The Heart of the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Mi dad passed schoil on Sunday neet and all t’lights were still on. It were like Blackpool Hilluminations, mi dad said. ’Appen t’teachers were markin’ t’books and tidyin’ up and mekkin’ things shit-shape for thy visit.’

  ‘Ship-shape,’ I corrected. ‘It’s ship-shape.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The school.’

  ‘Aye, it looks a lot berrer than it usually does. There’s never much on t’walls usually ’cept what Mester ’Arrison puts up. He’s all reight, Mester ’Arrison. ’E’s from t’south, tha knaas. Reight difficult to know what ’e’s on abaat sometimes though. ’E’s not from these parts.’

  The boy made a move but then he stopped in his tracks to add with a broad smile. ‘I think Missis Battersby’s really looking forward to thy visit.’

  ‘Really?’ I doubted that very much.

  ‘Aye. I ’eard ’er telling Missis Sidebottom that tha were comin’ in today. She said that was all she needed. ’Appen that’s why she’s ’ad ’er ’air done special.’

  ‘Before you go,’ I said, ‘you might like to tell me your name.’

  ‘Well, mi mam an’ dad calls me Charlie but mi teacher, she calls me Charles.’

  ‘And what shall I call you?’

  ‘Tha can suit thissen,’ he said. ‘I’ll answer to owther.’

  ‘Tell me, Charlie, what is your account about?’

  ‘Tha what?’

  ‘The piece of writing you are finishing, about what you did over the weekend. What is it about?’

  ‘Oh, that. Me an’ mi brother ’elped mi dad castrate three bullocks.’ With a cheerful wave, the boy returned to his desk leaving the Inspector of Schools with open mouth and completely lost for words.

  Following the break, I joined Mrs Battersby’s class and met young Charlie again.

  ‘Hey up, Mester Phinn,’ he said as I entered the classroom.

  ‘Hello, Charlie,’ I replied.

  ‘It’s Mester Phinn, miss,’ Charlie informed her enthusiastically, pointing at me. ‘I’ve met ’im.’

  ‘I do have eyes, Charles,’ said the teacher. ‘It’s nice to see you, Mr Phinn,’ she said unconvincingly.

  It was clear by her demeanour that Mrs Battersby was far from happy to see me. My report of her lesson on the last visit had been critical so I could hardly expect to be received like the Prodigal Son, and was therefore prepared for the tight-lipped and solemn countenance.

  ‘Sit down, Charles,’ instructed the teacher. ‘You’re jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box with fleas.’ There was a slight tremble in her voice.

  ‘Good morning, children,’ I said brightly.

  ‘Mornin’, Mester Phinn,’ they replied in unison.

  ‘So you’ve met Charles,’ said the teacher, raising a hand to her throat where a small red nervous rash was appearing. ‘Quite a little character, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve had an interesting conversation.’

  She glanced at the boy disapprovingly and looked quite disconcerted. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, we were having a little chatter at break time,’ I said.

  ‘When he should have been completing his work,’ said the teacher. ‘Charles has a great deal to say for himself, Mr Phinn, as I imagine you discovered. He does so like to chatter.’ She emphasised the final word. ‘I hope that he behaved himself and didn’t speak out of turn.’

  ‘Oh no, he was very polite,’ I told her. Charlie’s face broke into a wide smile and there was a hint of mischief in his bright eyes. ‘We were talking about the Great Fire of London and I was admiring your display.’

  Mrs Battersby’s face coloured a little and she gave a thin smile. ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ she said. ‘Sometimes children tend to say the wrong thing. I always say to their parents that if they don’t believe everything their children say about me then I won’t believe everything that their children say about them.’ She gave a small agitated laugh.

  Mrs Battersby was a dumpy, sharp-eyed woman of indeterminate age, and wearing a bright pink turtleneck jumper and heavy grey shapeless skirt. To complete the ensemble she sported a large rope of amber beads and heavy brown brogues. I smiled inwardly when I caught sight of the carefully permed hair and recalled the conversation shortly before with young Charlie.

