05 Please Sir!

by Jack Sheffield

  On the school playground, Anne Grainger, the deputy headteacher, had come out to talk to the mothers of the new starters and, after a few reassuring words, they soon began to relax. Anne, a slim, attractive forty-nine-year-old, had been a loyal supporter of Ragley School for many years. Her hard work, patience and, not least, a mischievous sense of humour made her a priceless member of staff and it was always a joy to walk into her lively reception class of four- and five-year-olds.

  ‘Jack, Vera needs a word with you in the office,’ said Anne with a grin. ‘You’ve had a telephone call from Miss High-and-Mighty.’

  I hurried into school. A message from Miss Barrington-Huntley, the Chair of the North Yorkshire Education Committee, usually meant something important.

  Vera Evans, our tall, slim, elegant fifty-nine-year-old school secretary, looked her usual immaculate self in a new charcoal-grey, pin-striped Marks & Spencer’s business suit. She peered over her pince-nez spectacles at the shorthand message on her spiral-bound pad. ‘Ah, Mr Sheffield,’ said Vera in her usual formal manner, ‘you need to ring Miss Barrington-Huntley at County Hall.’ She saw my concern. ‘Don’t worry,’ she added with a reassuring smile, ‘it sounded routine.’

  I relaxed and picked up the receiver. Although I was the headteacher, sometimes it felt as though it was Vera who ran the school. The calm manner with which she dealt with our regular crises and the occasional angry parent, as well as the increasing deluge of paper work that arrived from the local authority, was a wonder to behold.

  ‘Good morning, Jack,’ said a confident and familiar voice.

  ‘Ah … good morning, Miss Barrington-Huntley,’ I replied, a little nervously. The last time we had spoken was at my aborted interview for a large school headship at the end of last term.

  ‘Just to let you know that our newly appointed adviser for computers and libraries, Mr, er …’ there was the sound of ruffled papers, ‘Mr, hmmn, Gilford Eccles, will be calling in to see you at lunchtime today. He’s doing some research on reading policies in North Yorkshire schools prior to the national Reading For All conference next month.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Thank you for letting me know,’ I replied, with a slightly sinking feeling. Even though I was proud of our reading scheme, I guessed this new initiative was leading towards some form of common curriculum for schools. Also, I didn’t know the first thing about computers.

  ‘I’ll call in when I can,’ she added cheerily, ‘but, in the meantime, very best wishes for the new academic year, Jack. Goodbye.’ She rang off before I could reply.

  I replaced the receiver. ‘Vera, Miss B-H says we’ve got an official visitor at lunchtime today,’ I said, ‘… by the name of Eccles.’

  Vera wrote it on her pad. ‘Did you say … Eccles?’ she asked.

  A diminutive figure appeared alongside. ‘Oooh, I love Eccles cakes!’ exclaimed Jo Hunter. Jo, an athletic twenty-six-year-old, taught the six- and seven-year-olds in Class 2 and was married to Dan Hunter, our friendly six-feet-four-inch local policeman. She was dressed in a body-hugging tracksuit and fashionable Chris Evert trainers with her long black hair tied back in a pony-tail.

  ‘He’s something to do with computers, Jo, so perhaps you could look after him over the lunch break,’ I said hopefully. ‘And don’t mention cakes.’

  ‘Fine, Jack, no problem,’ said Jo. She was clutching the instruction booklet for our new school computer which, for the rest of the staff, might as well have been written in Japanese. However, Jo was clearly a sign of things to come and she grasped the new technology with open arms. After collecting her new registers from Vera’s desk, she hurried back to her classroom with the confidence of youth.

  ‘Computers!’ muttered Vera. ‘My new electric typewriter was hard enough. Where will it all end?’ She took the plastic cover off her wonder of the modern world: namely, an ergonomically designed, golf-ball head, IBM Selectric typewriter, and, not for the first time, she yearned for her old manual Royal Imperial and the familiar ker-ching of the carriage return.

  Our first computer had arrived during the summer holiday, a large beige-coloured cube with software called Folio and a separate disk drive. Jo had called into school frequently and had begun to use it as a writing aid, whereas the rest of us simply looked on in wonder. We were all due to go on an evening course at the teacher-training college in York.

