A voice interrupted my reverie. ‘Someone’s in a good mood.’
Julie tottered in, cradling a large mug of coffee in her hands. I watched her as she carefully set down the mug in front of me and then perched on the end of my desk. She looked as if she was off to a disco in her bright red top, incredibly short, tight-fitting black skirt, long, dangling metallic earrings and the ridiculously high-heeled patent leather shoes she was so fond of wearing. Julie, with her bubbly blonde hair, cheerful good humour and incessant chatter, was guaranteed to brighten up the dullest of days.
She had left school at sixteen with few qualifications and had secured a position in the post room at County Hall doing general and largely undemanding jobs: franking letters, filing, photocopying, taking messages. Then, when a flu epidemic had hit County Hall and half the ancillary staff had been off ill, Julie had been dragooned in temporarily to man the telephones and take on some extra duties. That was when she had come to the attention of Harold Yeats. Harold had been greatly impressed by the young woman’s verve, energy and cheerful good nature, and by her willingness to tackle whatever came her way. She was funny, forthright and strong-minded. Just the sort of person, Harold had thought, to cope with the school inspectors who were reputedly not the easiest of people with whom to work. This was a couple of years before I had come to County Hall and the inspectors’ secretary at the time, I had been told, was the rather serious and nervous Miss – ‘a martyr to my joints’ – Pruitt. She was due to retire (and not before time from what my colleagues in the office had said) and Harold had persuaded Dr Gore, the Chief Education Officer, to assign Julie to our office as the clerical assistant to learn the ropes. Julie had enrolled on a secretarial course, surprised everyone, including herself, by achieving high grades and when Miss Pruitt had retired she had stepped into her shoes, metaphorically speaking, of course. There was no possibility whatsoever of Julie ever wearing a pair of Miss P’s sensible court shoes. She was much more at home in her red stilettos.
Not only was Julie cheerful, hard working and efficient, she was also extremely loyal and highly discreet. Nothing she read in the school reports she had to type, or anything she heard confided over the telephone, ever went outside the office. Her telephone manner sometimes left a little to be desired – she could be as blunt as a sledgehammer but we all thought the world of Julie and valued the work she did.
‘So come on, then,’ she said now, resting her hands behind her on the desk and leaning back like a model posing for a photograph. ‘What’s tickled you?’
When I had told her the saga of the nun and the condom she looked at me quizzically. She clearly did not feel it was quite as funny as I. ‘You would have thought, in this day and age, she’d have known what a condom was.’
‘Julie, she’s a nun, for goodness sake!’ I exclaimed. ‘When would a nun come across a condom?’
‘I thought everybody knew what one was. You can’t get away from them. I mean, my little nephew, Kenny, is only nine and he knows what one is. I overheard him and his friend last week in the garden. The other little boy was telling our Kenny that he’d found a condom on the patio. Our Kenny asked him what a “patio” was. I suppose it’s all this sex education at school. We were never told anything.’ She stood up and straightened her skirt. ‘We were very naïve.’ That, I thought to myself, was a trifle difficult to believe. ‘We had to find out the facts of life in the corner of the playground and then most of what we learnt wasn’t true. We thought you got babies through kissing. What are you staring at?’
‘Nothing,’ I chuckled. ‘You see, Julie, nuns are very innocent and unworldly. They’re not like other people.’
‘Well, that Sister Brendan at St Bartholomew’s is about as innocent and unworldly as Al Capone. I bet she knows what a condom is.’
‘Yes, I think Sister Brendan would, but she’s a rather different kettle of fish. She’s worked in the slums of South America and the inner cities and has seen more of life than most of us. I have an idea the nun at Our Lady of Lourdes has spent all of her childhood in rural Ireland and all her adult life in a convent, so she is still one of life’s innocents. Her lack of worldly knowledge is quite endearing.’
‘I once went as a nun to a fancy dress party,’ Julie told me. ‘But that long habit got in the way.’
‘Got in the way of what?’ I asked, dreading what she might answer.
‘My dancing. I had to take it off in the end. It was really hot as well and made me itch.’