  During the lesson, the children worked quietly, copying up their accounts of their weekend activities. Mrs Batters by sat at her desk and a small queue of readers formed to read to her from their books. As I wandered around the classroom talking to the children and examining their work, the teacher constantly looked up and watched my progress with small black suspicious eyes.

  The first child to whom I spoke, a stout girl called Ruby, was only too pleased to show me her book. It was neat and contained some interesting stories, poems and language exercises but the teacher had been very heavy-handed with the marking pen. There was so much red on it that it looked as if someone with a nosebleed had leaned over the page.

  ‘We usually have the Leprosy Hour every Thursday after break,’ she told me confidentially, ‘but we’ve got to finish our account of what we did over the weekend.’

  ‘Whatever is the Leprosy Hour?’ I asked mystified.

  ‘It’s really called the Literacy Hour,’ the girl told me, ‘but miss calls it the Leprosy Hour because she hates it. When Mr Harrison came, he said we all had to do an hour of English and maths every morning because we needed to get better at writing and number work. We have the Innumeracy Hour as well.’

  ‘I see. So what is your account about?’ I asked, pulling her exercise book towards me.

  ‘Well,’ replied the girl, swivelling around to face me, ‘I’m writing about what I did on Saturday.’

  ‘And what did you do on Saturday?’ I asked.

  ‘I helped my Grandpa Morrison build a drystone wall.’

  ‘Really? That sounds very interesting.’

  ‘Do you know anything about drystone walling?’ she asked.

  ‘I do, as a matter of fact,’ I told her. ‘At the cottage in Hawksrill where I live I had a drystone wall built at the bottom of the garden. The man who built it for me –’

  ‘Who was it?’ interrupted the child.

  ‘His name was Tom Fields.’

  ‘I’ll ask my Grandpa Morrison if he knows him,’ she said. ‘He knows most of the wallers around here. Go on, then.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You were telling me about your drystone wall.’

  ‘Well, Tom told me a little bit about how drystone walls are built. For example, how the fields around where I live were all walled at one time but when they fall down, the farmers usually replace the wall with fencing. Sometimes they use bits of the old wall to patch somewhere else.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ agreed the girl. ‘So how high is your wall, because they vary, you know.’

  ‘Tom told me it would be high enough to keep out the sheep and low enough not to spoil my lovely view. I suppose it must be about four feet high.’

  ‘We usually work in metres these days,’ Ruby told me in the manner of a teacher correcting a child who had answered a question wrongly. ‘So how long is it?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be looking at your work, Ruby,’ I said pleasantly, and then I winked. ‘And I’m usually the one who asks the questions.’

  The child’s account was clear and detailed. She described how at six thirty on the Saturday morning she had got ‘kitted out’ in old jeans, woollen jacket, boots (with metal toe caps) and a large pair of leather gloves, and had set off with her grandfather and two of his friends in the Land Rover to repair a hundred-year-old wall on the estate of Lord Marrick. First she had helped when the men dug a trench, pulling out the roots. They had then neatly stacked the small stones called ‘heartings’ that would be used later to packthe centre of the wall. The base of the wall, she wrote, was usually twice the width of the top layer otherwise the whole lot would collapse. ‘If the wall is built properly, it
will last for 150 years.’ She described how the heavy stones had been put in place first and finally the copestones had been packed tightly on the top which gave the finished wall added strength and height – ‘but they were too heavy for me to lift up that high,’ she wrote.

  ‘It’s really like doing a big jigsaw puzzle,’ she told me. ‘If my Grandpa Morrison can’t get a stone just right, he sometimes pushes it in really hard and says, ‘Get in, tha bugger!’ and then says, ‘Pardon mi French.”’ She giggled. ‘My Grandpa Morrison says that drystone walls make cosy homes for all sorts of creatures – voles, wizzles, lizards, slow-worms, hedgepigs, toads, spiders and bees – so they’re very important. You also get mosses and foxgloves and wrens and wheatears. Did you know that?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said. What a confident girl I thought and what an amazing account.