  A smiling freckled face appeared in the doorway. ‘Jack, please could I ring the bell this morning? It’s sort of … symbolic.’

  Sally Pringle, a tall, ginger-haired forty-year-old, had returned from maternity leave to teach the eight- and nine-year-olds in Class 3. Her mother was only too pleased to look after Grace, her seven-month-old baby, and Sally was excited to be back in Ragley School doing the job she loved.

  ‘Of course, Sally,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks, Jack. It’s good to be back … and I need the exercise.’ Sally was wearing her usual loud colours, an outfit including an orange tie-dyed waistcoat and a voluminous bright yellow blouse that hung loosely over her green stretch cords. She patted her tummy. ‘I wonder if I’ll ever get my figure back,’ she added with a grin and walked to the foot of the bell tower.

  At the sound of the bell all the children hurried into school, while, down the High Street, Rosie Backhouse opened the doors of her library van. It was well known that Rosie’s word was law. The sign SILENCE IS NEXT TO GODLINESS taped above the music section meant business. Anything more than a whisper, including coughing and sneezing, resulted in immediate expulsion. Rosie didn’t suffer fools gladly.

  As she waited for her first customer, she reflected on her life. Rosie had loved the late fifties and early sixties. She remembered listening to two-way family favourites on the Light Programme while drinking a tumbler of Kia-Ora Suncrush. She had played her latest Buddy Holly 45 on her Dansette record player, watched her television heartthrob Eamonn Andrews on her 14-inch Bush television set and shared a packet of Spangles with her boyfriend, Cyril, in the back row of the cinema. Finally, she had married the innocent and introverted Cyril in 1966, on the day England won the World Cup, and made quite sure it wasn’t just Geoff Hurst who scored a hat-trick that day. Cyril soon became alarmed at Rosie’s demanding nature once the lights went out and began to attend weekend management courses in order to provide much needed recovery time and a good night’s rest. When he became manager of the Cavendish furniture store in York, Rosie bought the best kingsize bed in the shop and made sure their bedroom looked like the top prize from Nicholas Parsons’ Sale of the Century. In Rosie’s world, men were fine as long as they knew their place.

  The ten- and eleven-year-olds in my class soon settled in and, although a few of them appeared to have forgotten how to write, they were soon busy filling in their new reading record cards, labelling mathematics books, putting their names in their New Oxford Dictionary and sticking a personalized label on the lid of their tin of Lakeland crayons.

  Morning assembly was always a joyous occasion at the start of a new year, with the new starters waving cautiously to their elder brothers and sisters and all the staff weighing up the children they were about to teach. We sang ‘Morning Has Broken’ and ‘Kumbaya’, accompanied by Anne on the piano, and then we all recited our school prayer.

  Dear Lord,

  This is our school, let peace dwell here,

  Let the room be full of contentment, let love abide here,

  Love of one another, love of life itself,

  And love of God.

  Amen.

  After the bell for morning playtime, I walked into the staff-room. Vera was frowning at the front-page article of her Daily Telegraph about Michael Heseltine, Secretary of State for the Environment, who had cut local authority grants by £300 million. Although Margaret Thatcher was Vera’s political heroine, life in public service wasn’t quite what she had imagined.

  ‘Thanks, Vera,’ said Anne as she collected her mug of hot milky coffee and walked out to do playground duty.

  ‘A good star
t, Mr Sheffield,’ said Vera, as she locked the metal box containing the school dinner money. ‘It all added up.’

  ‘It should do now school meals have gone up to fifty pence,’ grumbled Sally as she hunted for a custard cream in the biscuit tin.

  ‘They’re still a bargain,’ said Vera. ‘Shirley makes wonderful meals.’ Our school cook, Shirley Mapplebeck, was renowned for the excellence of her cooking.

  ‘A few of the poorer families will struggle,’ said Sally. It was well known that Sally’s politics were a world away from those of Vera but somehow they always seemed to find a compromise for the sake of peace in the staff-room.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right, Sally,’ said Vera, ‘but I hope not.’

  Jo looked up from her Rules of Netball. ‘And how’s Beth?’ she asked.

  The room suddenly fell silent as Sally buried herself in the new issue of Child Education and Vera sipped her coffee thoughtfully and stared out of the window.