‘Well, I suppose Sister Marie-Thérèse has got used to it by now,’ I said. ‘And I shouldn’t imagine she will be doing much dancing.’
‘I couldn’t be a nun,’ said Julie, examining her long nails.
‘No,’ I replied, looking at the vision in red and black, ‘you couldn’t. Well, not in that outfit anyway.’
‘What’s wrong with this outfit?’
‘Oh nothing. It looks… er… very becoming.’
‘It’s my power-dressing combination, if you must know. Red and black are strong primary colours, you see. I’ve just read this magazine article all about it. The clothes you wear say a lot about you and the different colours give off different messages. Red warns of potential danger. Black means strength. It says to people: “Don’t you mess with me, mate, or you’ll get a smack in the face.” If you want to appear really nice, you wear pastel colours, light browns and greens and pale yellows. I’ve not got any outfits like that.’
Such an assertion really didn’t hold water when one thought of the impregnable Mrs McPhee in her tight-fitting wheat-coloured turtleneck sweater, heavy brown skirt, dark woollen stockings and substantial shoes.
‘So, why do you want to be power-dressed this afternoon?’ I asked. ‘Is there something special on?’
‘Yes, there is, as a matter of fact. I need to be assertive when I meet Lady Macbeth shortly.’
‘Mrs Savage,’ I sighed.
‘The very same.’
Mrs Brenda Savage, Personal Assistant to Dr Gore, was the bane of Julie’s, the inspectors’ and most other people’s lives. She was a strikingly elegant looking woman of an indeterminate age but could be extremely prickly and unpredictable, and had her long nails in every pie around. We all felt she had been promoted way beyond her intelligence and capabilities. Mrs Savage had a fearsome reputation, an acerbic manner, and could curdle milk with one of her sour stares.
‘Why are you seeing Mrs Savage?’ I asked.
‘We’ve got a meeting on “Health and Safety in the Work-place” and she’s been put in charge. Goodness knows why. She’s a danger to everyone’s health, the stress she causes. Anyway, no sooner has she been given the job, but she’s produced this set of wretched guidelines and all the office and ancillary staff are going to have to sit and listen to her giving us one of her endless lectures. She’s only been on a one-day course, for goodness sake, and now she thinks she knows everything there is to know about health and safety in the workplace. It’ll be the school inspectors’ turn next, so you can take that cheesy smile off your face. She sounds like Mussolini in knickers when she gets started, sticking out her chin, stabbing the air with those sharp witch’s nails and laying down the law. Anyway, I must be off. The meeting will have started. I’m going to make a dramatic entrance and I’m determined to be really assertive. She’s not treating me like something she’s discovered on the sole of her designer shoes.’
‘I’m surprised you’re not in combat trousers and army boots,’ I told her, still smiling. ‘You sound more aggressive than assertive.’
‘Well, that woman brings out the worst in me, she really does,’ said Julie. ‘When you’ve finished that report, pop it on my desk and I’ll get on with it tomorrow. Oh, and you’ve had a lot of telephone calls, and I mean a lot. All the details are on the pad in my office. Mostly from people you know but there was a call from a really loud man, nearly deafened me shouting down the phone, wanting to speak to you urgently but he wouldn’t leave his name or number. Said he’d call b
ack. See you tomorrow.’ With that Julie tottered for the door.
I returned to the report. ‘The school is a bright, welcoming and cheerful building, enhanced by interesting and colourful displays,’ I re-read but got no further. The sound of argumentative voices wafting up from the bottom of the stairs signalled the imminent arrival of two of my colleagues. I threw down my pen.
A moment later Sidney breezed in followed by David. You would be hard pressed to find two people so entirely different in appearance: the one a burly, bearded figure with a thick head of woolly hair, rather like a friendly old lion, the other a small, dark-complexioned man with a close-shaven face and black eyebrows which seemed to fly outwards like wings. As usual, they were in the middle of an animated discussion.
‘I might have predicted that you would take a contrary view,’ Sidney was saying irritably. He dropped his briefcase on the nearest desk, flopped in a chair and leaned back. ‘Good after-noon, Gervase. David is being perverse again.’
