My attempt to change the subject fell on stony ground for Mr Frobisher continued regardless. ‘The beginning of term is always rather fraught and Thursday is always an inconvenient day for me for I am on corridor patrol at morning and afternoon breaks, I supervise a detention at lunch-time and I am on bus duty after school.’ He looked at me as if anticipating a reply. ‘So –’
I stood firm. ‘I would still like to stay,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps we could make a start?’
‘Very well,’ said Mr Frobisher loftily, glancing in the direction of the headmaster, as if to enlist his support, before turning his attention back to me. ‘I trust you received the various details you requested – examination results, schemes of work, syllabuses, staffing complement, et cetera. I hope the programme I have devised for you to follow is acceptable.’ He did not await an answer. ‘I think you are to start with Mr Poppleton, the second-in-charge of the department, and his fifth year form.’
‘I did receive them, thank you, Mr Frobisher,’ I replied amicably, ‘but I have planned a programme for the day. I do prefer to work from one of my own.’
‘One of your own?’ he repeated, bristling like an angry cat. ‘You mean you roam freely between classes?’
‘Yes, that is the usual practice. I try to visit all the teachers and see as wide a range of lessons as possible, taking the opportunity of talking to the students and looking at their work.’
‘Well, it seems quite irregular to me. Do you mean the teachers will not know when you are visiting their lessons to observe them?’ He turned again to face the headmaster, obviously hoping this time he would come to his defence. When this was not forthcoming, he swivelled back to face me.
‘I generally start with the head of department,’ I said. ‘I noticed you did not include yourself on the programme you sent me, Mr Frobisher.’
‘Surely, you do not wish to see me teach?’ He looked appalled. ‘I am the head of faculty.’
‘Yes, I am aware of that,’ I said pleasantly.
The headmaster sighed wearily. ‘I really must ask you gentlemen to excuse me. I have a waiting-room full of expectant parents to see me. Mr Frobisher, if you wouldn’t mind showing our visitor where the English rooms are. I look forward to seeing you at the end of the day, Mr Phinn, for you to share your deliberations with us. And now if you wouldn’t mind.’
*
Mr Frobisher’s classroom had an uninterrupted view over the playing fields. It was a spacious and very warm room with a highly polished floor of patterned wooden blocks, long elegant sash windows and a high ceiling with ornamental plaster coving. At the front of the room, on a dais, was a sturdy teacher’s desk made of pine and a high-backed chair, while at the side was a bookcase containing neatly stacked books and folders, a set of dictionaries and some reference texts. Save for a few dog-eared and faded posters concerned with the rules of grammar, the walls were bare. The students’ desks were of the small, lidded variety with holes for inkwells, entirely unsuitable for large adolescent boys.
The class of thirty or so fourth-year students, some in smart blazers, a couple in white shirts, stood when we entered.
‘Sit down,’ ordered the teacher, sweeping to his desk, gown a-fluttering. He surveyed the class before him and his eyes settled on two gangly boys at the back. ‘I was not aware, Lister, that I had given permission for the removal of blazers.’
‘It’s really hot in here, sir,’ replied the boy.
‘Neither did I request a weather forecast. You know the school rules as well as I. Put on your blazer and that goes for you too, Wilsdon.’
‘Can I open a window then, sir?’ persisted the boy.
‘You can indeed open a window, Lister, but whether or not you may is an entirely different matter.’
‘What, sir?’
‘I said you can open a window. Obviously my lesson on the auxiliary verb last term has had very little impact.’ He picked up a stick of chalk and wrote the word CAN in capitals on the board. ‘The word “can” is an auxiliary verb expressing an ability or knowledge of how to do something as in the sentence, “I can throw this chalk.” ‘He twirled the chalk around between finger and thumb and smiled at his own witticism. ‘The verb “may” is also an auxiliary verb expressing the possibility or the permission to do something as in the sentence, “You may open the window.”’
