Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad

by Phinn, Gervase

  In 1984, when I was appointed General Adviser for Language Development with Rotherham Local Education Authority, the first school on my list of visits was Broom Valley Infants. I was to examine and report on the teaching of reading. There was a great feeling of anticipation that morning as I strolled up the drive of the infant school I had attended as a small child, in my dark inspectorial suit and with my black briefcase in my hand.

  The school was no longer a vast and frightening place but just a small, square, featureless building with a flat roof, like so many post-war schools. I stood for a moment in the entrance hall, staring down the corridor and thinking of my childhood. I recalled the lukewarm milk, the skipping-ropes, hoops and hopscotch, the dressing-up corner, the afternoon naps when each infant would retire to a small canvas bed for half an hour, the shiny Izal lavatory paper with the unpleasant disinfected smell and the bars of lemon-smelling Sunlight soap. I learnt at that infant school the value of memory, the importance of reading, respect, clarity of speech, to be wary of angry eyes and furrowed brows, to raise my hand when I wanted something, to go to the lavatory at playtime, to wash my hands, not to call out, not to be a show-off, not to play with the girls, to share my sweets, leave a clean plate, drink my milk, enjoy make-believe, to avoid bullies and to watch and listen.

  Before informing the school secretary on my return visit all those years later that I had an appointment with the headteacher, I took a deep breath and looked down the corridor. The smell of cabbage and floor polish had lingered ... and so, I was soon to discover, had my teacher - Miss Greenhalgh.

  'Well, well, well,' she said with a wry smile when I met her. The long golden hair had gone, but the large blue eyes stared into mine and the smile I knew so well appeared on her lips.

  'I'm lost for words,' I gasped. 'It's Miss Greenhalgh.'

  'Lost for words!' she repeated. 'Well, there's a first.'

  'I can't believe it,' I said. 'I just can't believe it. It's Miss Greenhalgh.'

  'Under the circumstances, Gervase,' she said, maintaining the small smile, 'I guess you can call me Dorothy.'

  'I couldn't possibly call you Dorothy,' I spluttered.

  'Why ever not?'

  'Because you were my teacher, Miss Greenhalgh,' I said. Then I added, 'And I should tell you that I loved every lesson that you taught. I couldn't wait to get to school. I loved being in your class. I still remember the Reading Corner and the great round reading cushions and the little puppet theatre and the stories, all those wonderful stories you told us.'

  'Well, it's just as well you have such fond memories of me and thought so highly of my teaching, Gervase,' she told me, 'because I haven't changed my methods.'

  'It's so good to see you,' I said, still taken aback at meeting her after so many years.

  'It's a funny old world, isn't it?' she sighed. She smiled with curious wistfulness, as if she had recalled something fondly from the distant past. 'I taught you to read, and here you are, checking up if I do it properly. I can't have done such a bad job - you've got more degrees than a thermometer and write books yourself now, don't you?'

  'I do,' I said, 'and my love of books and reading started at home with my parents and with you in the infant classroom.'

  'Get away with you.'

  'It really did. You were a wonderful teacher.'

  She looked at me for a moment and smiled. 'Would you like the book you learnt to read with?' Miss Greenhalgh asked me. 'Your first reading book?'

  'You surely still don't have it?' I asked.

  'Oh, I never throw things out,' she replied. 'You never know when they'll come back in. I've been in education long enough to know that things swing in and out of fashion like a pendulum. Mind you, I guess the Happy Trio reading scheme will not make a comeback. I'm up with all the modern reading schemes now. We've been through Janet and John, Nip and Fluff , Peter and Jane, Dick and Dora, the Rainbow Readers, the Beacon Readers, the Gayway Readers - of course they changed that name to New Way Readers when it was reprinted. Oh yes, I'm all contemporary now. Before you go you can have a copy of The Happy Trio - it will bring back memories.'

  'The Happy Trio', I murmured. 'Yes, I remember The Happy Trio.' This scheme was the staple reading for learner readers in the 1950s and it was pretty dull stuff. The brightly coloured watercolour illustrations which accompanied the short phrases and sentences depict a sparklingly clean little girl with golden curls and red ribbons and dressed in a spotless pink dress, snow-white socks and sturdy sandals. The little boy is equally pristine and beautifully dressed. Father (never Dad) is ever-cheerful, young, good-looking and prosperous and spends most of his life dressed in a suit and tie and reading the newspaper. Mother (never Mum) is a slim, permanently smiling, equally attractive individual who spends most of her life in the kitchen, beaming contentedly and dressed in a brightly patterned floral dress and frilly apron. Her hair is flawlessly in place. The house is amazingly spacious and tidy, with a perfectly kept garden and a big shiny black car parked outside the large garage. Everyone seems to be idyllically happy (including the well-behaved dog) and beams from the page. This is a perfect world, clean and wholesome, free of injury, upset and suffering. At five I already had a head full of words. I was used to rhymes and stories at home and did not take to the tiresome children in the reading scheme, who seemed so far removed from my own life. Nobody ever fell over and cut a knee, quarrelled or shouted, had a nosebleed, wet the bed, cleared the blocked sink, was sick, overslept or went to the toilet.

