa

  9 The Length of Our Days

  10 Bobble Hats and Breadcrumbs

  11 George Orwell’s New World

  12 Raining in My Heart

  13 Dorothy’s Dirty Weekend

  14 The Miner’s Daughter

  15 A Cow Called Clarissa

  16 Terry Earnshaw’s Bob-a-Job

  17 Extra-Curricular Activities

  18 A Bolt from the Blue

  19 School’s Out!

  About the Author

  Copyright

  SCHOOL’S OUT!

  The Alternative School Logbook 1983–1984

  Jack Sheffield

  For Phil, Molly, Oscar, Sam and Clara Patterson

  Acknowledgements

  I am indeed fortunate to have the support of a wonderful editor, the superb Linda Evans, and the outstanding team at Transworld including Larry Finlay, Bill Scott-Kerr, Elizabeth Swain, Vivien Garrett, Bella Whittington, Brenda Updegraff, and the excellent Publicity Manager, Lynsey Dalladay, plus the ‘footsoldiers’ – fellow ‘Old Roundhegian’ Martin Myers and the quiet, unassuming Mike ‘Rock ’n’ Roll’ Edgerton.

  Special thanks, as always, go to my hardworking literary agent, Philip Patterson of Marjacq Scripts, for his encouragement and good humour.

  I am also grateful to all of those who assisted in the research for this novel, in particular: Patrick Busby, Pricing Director, church organist and Harrogate Rugby Club supporter, Hampshire; Janina Bywater, neonatal nurse and lecturer in psychology, Cornwall; the Revd Ben Flenley, Rector of Bentworth, Lasham, Medstead and Shalden, Hampshire; Tony Greenan, Yorkshire’s finest headteacher (now retired), Huddersfield, Yorkshire; Ian Haffenden, ex-Royal Pioneer Corps and custodian of Sainsbury’s, Alton; David Hayward, retired environmental scientist and radio-controlled model-aircraft enthusiast, Hampshire; Ginny Hayward, Family Record Keeper, Hampshire; John Kirby, ex-policeman, expert calligrapher and Sunderland supporter, County Durham; Roy Linley, Enterprise Architect, Unilever Global Expertise Team, and Leeds United supporter, Port Sunlight, Wirral; Sue Maddison, primary school teacher and expert cook, Harrogate, Yorkshire; Sue Matthews, retired primary school teacher and John Denver enthusiast, Wigginton, Yorkshire; Dr Alison Rickard, General Practitioner, Alton, Hampshire; Elaine Roberts, ex-teacher and gardening expert, Haxby, Yorkshire; Irene Ross, dressmaker, Alton, Hampshire; and all the terrific staff at Waterstones, Alton, including Rob, Simon, Sam, Kirsty, Louise, Fiona and Mandie.

  Prologue

  Change touches us all with cool fingertips … it is a pathway of unknown consequences.

  Meanwhile, time is a great healer – or so they say. However, when I reflect on the academic year 1983/84, the memories remain sharp as sunlight yet cool as moonbeams. It was a year of triumph and tragedy.

  Life is a collection of moments. Some sear the soul while others are like balm on a wounded heart. Looking back on that time I recall a day that gave hope to a lonely child and another that was filled with sadness. There was also a time when the unexpected reared up and stunned our senses. I can recall it now with the clarity of a living dream … a day etched in the memory of youth and living on in an old man’s reminiscences.

  Destiny can be a cruel companion. However, all was still and quiet on that long-ago autumn morning when another school year was about to begin. It was as if the world were holding its breath and only the light breeze that stirred the branches of the horse chestnut trees at the front of our village school disturbed a scene of perfect tranquillity.

  It was a year that began in hope and expectation and, as always, the familiar pattern of the school terms stretched out before us – autumn, spring and summer, the very fabric of our working lives. It was a journey that would end in a maze of confusion, but it had begun simply with the birth of a child … a teacher’s child.

  My wife Beth had given birth to our firstborn, a son, during the early hours of Sunday morning, 24 July 1983, and we had named him John William after our respective fathers. That was six weeks ago and life had moved on.