‘So, can I open it then, sir?’ asked the boy, looking puzzled.
‘No, you may not!’ snapped the teacher. ‘Now, it will not have escaped your notice that we have with us a visitor today. Mr Phinn is from the Education Office and he will be joining our lesson.’ He gestured to an empty chair at the side of the room.
‘Good morning,’ I said cheerfully, as I headed for the chair.
‘Good morning, sir,’ chorused the boys.
‘I was not impressed, not impressed at all with your homework this week,’ said Mr Frobisher, reaching for the neat pile of exercise books on his desk. ‘There was a great deal of inaccurate, untidy and slip-shod writing. And in some books we seem to have had an epidemic of the greengrocer’s disease. Apostrophes everywhere.’ He flicked open a book. ‘I do not know how many times I have told you that, in general, in the singular the apostrophe appears before the letter s, and in the plural after the letter s when the plural ends in the letter s and before the letter s when the plural does not end in the letter s. It is quite simple.’
The pupils obviously did not agree since they were staring at him, entirely perplexed.
‘Rutter, here,’ and Mr Frobisher held up an exercise book, ‘scatters apostrophes across the page like peppercorns. I don’t know about you, Mr Phinn,’ said the teacher, turning his attention to me, ‘but I find it so irritating to see the flagrant misuse of the English language wherever I go. One passes the local fruiterer who sells “bananas” and “potatoes”, or the supermarket promising “hundreds of products” at half price, all with redundant apostrophes before the s.’ As he spoke, Mr Frobisher wrote the erroneous words on the board:
banana’s
potatoe’s
100’s of products
‘I had a political leaflet through my door only last week,’ he continued, ‘which wrote about raising standards in education, but that also, incredibly, contained superfluous punctuation. There were phrases like “the local MPs are concerned” and “the Government are keeping to its manifesto”, the latter containing not only the errant apostrophe but a blatant misapplication of the verb.’ Onto the board went:
the local MP’s
to it’s manifesto
The teacher now picked up a red chalk from his desk and with flamboyant strokes crossed out the offending apostrophes on the board.
He turned his attention back to the class. ‘Some people think that every time there is a letter s at the end of a word there needs to be an apostrophe.’ He faced the students who stared at him with expressionless faces. ‘As you have heard me say on countless occasions, defective punctuation leads to confusion. So, the only use of the apostrophe is to denote possession or omission. Now –’
‘Excuse me, sir.’ The speaker was a gangly boy with lanky brown hair and angry acne across his forehead and cheeks. ‘What about in this sentence: “The word ‘Mississippi’ contains four i’s and four s’s but only two p’s.” Surely apostrophes are needed here, otherwise the reader will be left very confused.’
Mr Frobisher removed his glasses and stared heavenwards. ‘Yes indeed, Smith,’ he replied. ‘Whether the apostrophe should be used to denote the plural of a word that does not ordinarily make a plural depends on whether the plural is easily recognisable as such. Unless the reader needs assistance in understanding, which is the case with your example, one should not use the apostrophe. Now, we must get –’
‘But didn’t you just say, sir, that the apostrophe is only used to denote possession or omission?’ enquired the boy in an overly polite tone of voice.
The teacher sighed. I could see he wished he had never entered this minefie
ld. ‘Yes, I did, but this is an exception. It is clearly justifiable with single letters as in your Mississippi sentence, or in mine, “Well-behaved, polite and attentive students watch their p’s and q’s.” Does that clarify the matter for you?’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ replied the boy, smiling. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Now –’ began the teacher again, replacing his spectacles and fixing the boy with a rattlesnake look.
‘Excuse me, sir.’
‘Yes, Smith, what is it now?’ sighed the teacher.
‘In the sentence that you quoted, “The Government is keeping to its manifesto”, you said there is no apostrophe in the word “its”.’
