by MARY HOCKING
‘It’s a bit funny, don’t you think, that no one but an A.E.O. can speak to the press, so it ends up with Beryl and me!’ Angela was red with anger. Maggie gave way resignedly and accompanied her to the general office where the typist was declaiming:
‘I can’t help what you think, I can only do what I’m told.’
Maggie took the receiver from her. ‘I’m very sorry about this . . . yes . . . yes . . . but you happen to have telephoned at an unfortunate time. It’s our head teachers’ meeting this afternoon . . . No, no, it isn’t a special meeting, we have them once a month, with groups of heads . . . I’m afraid I don’t recall which group . . . No, I don’t remember whether the Head of Crossgate Primary School will be there . . . Of course he wouldn’t be excluded! . . . There is no agenda . . . I didn’t say it was secret, I said there is no agenda, the meetings are quite informal . . I was telling you this in order to explain why so many senior officers are out of the office . . . No, it isn’t an exceptional meeting. Mr. Chatterton always goes . . . Yes, and his Deputy and the Assistant Education Officer for Schools; heads like to have an opportunity to . . . Well, so are heads important! They feel that if they can leave their schools for one afternoon, the senior administrative staff can leave the office . . . No, I’m not trying to sidetrack, I’m explaining why it is necessary for . . . But having discussions with heads is a part of our function . . . Well, any subject, it depends what matters heads wish to raise . . . Yes, officers can also raise issues . . . Any issues which affect the schools . . . No, I can’t say that that will be discussed today because we don’t know in advance . . . You would have to ask Mr. Chatterton that himself . . . Look, please let me make this quite clear, the meeting today is an ordinary meeting which was fixed months ago . . . As long as you don’t quote anyone from this office as saying that because it simply isn’t true . . . I don’t think there is any more that I can say. Would you like me to ask Mr. Chatterton or his Deputy to ring you back? . . . But they aren’t here, so it isn’t possible . . . I have tried to explain . . . Yes . . . Yes, at a meeting . . . Yes, all three of them . . . Yes, with a group of heads . . . Not until half-past four . . . But they won’t be back by four!’ She looked at the receiver for a moment and then said wearily, ‘Oh, you rude bugger!’
‘Rung off?’ the typist asked sympathetically.
‘Yes.’
‘He’ll be back. Spot on four o’clock. He doesn’t think we’ve got anything to do but speak to him.’
‘Well, I’m not speaking to him again,’ Maggie said. ‘I’ve already given him the idea that an emergency meeting has been called to discuss the duties of supply teachers, supervision of children in the playground, the circumstances in which accident forms should be completed, and the use of climbing frames!’
‘Do you think it’s true, Maggie?’ Angela said. ‘I mean, all this business about Peter Cathcart getting knocked about at Crossgate and no one doing anything about it?’
‘Of course not!’
‘I don’t know so much. There wouldn’t be all this fuss without there being something. Our neighbour’s little girl goes to Crossgate, and she told my mother that Cathie says this Miss Smith wasn’t any good and couldn’t keep order . . .’
‘That doesn’t mean she manhandled the boy!’
‘Well . . .’ Angela was reluctant entirely to discard the notion.
‘Angela, you don’t talk like this at home, do you?’
‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘Because it would be very wrong . . .’
‘All right, Maggie, all right! Don’t you start. Jesus, as if we hadn’t had enough already!’
‘And Mr. Drew can be awkward,’ the typist weighed in. She was middle-aged and felt it necessary to assert her seniority from time to time. ‘My friend’s little girl was at Crossgate and when she came up for the 11+ they were all set to put her down for a free place at the direct grant school, and Mr. Drew told them quite straight that she wouldn’t stand a chance, said she wasn’t suited to that type of course and that it would be unkind to send her there! They were ever so upset. She didn’t pass the 11+ as it happens, but . . .’
‘Then wasn’t it better for him to be honest with them?’
‘It upset them, him not having faith in her. Now, Mr. Nicholson, he’s so good with parents . . .’