  It was Thursday, 1 September, and I was sitting alone in the school office. On that distant autumn day my seventh year as headmaster of Ragley-on-the-Forest Church of England Primary School in North Yorkshire was about to begin. The dawn of a new school year was always an exciting time, but little did I know what lay ahead. A new destiny was in store.

  The clock ticked on. I took a deep breath and sighed as I unlocked the bottom drawer of my desk, removed the large, leather-bound school logbook and opened it to the next clean page. Then I filled my fountain pen with black Quink ink, wrote the date and stared at the empty page.

  The record of another school year was about to begin. Six years ago, the retiring headmaster, John Pruett, had told me how to fill in the official school logbook. ‘Just keep it simple,’ he said. ‘Whatever you do, don’t say what really happens, because no one will believe you!’

  So the real stories were written in my ‘Alternative School Logbook’. And this is it!

  Chapter One

  The Sensitive Child

  91 children were registered on roll on the first day of the school year following a large intake from the extension to the council estate on Easington Road. An advertisement was put in the Times Educational Supplement following Mrs Hunter’s appointment to take up a new post at Priory Gate Junior School in York in January 1984.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook: Monday, 5 September 1983

  ‘OUR MADONNA’S VERY sensitive, Mr Sheffield,’ said Mrs Freda Fazackerly.

  I was heading for the school office but this formidable Yorkshire lady was waiting for me in the entrance hall.

  ‘Is she?’ I asked.

  ‘She is that … an’ we’re proper flummoxed.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said, glancing down at her tiny four-year-old daughter. Madonna was wearing a Wham! T-shirt, a grubby green cardigan, black stone-washed jeans and red pixie boots. Her fair hair sported two pigtails tied with large pink bows and she grinned up at me, apparently unaware of the two green candles of snot that dangled unattractively from her nose. ‘And why are you, er, flummoxed, Mrs Fazackerly?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, me an’ Ernie, that’s ’er dad, we was wond’ring ’ow she’d mek’er mark, so to speak, jus’ like we did.’

  I removed my black-framed Buddy Holly spectacles and began to polish them with my new eighties slim knitted tie.

  ‘Make her mark?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Sheffield, ’cause long afore your time ah were captain o’ netball ’ere at Ragley, an’ my Ernie were captain o’ football, an’ ’is dad were t’best runner in t’school. So our Madonna’s t’third gen’ration o’ F’zacke
rlys an’ we want ’er t’mek’er mark as well … ’xcept she’s a bit on t’sensitive side, if y’tek m’meaning.’

  ‘Sensitive?’

  ‘Yes. Like this morning, f’instance … wi’ dead things,’ said Mrs Fazackerly, leaning towards me as if sharing the secret of the universe.

  I shifted my gangling six-foot-one-inch frame and took a step back towards the office door. ‘Dead things?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Sheffield,’ said Mrs Fazackerly. ‘That’s why she’s not quite ’erself this morning. It’s put ’er in a reight pickle, ah can tell you.’ She pulled Madonna’s arm and the little girl looked up expectantly. ‘Go on, luv, tell Mr Sheffield what ’appened to our ’Enry this morning.’

  Madonna shook her head, wiped the snot from her nose with the sleeve of her cardigan and said nonchalantly, ‘Ah pissed in ’is ear.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  The little girl clearly assumed I was deaf. ‘AH PISSED IN ’IS EAR,’ she shouted.

  Mrs Fazackerly nodded vigorously. ‘That’s reight, Mr Sheffield.’

  ‘I’m not quite following,’ I said.

  ‘Well, our ’Enry ’ad jus’ ’ad a bowl o’ ’is fav’rite liver-flavoured Kit-e-Kat Supreme an’ then all of a sudden ’e were jus’ lying there on t’doormat like a lost soul,’ said Mrs Fazackerly.

  ‘Ah, Henry’s a cat,’ I said.

  Mrs Fazackerly gave me a puzzled look. ‘Yes, o’ course … an’ our Madonna tried t’wake ’im up.’

  ‘Wake him up … by, er, doing what you said?’

  ‘That’s reight, Mr Sheffield – our Madonna knelt down proper quiet like, ’cause she’s real sensitive wi’ animals, an’ whispered psssst in ’is ear but ’e couldn’t ’ear ’er … ’cause t’poor little sod were dead.’

  ‘Ah.’ The penny had dropped.