‘Good afternoon,’ I said.
‘Yes, good afternoon, Gervase,’ said David, hanging up his coat. ‘I am not taking a contrary view, Sidney. I have a great deal of sympathy with what you say. I am merely attempting to put things into some sort of perspective.’
‘About what?’ I asked.
‘About art, what else?’ sighed David, settling behind his desk. He turned his attention to me. ‘He’s miffed because the headmaster of West Challerton High School has decided to reduce the amount of time on the curriculum for creative and visual arts.’
‘I hardly think “miffed” is the most appropriate description,’ said Sidney angrily. ‘ “Irate”, “incensed”, “enraged”, “furious”, might be more fitting to describe how I feel, but hardly “miffed”.’ Sidney swivelled around in his chair to face me. ‘I arrived at West Challerton to find that insufferable new headmaster Mr double-barrelled Smith outrageously rude and dismissive. He kept me waiting for half an hour and then said he could only spare me a few minutes. I then discover, when I speak to the head of the Art and Design Department, that Mr double-barrelled Smith has castrated creative and visual arts to give more time to mathematics and science!’
‘He’s a great one for changes is Mr Pennington-Smith,’ I said. I recalled when the man in question had become headmaster the previous year. One of his first innovations had been to produce a showy school brochure packed with glossy colour photographs, ambitious aims and long lists of examination successes and sporting achievements. His predecessor, Mr Blunt (‘Blunt by name and blunt by nature’) had not been one for anything fancy but he ran a very good school. A great many changes took place at West Challerton when Mr Pennington-Smith arrived and few had been for the better.
‘The man is a philistine and a poltroon,’ said Sidney. His voice was now squeaky and petulant, like a child who is suddenly forbidden an ice-cream. ‘He is the Dr Goebbels of the educational world.’
‘What’s Dr Goebbels got to do with it?’ asked David.
‘It was Goebbels who said: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.” If I had had a gun I would have reached for it when he dropped the bombshell. The headmaster of West Challerton High School is the self-opinionated, prosaic and cultureless Dr Goebbels of the educational world, and the savaging of the creative and visual arts is quite frankly scandalous.’
‘I take it you had a run in with Mr Pennington-Smith?’ I observed.
‘Something of an understatement, Gervase,’ Sidney told me angrily. ‘As I said, I visited West Challerton this afternoon on a routine visit to look at the Art and Design Department to find the headmaster had “realigned his priorities”, as he put it, for this academic year. I felt like “realigning his priorities”, I can tell you! No consultation with the head of department or myself. He just made “an executive decision” as he termed it. When I demanded to see him at the end of the afternoon, do you know what he said?’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘but I can hazard a guess.’
‘He said he had no time to discuss it with me and, in any case, it had been decided. None of the more able pupils would be studying art in the future and the rest, the less academic, would only have two periods a week. Two periods, I ask you! He then had the brass neck to tell me that, in his considered opinion, art decorated the margins of the more serious business of study, that it was not a proper academic discipline anyway and that it had very little relevance in the modern world of science and technology. I’m just bereft of words. Speechless.’
‘Well, there’s a first!’ remarked David, removing his spectacles and polishing them with the end of his tie.
‘Don’t you think you are rather over-reacting, Sidney?’ I said. ‘You make it sound as if Armageddon is on us.’
Sidney slammed his fist on his desk. ‘No, I am not over-reacting, as you put it. How would you feel if English were described as “decorating the margins of the more serious business of study” and reduced to a mere two periods a week?’
‘But English, like mathematics, is a core subject,’ I said. ‘There is a difference.’
‘So English and maths are more important? Well, I can see I’m to get precious little support from my colleagues,’ blustered Sidney, rising from his chair. ‘We will see what Harold has to say about it.’
‘Leave the poor man alone,’ said David. ‘You know how busy he is at the moment.’
‘Not at all!’ said Sidney, heading for the door. ‘I shall have a few well-chosen words to say to Harold, I can tell you.’