‘But Mr. Nicholson’s geese are all swans!’ Maggie protested. ‘Look at all the trouble we have with his parents because he builds their hopes up so much . . .’
‘Still, he’s kind and that does count. He always finds something nice to say in his report . . .’
‘And then the parents come in here waving the reports in front of us!’
‘Just the same, I’ve heard it said that you have to be brilliant to satisfy Mr. Drew.’
‘That’s absurd!’
‘Well, it’s what people say who should know. And I wouldn’t presume to doubt people with first-hand experience,’ the typist said virtuously. ‘I haven’t a child at the school, so I couldn’t possibly presume to say it was absurd.’
Maggie bit her lip. ‘Well, whatever other people may say, it’s very important we don’t say anything. You do realize that, don’t you? You know how that television man tries to twist anything we say to him.’
‘You don’t have to tell me how to behave out of the office. Goodness, I’ve been in business long enough! Real business. Before I came here I was in industry. You had to keep quiet about things in industry.’ She made it sound as though industrial secrets had been her daily portion.
When Maggie had gone, she said to Angela, ‘But just the same, they do say that Mr. Drew is only interested in the bright ones, and this Peter Cathcart is pretty dull.’
‘I expect Maggie’s a bit upset because she’s involved with it all, what with Miss Cathcart complaining about the way she was treated at her interview.’ Angela’s wrath never lasted long.
‘That’s another thing.’ The typist was not so magnanimous. ‘Of course, I’m not saying she said anything she shouldn’t have done, but she is a bit young to interview some of these people. I’ve often thought that if I was in their place I wouldn’t like it. And it’s not as if she looked mature.’
‘My goodness!’ Angela rose to the defence. ‘Where would we be without Maggie always being prepared to help out—you tell me that! And she’s much better with parents than Mr. Punter or Mr. Crocker. All those old biddies from the council estates love her.’
‘Maybe they do.’ The typist gave a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. ‘But never mind. You’re a little young to understand what I mean.’
They turned to their own affairs, the typist thumping the typewriter and Angela the stapler, both thoroughly out of sorts with each other and the office in general.
The television man got through to Chatterton at a quarter to five; he wanted Chatterton to appear on a current affairs programme at ten o’clock that night, but Chatterton refused. Major Rudderham also refused. He was more forthright than Chatterton. ‘Every time anyone tries to open his mouth on your programme, the interviewer jumps down his throat. I’m not going to subject myself to that.’ Miss Kane had no such qualms. It was time, in her view, that something was said and she could think of no one better qualified to say it than herself.
And so, at ten o’clock precisely, Miss Kane was introduced to viewers as the Chairman of the Managing Body of the Eastgate Primary Schools, herself an ex-teacher, and with a long and distinguished career of public service. She glared intimidatingly into the camera while this was going on; she was one of those people who are quite natural in front of a camera, but in her case the effect was not disarming. Angela’s father said she looked a proper schoolma’am, and her brother muttered, ‘shit’ which was his current expression for everything of which he did not positively approve. The interviewer, having finished with Miss Kane herself, then went on to say, ‘. . . and one of the schools in the group of which you are Chairman, Miss Kane, is Crossgate Primary School at which there was rec
ently an incident when a child was hurt falling from a climbing frame . . .’
‘You don’t have to repeat these events to me.’ She called him to order sharply. ‘As Chairman of the Managing Body I know the situation better than you.’
‘I was doing this for the benefit of the viewers who may not be so well-informed . . .’
‘Then they will be less well-informed now. I thought I had been invited here to provide information.’
‘To discuss, Miss Kane, to discuss.’ The correction was accompanied by the good-natured grin for which the interviewer was renowned and which had lulled many an unwary interviewee into a sense of security. ‘We have here on my left, Mr. Kelvin Adamson, who is an expert on educational affairs . . .’
‘Why do you say that he is an expert? This word is used so much by you people nowadays that it has lost all meaning.’