  After Ruby, I headed for another desk but was cut off by Charlie. ‘Mester Phinn, come an’ ’ave a look at mi book. I’ve just finished.’

  I was not particularly interested to read about the boy’s morning spent castrating bullocks so I told him I would look later. He would not, however, let me get away so lightly.

  ‘I’m gerrin a book for mi birthday next week,’ he told me. ‘A big un. I’m mad on books.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear it,’ I said. ‘So am I.’

  ‘Are tha?’

  ‘I am,’ I told him. ‘There’s nothing better than a book.’

  ‘Tha’s reight theer, Mester Phinn.’

  I arrived at another desk but Charlie followed me and thrust his face into min

  ‘Mi dad says I can go wi’ ’im and choose one for missen.’

  ‘So how many books have you got already?’ I asked. ‘

  None.’

  ‘None?’

  ‘It’s mi first,’ announced the boy. ‘’As tha any books then, Mester Phinn?’

  ‘Lots and lots of them. My house is full of them.’

  ‘Do yer keep ’em in tha ’ouse?’ He looked astonished by this revelation.

  ‘I do, yes. I have a special room where I keep all my books.’

  ‘How many ’as tha got?’

  ‘Hundreds.’

  ‘’Undreds! Gerron!’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘Where do you pur ’em all?’

  ‘On the shelves.’

  The boy threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’ve just cottoned on,’ he said. ‘Tha talkin’ about books what you read, aren’t tha?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘

  Well, I’m on abaat bucks what ya breed – male rabbits!’

  I shook my head and laughed too.

  ‘Something appears to have amused you both.’ Mrs Battersby had materialised at our side with an expression like the wicked fairy at the christening feast.

  ‘We were just discussin’ bucks, miss,’ Charlie told her.

  ‘Well, you can fetch your book now, Charles, because it’s your turn to read to me.’ Mrs Battersby turned to me. ‘Charles’s reading leaves a lot to be desired, I’m afraid, Mr Phinn. Too much television, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  I felt like saying something but I bit my lip. It would wait until later.

  I found Hyacinth poring over a large picture book at her desk.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  The girl wiped her nose with the back of a finger and eyed me apprehensively.

  ‘Let’s see what you are doing, shall we?’ She didn’t object as I slid her reading book across the desk and started to examine it.

  ‘Is it a good book?’ I asked.

  She eyed me suspiciously but didn’t answer.

  ‘Would you like to read a little of your book to me?’ I asked.

  She shook her head, gazing at me now with unabashed intensity. She wiped her nose on her finger again and then told me in a loud voice, ‘I’m special needs.’ Perhaps she thought that this revelation might convince me to leave her in peace. When I didn’t move, she added, ‘Don’t you know? I’m special needs.’

  ‘I do, but what do you think it means, special needs?’

  ‘If you know what it means, why are you askin’?’

  It was a fair question. ‘So, will you read to me?’

  ‘Are you the infector?’ she asked.

  ‘Inspector,’ I replied.

  ‘What’s t’difference?’

  I thought of the earlier comment from Ruby about the Leprosy Hour. I reckoned her teacher would not have considered that there was much difference between the two words.

  The girl reluctantly read to me, slowly and with fierce concentration on her face, her finger following each word on the page. There was no expression in her voice and not once did she pause for breath but read on, determined to get the ordeal over and done with.

  ‘Hyacinth,’ I said, when she snapped the book shut, ‘that was very good, but what do you do when you come to a full stop?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When you get to a full stop, what do you do?’

  She eyed me like an expert in the presence of an ignoramus. ‘You gerroff t’bus,’ she replied.

  I chuckled. ‘Of course you do,’ I said.

  She shook her head again and I saw a slight tremble on her bottom lip. ‘Are you goin’ to put me in a special school?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I told her.

  ‘I don’t want to go in no special school.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her. ‘I’m just here to look at your book, to hear you read and to see how you are getting on.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. Then, after a moment’s thought she sniffed noisily, ran the full length of her index finger across the bottom of her nose and asked me, ‘So, what are you for?’