  ‘Fine,’ I said with a strained smile.

  Sally looked up. ‘Well, we’re all glad you’re here, Jack,’ she said bluntly, while Vera gave me a knowing look and said nothing.

  ‘So I’m not buying my hat for the wedding yet, then?’ continued Jo, not to be deflected.

  ‘Not yet, Jo … but soon, I hope.’

  The strained atmosphere was broken by Vera. ‘Don’t forget the library van will be in the car park over lunchtime, so I’ll be out there and send word for you to bring your children a class at a time.’

  ‘Thanks, Vera,’ we all chorused. For me, the bell for the end of playtime came as a relief.

  Meanwhile, in the High Street, a few villagers were selecting books in the mobile library van. Audrey Bustard was looking for the latest Jackie Collins; Betty Buttle was rummaging in the Mills & Boon section, while Petula Dudley-Palmer, the richest woman in the village, studied the back cover of a Jilly Cooper novel before making an informed and definitely more upmarket selection.

  When Sheila Bradshaw, the barmaid from The Royal Oak, hitched up her tight black miniskirt to negotiate the steep steps into the van there was a strong smell of cheap perfume and a flutter of well-disguised interest from the other book-lovers. As always, she adopted the direct approach. ‘’Ello, Rosie,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Ah want The Joy of Sex, please.’

  Don’t we all? was the thought that flickered simultaneously through the minds of all the ladies in the van, but not a word was spoken.

  ‘Top shelf, last bookcase on t’right, Sheila,’ said Rosie in a matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘’E needs a bit of a shake-up, does my Don,’ said Sheila.

  Rosie nodded. ‘Men,’ she muttered, ‘they’re all alike.’

  George Postlethwaite, the seventy-six-year-old champion fisherman who lost his right arm in the Second World War, entered and put his returned copy of Coarse Fishing on the small counter. ‘Ah’m after that new book, Mrs Back’ouse,’ he said, ‘My Angling World, an’ ah wondered if you’d got a book, hmmn … on, well, y’know … suicide.’

  Rosie looked up sharply. ‘Second bookcase, bottom shelf for fishing,’ she said.

  George paused. ‘An’ what abart suicide?’

  ‘Definitely no,’ said Rosie fiercely.

  ‘Why not?’ asked George, who was a lover of the dark arts. Gutting fish on his kitchen table while watching a Vincent Price horror movie was George’s idea of a good night in.

  ‘Well,’ said Rosie, ‘it’s not likely you’d bring it back, is it?’

  The sharp logic escaped George as he shuffled away down the van.

  At lunchtime I queued up with my plastic tray to enjoy one of Shirley’s delicacies: namely, spam fritters, chips and peas, followed by jam roly-poly and vivid purple custard. I had just finished the last delicious mouthful when ten-year-old Theresa Ackroyd, who didn’t miss anything going on outside the window, announced, ‘Little sports car coming up t’drive, Mr Sheffield.’

  A bright-red MG Midget roared into the car park and drew up in the no-parking area outside the boiler-house doors. I walked into the entrance hall to meet the driver. He was a short, skinny man with long, curly, Bob Dylan-style hair, a fuzzy unkempt beard, John Lennon circular spectacles, a floral shirt, Mickey Mouse tie and a crumpled purple cord suit. ‘Good morning, Mr Sheffield. I’m Gilford Eccles, the new Library and Computer Adviser for North Yorkshire.’

  ‘Welcome to Ragley,’ I said and shook his limp, delicate hand.

  ‘I’ve brought this for you,’ he said, holding up a smart spiral-bound, plastic-covered booklet entitled ‘Reading in the Computer Age – a vision of the future by Gilford Eccles, Dip. Ed., Ed Psych, BA (Hons), MA’. Anne gave me a wide-eyed look that suggested we were in the company of a mad scientist with an over-inflated ego and what was I going to do about it.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, handing the booklet quickly to Anne, who passed it even more quickly to Jo, who immediately began to flick through the pages.

  ‘As you will see from my thesis, we shall all be affected by the silicon chip.’

  We nodded and, as far as we could see, it sounded as though this tedious little man had just swallowed one.

  ‘Thirty-six secondary schools in North Yorkshire now have a computer and one hundred and forty teachers have completed a training course,’ he recited.