‘Yes, yes . . .’ Good-natured grin and quizzical raising of left eyebrow. ‘Well, now, Miss Kane, we come to the question . . .’
‘But I am serious about this.’ She tapped the table in front of her with a peremptory forefinger. ‘You have told viewers who I am, you have made it clear why I can claim to speak with some authority on this matter; now I think we should have Mr. Kelvin Adamson’s credentials.’
Mr. Kelvin Adamson leant forward and gave her a smile to indicate to viewers that he was not in the least put out. The interviewer said blandly:
‘Mr. Kelvin Adamson is a lecturer at the University of Carlisle; he has written several books on education . . .’
‘Has he ever been a teacher?’
‘No, I think that’s correct, isn’t it, Kelvin? But as a university lecturer . . .’
‘He would have very little idea of what goes on in schools, particularly primary schools.’
‘I accept your dislike of the word expert, Miss Kane,’ Mr. Kelvin Adamson intervened with finely accented Scots good-humour. ‘I shall have no objection if Alan withdraws it.’ They exchanged man-to-man smiles and Miss Kane was seen to mouth ‘Alan!’ contemptuously.
‘Well, now that we’ve got that settled,’ the interviewer chuckled, ‘perhaps I can ask you one or two questions on matters on which you are undoubtedly an expert, Miss Kane.’ He went on smoothly before she had time to acknowledge this sally, ‘The Climbing Frame Affair, as it has come to be known, has raised one or two issues of some importance. Without going into the rights and wrongs of what happened at Crossgate Primary School . . .’
‘My only purpose in appearing on this programme was to go into the rights and wrongs of what happened at Crossgate Primary School,’ Miss Kane pointed out.
‘Very well, if you wish to approach this from the particular, rather than the general . . .’
‘If you want to tackle education from a general angle, you need to have the Secretary of State here,’ she retorted. ‘It is his administration which is at the root of most of our problems today.’
Mr. Kelvin Adamson made a steeple of his fingers and pursed his lips.
The interviewer humoured her. ‘Then perhaps we could have your views on what happened at Crossgate Primary School?’
‘It isn’t a question of people having views—too many people’s views have been brought into this. It is a question of fact. A small boy misbehaved during a games period in the playground; he was told to stand to one side until he could behave better, instead of which he went away and mounted the climbing frame. When he was asked to get down, he simply loosed his hold and came down rather fast. And that is all that happened. Why anything more should have been made out of this simple, everyday occurrence is beyond my comprehension.’
‘But the mother complained . . .’
‘My dear man, you must have complaints from viewers daily, and you will know that some of them are justified and some are not . . .’
‘And who decides . . .’
Miss Kane raised her voice, ‘. . . there can hardly be an adult person watching this programme who is not in some kind of work where at one time or another they come up against an unjustified complaint.’
‘I repeat, who decides whether the complaint is justified?’
‘Who decides whether a complaint about your programme is justified? The B.B.G.—you don’t ask for a referendum from the general public. And if a complaint is made to a newspaper, who decides whether that is justified? The editor, of course. So what is so unusual about a local education authority deciding whether or not a complaint against a school is justified?’
‘Schools are dealing with human beings, young human beings . . .’
‘And the people who are tried and found guilty on your programme are human beings.’
‘Now, Miss Kane; you really can’t get away with this kind of talk. No one is tried and found guilty on this programme. We are merely trying to establish facts, and if you would give them to us rather than make general accusations . . .’
‘But why should you demand facts in this godlike way? Why is it so difficult for you to accept that other people, who are in possession of the facts, and whose work is closely connected with the issues at stake, cannot interpret them correctly?’
‘Just because their work is closely connected with the issues at stake.’ Quietly, and with wry amusement.
‘So what you are saying,’ Miss Kane was not amused, ‘is that no one in authority can be trusted to deal with even the most minor complaint relating to their own field of activity?’
‘No.’ Patiently spelling it out for her. ‘I am merely making the point that they may be too close to events to see all the implications; that there may, in fact,’ raising his voice, ‘sometimes be a need for a fresh mind to be brought to bear on the subject.’