‘And what will they be?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I haven’t chosen them yet,’ replied Sidney, making a grand exit.
‘You get worse, Sidney,’ I shouted after him.
With Sidney’s dramatic departure, peace descended on the office. When the clock on the County Hall tower struck six o’clock, I surveyed my empty desk with great satisfaction. The report on Our Lady of Lourdes School was finished and ready for Julie to type up, the batch of letters I had received that day had all been answered, the questionnaire from the Ministry of Education on boys’ under-achievement in English had been completed and I had even made a good start at planning next month’s English course. I had managed to deal with all the telephone messages save for the one from the very loud individual who wished to speak to me urgently but who had not left a number. I sat back in my chair and sighed with contentment. Life was good.
‘You appear remarkably pleased with yourself,’ said David, looking up and staring over the top of his spectacles. ‘You look like the Cheshire cat that has got the cream.’
‘Well, I am pretty pleased with myself, if truth be told,’ I replied. ‘This term has started off really well. The school visits have gone smoothly and I have all my paperwork under control.’
‘Well, long may it continue,’ said David, ‘but be warned. In my experience, there is always something or somebody who manages to spoil one’s equilibrium when things seem to be going really well. Everything appears to be perfect and then disaster! You are cycling along a country lane on a bright summer’s day without a care in the world. The birds are singing, the sun is shining, the fresh wind is blowing through your hair and suddenly somebody pushes a thundering great stick through your spokes and you’re over the handlebars and flat on your face.’
This was one of David’s favourite aphorisms. ‘Ah, well,’ I said smiling, ‘I think it is highly remote that anyone will push a stick though my spokes at the moment. Only one more school visit this week, and then a conference on Friday.’
‘And where are you tomorrow?’ asked David.
‘King Henry’s College,’ I replied. ‘It’s just a routine visit. I should have been before now really but from what I’ve read about the school, things in the English department seem to be fine.’
‘Ah, your first introduction to the Admiral.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Nelson, the headmaster. Known as the Admiral. You know, Horatio Nelson.’
‘Do I detect a certain o
minous tone to your voice?’ I asked.
‘Not at all,’ said David. ‘The headmaster of King Henry’s is an amiable enough sort of chap, easy going, a little complacent perhaps. But try and get him to make a decision, give an opinion or take a stand on anything and you will wait until the proverbial cows come home. He’s the sort of person who nails his colours firmly to the fence. He’s all for a quiet life is Mr Nelson and, like his namesake, is a great one for turning a blind eye when it suits him.’
‘Well, I can’t say he was over-keen on my visiting, that’s for sure,’ I said. ‘He didn’t sound particularly easy going and complacent to me. I wrote informing him that I would be spending a day with the English department and he tried his hardest to put me off. I can’t think why because, as I explained to him, it’s just a routine visit, not part of a full inspection. From the details I asked him to send, the English department seems to be in a healthy state. The examination results are good and –’
‘So they should be,’ interrupted David. ‘It’s a highly selective school. You have to have a PhD to pass the entrance examination at King Henry’s. If the teachers cannot get good results from that calibre of student, they might as well pack their bags and go home. And speaking of going home, it’s about time we made tracks. I really don’t want to be here when Sidney returns. I couldn’t bear another diatribe about Mr Pennington-Smith and the state of the art at West Challerton High School.’
‘He did rather over-react, don’t you think?’ I said. ‘Rushing off to see Harold like that.’
‘Ah well, to be fair,’ said David, ‘there was rather more to it than just having the art reduced. Evidently Pennington-Smith refused to discuss the situation and when Sidney said he would make a return visit to inspect the department in a couple of weeks’ time, he told him it was pointless and he need not bother. He virtually ordered him off the premises. I’m afraid that that particular headmaster has to learn that he cannot just suddenly change the curriculum on a whim. Every student is entitled to a broad and balanced range of subjects. What’s more, he can’t prevent school inspectors from visiting his school. The law says we have rights of entry. I think Sidney is hoping Harold will convey this fact to Mr Pennington-Smith in no uncertain terms.’
Up and Down in the Dales Page 3