‘That is correct,’ said Mr Frobisher, taking off his glasses again and pointing with them to the board. ‘All pronouns dispense with the apostrophe in their possessive case – hers, yours, theirs, ours and its. It’s with an apostrophe is not the possessive of “it” but a contraction of “it is”. The apostrophe is performing its normal duty of showing that a letter has been omitted. You shouldn’t need to think twice about those any more. Now –’
‘What about the pronoun “one” then, sir?’ said the boy. ‘Surely an apostrophe is needed in the sentence: “One is taking one’s time in explaining oneself.”’
The teacher eyed the boy momentarily, wondering if he were being impertinent. ‘That is the one exception,’ he finally replied in a dismissive manner.
‘It is all very confusing, sir,’ sighed the boy, leaning back on his chair. ‘There seem so many exceptions to the rule.’
‘It is a quite simple concept, Smith – that is if you listen and learn the rules.’
‘Do you not think, sir, that the apostrophe has just about had its day?’
‘No, I do not!’
‘And that the greengrocer perhaps deliberately misuses the apostrophe to draw attention to his fruit and vegetables.’
‘No, I do not! It is just plain ignorance.’
‘I don’t suppose that in the great scheme of things, it’s that important,’ said the boy, turning to address the class as a whole. ‘I don’t imagine that people buy less of the greengrocer’s produce because he decides to insert an apostrophe here and there. I should think it’s the quality of his fruit and vegetables and the prices that count with his customers.’
‘It is important to me, Smith!’ snapped the teacher. ‘And it is also important to those who mark your examination papers.’
‘But is it not the case, sir,’ continued the boy, ‘that many institutions, like Barclays Bank, for example, have dropped the apostrophe and this has not led to wholesale confusion?’
‘Well if Barclays Bank has, Smith,’ the teacher told him in a disparaging voice, which expressed both impatience and anger, ‘then it is wrong.’
‘And is it not the case, sir,’ continued the boy, staring the teacher full in the face, not insolently nor with the trace of a smile, but with an intense gaze, ‘that in Shakespeare’s time it was quite common to find plural nouns with apostrophes?’
‘Smith,’ said the teacher, his forehead now unpleasantly shining, ‘much as I would like to debate the rights and wrongs of using the apostrophe, we do have to press on.’
This remarkable exchange, something which I had rarely observed in a classroom before, was like a battle of wits between a clever barrister and a vulnerable defendant, the student pursuing the teacher like a terrier with a rat, but doing so in the most courteous of ways. Mr Frobisher was clearly disconcerted by the boy’s constant interruptions and his earlier self-assurance seemed to be disappearing fast. He turned and vigorously cleared the board of the list of criminal apostrophes.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ began the boy again. Some of his classmates sniggered quietly.
‘Smith,’ said the teacher, attempting to control his displeasure, ‘you are becoming wearisome in the extreme. Enough is enough. Now, I shall write on the board some sentences in which the apostrophes have been omitted. In your exercise books I would like you to copy out the sentences and –’
‘Tell you where to stick them,’ said Smith, just loud enough for me to hear.
However, Mr Frobisher also heard. ‘I think a quiet word with you is in order, Smith,’ said the teacher. ‘See me at lunchtime.’
While the class completed the exercise, I took the opportunity to walk round the desks, and look at some of the work. In due course, I reached the young man who had pressed the teacher with so many challenging questions. It soon became my turn to be interrogated.
‘May I look at your book?’ I asked pleasantly.
‘Who exactly are you?’ he said, looking me straight in the eyes.
‘A school inspector.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what is it that you do exactly?’
‘Watch lessons, examine books, talk to pupils, study examination results,’ I explained.
‘Bit of a cushy number that, isn’t it?’
‘Some would say so.’
‘And how long are you here for?’
‘Just the day.’
‘You’ll not see much in a day.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘And presumably you write a report at the end of your visit?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘And what will be in your report of this lesson?’ he asked bluntly.