  Before I left the school at the end of the morning, I spoke to both the teachers, one after the other, before seeing the head teacher. Incomprehension crept across Mrs Battersby’s face when I gave her the feedback on her lesson and my assessment of the work in the pupils’ books. This soon turned to a wary resentful look.

  ‘Goodness knows, I try my best,’ she told me, shuffling uncomfortably in her wing-backed armchair. ‘And let’s be fair. You can’t expect a lot from these children. I can’t be expected to make silk purses out of pigs’ ears. I mean, they’re not going to end up brain surgeons or nuclear scientists, are they now? They’re country children and all they’re interested in are sheep, cattle, pigs and farming. All they want to do when they leave their senior school is work on their parents’ farms and that’s all their parents want them to do as well. It’s a losing battle getting them to write about anything other than about farm animals.’

  ‘That is my point, Mrs Battersby,’ I told her. ‘I think your expectation of these children is too low and the work they are expected to do lacks challenge and variety.’

  She gave me a brief hostile glance. ‘I believe in discipline, Mr Phinn,’ she informed me brusquely. ‘Give them an inch, and they take a mile. Some of these children can be very difficult. They were well behaved because you were in today and they know how to turn it on for visitors. Take Charles, for instance. He can be a real nuisance at times.’ The teacher was now looking decidedly resentful. ‘And another thing, I don’t know how you can judge anything after seeing just one lesson and talking to a few children.’

  I reminded her that I had observed her teaching before and explained that I had examined the children’s books and looked at their test results, and had also spoken to the head teacher who had expressed his concern about her work. I told her that I therefore felt my comments were valid.

  ‘Well,’ she said, with a slight smirk, ‘and I make no bones about it when I tell you, everybody thinks it was a mistake to have appointed Mr Harrison. He’s a southerner and doesn’t understand our ways.’

  The reaction of Mrs Battersby’s colleague to my comments was aggressively defiant. Mrs Sidebottom sat before me tight-lipped, straight-backed and steely-eyed with her thin hands clasped on her lap and her thin legs clamped together. As diplomatically as
possible, I told her that, in my opinion, it was misguided to try and change the children’s natural way of speaking with one lesson a week in which they chanted doggerel. Children, I informed her, should not be expected to leave the language of the home at the wrought-iron gates of the school and speak some kind of artificial argot.

  ‘There is a widely held misconception,’ I said, ‘that dialect is a corrupt form of what people imagine to be normal English. Far from being a deviation of the standard form of the language, dialect is an earlier form of English and has its own vocabulary, syntax and grammar. Children do need to learn standard forms of English but trying to change their accents is undesirable.’

  She gave me a glance like broken glass. ‘Mr Phinn,’ she said with slow deliberation in her voice, ‘I do not intend to sit here and listen to a lecture on the English language. I am of the considered opinion, formed over many years, I have to say, that it is my job to eradicate the slovenly, lazy and inaccurate way the children speak. You may call it dialect if you wish. I call it bad English.’

  I then ceased to be tactful and told her straight that I was surprised and, indeed, very disappointed that very few of my recommendations contained in my last report had been addressed, and that I was not impressed with what I had seen that morning.

  The teacher’s eyes bulged in indignation and her lips drooped in obvious displeasure. I rather expected a spirited defence of her teaching but Mrs Sidebottom glanced up at the clock on the wall and, with an air of ingrained disapproval, informed me that it was her lunch hour and it was in her contract that she should have a one-hour break in the middle of the day.

  As I saw her head for the door, I knew it would prove very difficult to dismiss such a teacher. The more I thought about it, the more I was reminded of the words of Mr Nelson, the headmaster of King Henry’s College in Brindcliffe. When, the previous year, I broached the possibility of instituting disciplinary proceedings against a member of his staff, he had leaned back in his chair and remarked: ‘As you will be well aware, it is very difficult to do anything about a teacher in terms of disciplinary action unless he runs off with a sixth-form girl or steals the dinner money.’