  ‘Perhaps you could let us know the exact purpose of your visit, Mr Eccles,’ I said.

  He looked surprised. ‘To advance the reading skills of your children of course,’ he said with utter conviction. ‘I’m here to check the content of your library and to ensure you’re aware of the role of the computer in advanced reading techniques.’

  ‘I see,’ I said … but I didn’t.

  Sally came to the rescue. ‘We’ve just built a new library,’ she said firmly, ‘and it’s very well stocked.’

  ‘Also, the mobile library van will be here over lunchtime to provide extra opportunities for children to take books home,’ added Anne.

  ‘And I’ve been on the computer course,’ said Jo without a hint of modesty.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Mr Eccles with a superior smile. ‘That sounds, hmmn … satisfactory.’ He turned to survey our library area in the new extension to our entrance hall, which teemed with bright and attractive books. Most had been purchased thanks to the Parent–Teacher Association and there were others that had been donated by friends of the school. ‘Oh no,’ he said, picking up a copy of Five Go Off in a Caravan and The Mountain of Adventure, both by Enid Blyton. ‘Dear me, these will have to go.’

  ‘Why is that?’ I asked.

  Mr Eccles gave me a condescending look. ‘How can we have an author who made a hero of a boy called Fatty and was turned down by the BBC’s Director of Programmes in 1936 as a “second-rater”?’

  ‘But Enid Blyton is still very popular and her books are in most homes,’ I said, ‘and there are lots of modern authors here, as you can see.’

  ‘I’m sorry to say that Enid Blyton hasn’t much literary value,’ he scorned. ‘Rather too much pink-winky, pixie stuff for me. So I’ll remove these now,’ he said and tucked them under his arm.

  ‘But you can’t take our books away,’ I protested.

  ‘I most certainly can,’ bristled Mr Eccles. ‘Remember the old adage, Mr Sheffield, a place for everything and everything in its place … and I know where these belong.’

  I left the infuriating Mr Eccles to join Vera in the school car park, where Rosie had reversed her mobile library van up the cobbled school drive. By one o’clock all the children had finished their lunch and were excited about selecting a new library book.

  Mr Eccles was ready to leave but, as he had parked in the wrong place, he was blocked in by the large van. ‘Would you mind pulling your van forwards?’ he shouted, clearly very annoyed.

  ‘Shush … I’ll move when I’m good and ready,’ replied a fierce disembodied voice from inside the van.

  Mr Eccles walked to the foot of the steps that led into the van and yelled through the open d
oorway: ‘But you’ve blocked me in, so hurry up.’

  A second later he took a quick step back as a fearsome sight appeared.

  ‘How dare you shout in my library!’ exclaimed Rosie as she stepped out of the van into the car park. ‘This is a haven of peace and quiet.’

  ‘Well, er, I’m in a h-hurry,’ stuttered Mr Eccles.

  Rosie folded her massive forearms and studied the unkempt figure before her. ‘I know you,’ she said, eyes widening in recognition. ‘It’s young Eccles, isn’t it? From up near Linton. Always brought your books back late.’

  Gilford Eccles looked at Rosie in horror. ‘I think, er, you might be—’

  ‘Ah, I remember now,’ said Rosie with a fierce glint in her eyes. ‘He used to love his Enid Blyton, did this one, Mr Sheffield.’ She pointed at the books in Gilford’s trembling hand. ‘Your mother always said how much you enjoyed Tales at Bedtime. So how is she these days?’

  ‘Er, very well, er, thank you,’ muttered Mr Eccles. He thrust the books back in my hands. ‘I’ll, er, wait in the car until you’ve gone,’ he said by way of apology.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Rosie. ‘A little patience and plenty of peace and quiet is what we need. No need to get uppity. Isn’t that right, Mr Sheffield?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘I’ll put these back on the shelves, shall I, Mr Sheffield?’ said Vera triumphantly.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Under B in fiction?’ said Vera pointedly.

  ‘Yes, Vera … a place for everything,’ I said.

  Vera nodded towards the white-faced Gilford Eccles, sitting nervously in his sports car. ‘And everything in its place, Mr Sheffield.’

  Chapter Two

  Vera’s Brief Encounter