Now it was my turn to be in the witness box and face the tricky questions. ‘I haven’t quite decided yet.’
‘But you must have formed some impression.’
‘It is usually me who asks the questions, you know.’
The boy was not going to let me off the hook so lightly. ‘But surely in a good school,’ he said, ‘the pupils are encouraged to ask questions, are they not?’
‘They are,’ I replied, ‘but with some questions it would be inappropriate for me to answer.’
‘Sounds a bit of a cop-out to me.’
‘So, may I look at your book?’
He would not be distracted. ‘I reckon you are here to discover whether the standard of education is satisfactory or not, that the lessons are up to scratch. Is that right?’
‘Yes, that is part of my job.’
‘And that being the case, surely it is we, the clients, who would be most interested to know.’
‘My report is given to the headmaster. I never discuss particular lessons or individual teachers with students.’
‘So much for freedom of information,’ he said.
I changed the subject. ‘Do you like English?’
‘I like the language. I can’t say that I like the lessons.’ He waited for a response. ‘I’m afraid I can’t get too excited about where to put the apostrophe, can you? In fact, I couldn’t really care less. It seems to me to be a very outdated concept and wants scrapping. It is such a deeply uninteresting topic, don’t you think? When Shakespeare or Dickens or Jane Austen or Emily Brontë put pen to paper, I am sure that the last thing on their minds was where to stick their apostrophes.’
‘Your book, please,’ I said.
He slid his open book casually across the desk for me to examine. The book contained work of quite exceptional quality.
‘I am sure you do not need me to tell you that this work is excellent,’ I told him.
‘No, I don’t really.’ I could see that dealing with this young man was no easy matter. He smiled. ‘What I mean is, I don’t need you to tell me, but it is always nice to be told.’
‘And what do you hope to study at university?’ I asked.
‘What makes you think I wish to go to university?’ he asked.
‘I assume you will be.’
‘Maybe I will,’ he said.
‘And if you do, will you study English?’
‘Law,’ he replied. ‘Like my father.’
I closed his book and passed it back to him. It was then that I saw the name on the cover: Hugo Maxwell-Smith. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ I asked.
‘Yes, a you
nger brother and sister. My brother isn’t at this school yet.’
‘Ah, so that would be Alexander, a pupil at Our Lady of Lourdes?’
That did surprise the young man, but he didn’t have a chance to question me because the bell signalling the end of the lesson rang shrilly.
‘When you have handed your books in,’ said Mr Frobisher, ‘you can go.’
‘You may go,’ murmured Hugo Maxwell-Smith, rising from his seat and giving me the fullest and most charming of smiles.
4
For the second period of the day, I joined a gentle-mannered if somewhat nervous young teacher called Mr Adams. The lesson had been well planned, the teaching was competent and focused and the work the students undertook was interesting and appropriate. It was a vast improvement on the last lesson that I had observed.
The students, aged twelve and put into groups of four, were asked to discuss a newspaper article with a number of question prompts provided by the teacher. They then had the task of writing a letter in response, rebutting some of the criticisms and setting out their own views. The article bemoaned the youth of today as largely rude and selfish, with little perseverance or inclination for hard work. According to the writer, young people had far too much money at their disposal, spent many a wasted hour glued in front of the television set, lacked respect for their elders and had parents and teachers who did not exercise sufficient discipline. It harked back to a ‘golden age’ when smiling bobbies walked the beat, pavements were litter-free and there were no teenage muggers, football hooligans or lager louts. Such was the enthusiasm of the pupils to contribute their views that I found little opportunity of asking any questions, so moved from group to group merely listening to the animated debate.
Just before the bell signalled morning break, I did manage to ask one of the students a question. ‘Would you agree that the differences between the younger and older generations today are greater than they were when your parents were young?’
The boy thought for a moment, chewing the end of his pencil and nodding his head up and down slowly. ‘Now, that really is a very interesting question,’ he said, ‘but I have no idea of the answer.’
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