‘I would have thought,’ Mr. Kelvin Adamson spoke from his lonely eminence on the left of the interviewer, ‘that this was the kind of case which might well have been referred to an ombudsman, and that it supports the view that the area of local government should not have been excluded from his province.’
‘If he is going to deal with the case of every child who falls over in a playground, I pity him. But I should certainly have no objection to that—provided the country can afford it.’
‘Your objection is to the publicity which has been involved, is it not?’ Mr. Kelvin Adamson was determined to raise the level of debate. ‘It is a question, a serious question, how we can balance the need to be vigilant with the danger to the individual of undue publicity . . .’
‘Why do we have to be so vigilant with each other?’ Miss Kane demanded. ‘Why do you feel that it is so important that I should suspect your motives and that you should suspect mine and that we should all feel the need to have one another’s work constantly under review?’
‘Now, Miss Kane, you are putting words into . . .’
‘Don’t you think we might all work a little better if there was more trust and appreciation, and less criticism and ill-informed abuse?’
‘Really, this is wild exaggeration . . .’
‘No, it isn’t. We all suffer from it. All students are wasting the country’s money, all university lecturers are unproductive, all politicians are corrupt, all workers are idle, and the people in the town hall drink tea all day. This is the way we think about each other. Respect has become a dirty word. And this programme is as guilty as any in bringing this about.’
‘Miss Kane.’ The interviewer claimed the respect due to his authority. ‘At the beginning of this discussion you reminded me, rather forcefully, that you had agreed to be on this programme to talk about what happened at Crossgate Primary School. So far you have given us no facts at all.’ He stressed each separate word severely.
‘I have told you that there is no truth whatsoever in the mother’s statement. I can add to that that the matter has been thoroughly investigated. It would not be in the interests of the mother and the child for me to say any more.’
‘Miss Kane, are you saying . . .?’
‘I am not saying any more.’
‘You would neverthel
ess appear to be corroborating the somewhat immoderate statement made by the Head Master . . .’
‘I would remind you of the circumstances in which that statement was made. The Head Master discovered the journalist in question attempting to put words into the mouths of a group of children of ages ranging from five to seven! I hardly think that that was an occasion for moderation.’
‘Nevertheless,’ with his eye on the clock, ‘I must press you on this point . . .’
‘I came here to make statements of my own, Mr. Interviewer, not to comment on those made by other people. But I will say that I support the Head Master entirely in this affair.’
‘And that will be no help to him!’ Wicks commented as the camera moved away from the three contestants. ‘People will have enjoyed her performance because it is time that someone had a crack at Alan Perry; but they will be thinking what a formidable woman she is, and that they wouldn’t like to be the parent whose complaint is heard by her.’ His wife went on with her knitting without raising her head, her lips moving soundlessly as she repeated the pattern to herself. Wicks went to telephone Rudderham and commiserate with him. ‘Too clever by half, our Jean,’ he said aloud as he dialled Rudderham’s number.
‘She won’t have won us any friends by that,’ Chatterton thought. ‘Too cavalier for today’s tastes.’
He switched off the set, but could not so easily switch off his own brain. He had always had great control over his mind, his historical researches demanded discipline. But history was a patient task master, perhaps that was why he liked it so much; that, and the fact that the perspective was right. All this was too close. The whole of life lately seemed to be lived in close-up.
‘Are you coming to bed?’ his wife asked him.
‘I must look through one or two reports first.’
She said, ‘I think you’re working too hard.’ But she did not make much of it; she was too close to see clearly what was happening to him. The deterioration had been gradual and had been most marked in his written work of which she was no judge. The fact that sometimes lately when he was talking he had difficulty in finding the right word to express his meaning, she put down to absent-mindedness. Most of her married life she had been aware that for a great part of their time together his mind was not on her; she had learnt to accept this and to make the most of what he had to give her. Now, she went to the kitchen to make cocoa and left him to his work. She was kind, undemanding, considerate, but not imaginative.