  ‘So t’day, on ’er first day, she might be a bit, y’know … backwards in comin’ forwards so t’speak.’

  ‘I’m sure Mrs Grainger will look after her, Mrs Fazackerly, and we’ll all try to give Madonna plenty of encouragement,’ I said reassuringly.

  Mrs Fazackerly appeared satisfied. ‘Well, y’can’t say fairer than that, Mr Sheffield,’ and she hurried out of the entrance hall, dragging a bemused Madonna after her.

  I glanced up at the clock on the office wall with its faded Roman numerals. It was 8.30 a.m. on Monday, 5 September 1983, the first day of the autumn term. My seventh year as headteacher of Ragley-on-the-Forest Church of England Primary School in North Yorkshire had begun.

  ‘Another Fazackerly,’ said a voice from the other end of the entrance hall. It was Anne Grainger, the deputy headteacher, who had emerged from the stock cupboard clutching two huge tins of powder paint.

  Anne, a slim brunette who looked nothing like her fifty-one years, was the reception class teacher and had taught at Ragley School for as long as she could remember. ‘Freda was in my class twenty years ago, Jack,’ she went on, with a wry grin. ‘If the little girl is anything like her mother, we’re in for interesting times,’ and she hurried off to her classroom.

  When I walked into the school office Vera the secretary was on the telephone and she didn’t sound pleased.

  ‘But surely this should have been done during the summer holiday.’ She shook her head in disbelief and wrote a note in neat shorthand on her spiral-bound pad.

  Vera Forbes-Kitchener, a tall, slim, elegant sixty-one-year-old, was clearly irritated. ‘Yes, I do understand what you are saying about your programme for school maintenance, but today is the first day of term and the playground will be in use.’ She replaced the receiver and stood up. ‘Good morning, Mr Sheffield. Not such a good start, I’m afraid.’

  I smiled. Even after working together for six years, Vera still chose to retain the formality of calling me Mr Sheffield. For our superb school secretary it was the proper thing to do. She smoothed the creases from the skirt of her crisp new Marks & Spencer pin-striped suit and picked up the pile of school registers.

  ‘So, what is it, Vera?’ I asked, picking absent-mindedly at the frayed leather patches on my herringbone sports coat.

  ‘The office has informed us that a workman is coming today to repaint the lines on the netball court on the playground …’ she glanced at her notepad, ‘… arriving at lunchtime.’

  ‘Well I’m sure we’ll manage,’ I said.

  ‘We always do, Mr Sheffield.’ She gave me her usual enigmatic we’ve seen it all before smile, picked up the pile of new attendance and dinner registers and hurried off to deliver them.

  In the school hall the other two teachers were deep in conversation. Sally Pringle had her arm round Jo Hunter’s shoulders. ‘It will be fine, Jo,’ she said. ‘A new teaching post … a fresh opportunity.’ Sally, a tall, ginger-haired and freckle-faced forty-two-year-old, taught the eight-year-olds and the nine-year-olds with summer term birthdays in Class 3. As usual, Sally remained faithful to her flower-power days in her mint-green cords, a baggy purple blouse and a vivid, pillar-box-red waistcoat. ‘It’s the next stage of your life,’ she added with an encouraging smile.

  Jo Hunter, a diminutive, athletic twenty-eight-year-old, dressed in a figure-hugging tracksuit and Chris Evert trainers, taught the six- and seven-year-olds in Class 2. Her long black hair was tied back in a familiar ponytail. It was a time of all change for Jo and she was facing the new school year with mixed feelings. Her husband, Dan, the village bobby, had recently been promoted to sergeant at the main station in York and they had been offered a police house in the city centre.

  ‘My last term at Ragley School,’ she said sadly. ‘I can’t believe it.’ Last week she had enjoyed a successful interview for a Scale Two responsibility post for science and girls’ games at Priory Gate Junior School in York, to commence in January 1984. It was a well-earned promotion for Jo, but it was clear she would be sad to leave our little village school and her first teaching post since graduating from college six years ago.

  Vera handed out the new registers and Jo looked at her name written in our secretary’s beautiful copper-plate handwriting. ‘I wonder whose name will be on it next term?’ she mused.

  ‘We’ll know by half-term,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s hope they enjoy netball,’ commented Jo, who was proud of her school team.

  ‘And, hopefully, computers,’ added Sally with a wry grin. Jo had led the way at staff meetings with the new technology and we were all still struggling to catch up.

  I looked up at the hall clock. ‘I’ll go down to the school gate and welcome the new starters.’ Sally and Jo hurried back to their classrooms to make final preparations and I returned to the entrance hall.

  The ancient oak door swung open on its giant hinges and I walked down the stone steps to the tarmac playground, surrounded by a waist-high wall of Yorkshire stone topped with metal railings. Groups of children with rosy, sunburned faces were running, skipping and playing games, and they waved in acknowledgement.

  We had a mixed intake from all walks of life. They included the sturdy sons and daughters of local farming families and others whose parents were executives at the prestigious chocolate factory in York. Also, during the past year, new building on the council estate had gradually increased our number on roll, so more rising-fives than usual were due to be admitted to Anne’s reception class.

  One of the new starters was holding on to the hand of her elder sister.

  ‘Hello, Mr Sheffield,’ shouted eight-year-old Sonia Tricklebank. ‘Our Julie starts today. Ah’ve told ’er where ’er coat peg is, so she’ll be all right.’ Her four-year-old sister, immaculate in a starched blue-checked gingham dress, brown leather sandals and white ankle socks, grinned up at me. Meanwhile her mother was chatting with Brenda Ricketts, mother of four-year-old Billy, who had run on to the playground to balance on the faded white lines of the netball court as if he were a tightrope-walker. It was clear that young Billy was not lacking in confidence.

  I smiled. There was something special about the first day of a school
year and I felt that familiar excitement mixed with trepidation. Our school was an integral part of village life and the centre of the community. I had found peace, contentment and a way of life in this quiet corner of God’s Own Country and I breathed in the clean air as I walked down the cobbled drive to the school gate.

  In the cycle shed ten-year-old Molly Paxton was holding a loop of taut string between outstretched fingers and thumbs and teaching six-year-old Katie Icklethwaite how to do a cat’s cradle. Ten-year-old Sam Borthwick was playing conkers with nine-year-old Harold Bustard, oblivious to the chanting girls behind them as they jumped in and out of a skipping rope. One of the girls ran up to me.

  ‘’Ello, Mr Sheffield,’ said ten-year-old Hazel Smith, the cheerful daughter of our school caretaker. ‘Don’t f’get that y’said me an’ Molly could be in charge o’ t’tuck shop,’ she added with a touch of anxiety. After all, this was a monitor job that held high status.

  ‘Don’t worry, Hazel,’ I replied with a grin, ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ and she ran back to her friends.

  I leaned on the wrought-iron gate and looked around me. Above my head a gilded light shone through the translucent leaves of the horse chestnut trees and lit up the school wall like amber honey. Ragley School was a severe, traditional Victorian building of reddish-brown bricks with a steep grey-slate roof, high arched windows with pointed tops and an incongruous Gothic bell tower. Opposite our school was the village green, with a duck pond that nestled under the welcome shade of a weeping willow tree. Alongside ran a row of cottages with pantile roofs and tall brick chimneys and the green was dominated by the white-fronted public house, The Royal Oak. Off to my left, down the High Street, Ragley village was coming alive.

  Miss Prudence Golightly was standing outside her General Stores & Newsagent and chatting with Old Tommy Piercy, who was about to open his butcher’s shop. Eugene Scrimshaw was in the village pharmacy accepting a delivery of Pond’s Cream, while next door the meticulous Timothy Pratt was arranging a neat row of enamel watering cans on a trestle table outside his Hardware Emporium. In the open doorway of Nora’s Coffee Shop stood the assistant, Dorothy Humpleby. She was listening to the number-one record, ‘Red Red Wine’ by UB40, and looking at a poster of Fame’s Irene Cara sellotaped on the window of Diane Wigglesworth’s Hair Salon. Finally, at the end of the row of shops, Miss Amelia Duff was at the counter of her village Post Office, counting out her second-class twelve and a half pence stamps and hoping she had sufficient to last the day. Amelia knew her customers well and it was unlikely that first-class stamps would be in demand at the exorbitant new price of sixteen pence.