  The first book in the series, a thick, sturdy, fabric-covered tome, shows a small boy and girl on a bright yellow background, dancing in delight. There are seventeen 'stories' in the collection, the first of which is titled 'Come':

  Come, Sally.

  Come. Come.

  Oh, Sally.

  Come, come.

  Come, Sally, come.

  Oh, see.

  See Sally go.

  Go, Sally, go.

  Go, go, go.

  The remaining stories hammer home the key words and have the same paucity of plot, character and language.

  I was using the text at a lecture some years later at the North of England Conference in York to demonstrate how these old schemes were unrelated to the world in which most children lived, and how poor they were in arousing my curiosity and interest when I was young. At the end of my lecture I was approached by a headteacher who told me that she still used the scheme to good effect, and that had I put a bit more feeling into the reading of the text, it wouldn't have sounded so bad. When I tried reading it with 'a bit more feeling' at home, for my wife's benefit, she told me, 'If you read it like that you're likely to get arrested.'

  When I visited Broom Valley Infants all those years later, Miss Greenhalgh reminded me that I was no high-flier. 'I'm very pleased you have done so well, Gervase,' she told me. 'Yes, you've done very well, very well indeed.' There was a short pause before she added, 'Because you weren't on the top table, were you?'

  She was right; I was not on the top table. I suppose I would have been described in those days as an average child, one of the unremarkable majority, a part of the big bulge in the academic bell. I never came near the top of the class, I found mental arithmetic hard, I never gravitated to the football team, I sang at the back of the choir and in the school Nativity I had the part of the palm tree. I did do well later at school because of the combination of loving, supportive parents and dedicated, patient and enthusiastic teachers, but during those early years I was an ordinary, average little boy, not one of the bright little buttons on the top table.

  I believe that the two keys to success in education are high self-esteem and great expectation, and I was fortunate to possess both. It would have been easy for Miss Greenhalgh to write off that biddable, quiet, ordinary little boy with the funny name who came from a humble background, one whose parents were unlikely to storm into school and make demands. She could have concentrated just on the top table, the Eleven Plus certainties, those destined for acad
emic success, and let the average children coast and those with special educational needs struggle. But she didn't because, like all great teachers, all children mattered to Miss Greenhalgh.

  Being of average ability I learnt, from an early age, how to study. Learning did not come as easy to me as it did to the brighter children, but I was determined and ambitious to do well. I worked hard, applied myself and dreamed of one day moving on to the top table to sit next to the first love of my life, Susan Barlow.

  15

  Susan Barlow was the top of the top table. She smelled of flowers and lavender soap and wore snow-white stockings and sensible pale leather sandals. She had large inquisitive eyes behind Elastoplast-pink framed glasses, her hair was tied up in bunches with red ribbons and she was always smiling. There was a list of names on the infant classroom wall and silver stars were awarded against each for really good work. I was somewhere in the middle, but Susan was way out in front. She was the first to get the coveted badge, which she pinned on her pink cardigan. It said to the world: 'I AM A FREE READER.' This meant she had completed every boring book in the Happy Trio reading scheme and could now select her own from the small library in the reading corner. How I longed for that little tin badge. Then came the day when Miss Greenhalgh pinned the coveted award on my cardigan. I remember running down the school path punching the air and shouting for the entire world to hear: 'I am a free reader! I am a free reader!' Striding home down Broom Valley Road, I really expected all the adults I passed to stare in awe and announce in hushed voices: 'He's a free reader.' Of course no one did. But, at home, my mother reacted as all mothers should.

  'What have you got covered up?' she asked. I had concealed the badge with my hand. 'Let me see.' I removed my hand so she could read what was printed in large red letters on the badge. 'Where did you find that?' she teased.

  'I didn't find it,' I announced proudly. 'I'm a free reader.'

  'You can't be, love,' she told me with a twinkle in her eye. 'You have to be a very, very clever boy to be a free reader.'

  'Well, I am,' I said proudly.

  'You will have to prove it,' she said. So, sitting on my mother's knee, I read from a small square book with a little rabbit on the cover, The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

  When I had finished I received a great hug and a kiss. 'You are a free reader,' she said. 'Wait until your father gets home.' I waited by the gate at the top of Richard Road until I saw Dad making his way up the hill after the afternoon shift. I ran to greet him and told him the fantastic news.

  'A free reader,' he said, lifting me high in the air. 'Well, well, well, a free reader.'

  That afternoon I walked on clouds.

  Since that day The Tale of Peter Rabbit, the children's classic by Beatrix Potter, has been one of my all-time favourites. As I travelled around the schools as an inspector I would often test children's reading skills by asking them to read from that small, square, rather battered book which I always carried with me in my briefcase. When I started to visit schools in the Yorkshire Dales, however, I soon discovered that this particular story was singularly inappropriate.

  In an infant school in Nidderdale, John, a serious little boy of about seven or eight with a tangled mop of straw-coloured hair, was clearly not very enamoured of the plot. He arrived at the part of the story where poor Peter Rabbit, to escape the terrifying Mr McGregor who was searching for him in the vegetable garden, had become entangled in the gooseberry net. The frightened little rabbit gave himself up for lost and shed big tears. It was the climax to the story, and when my mother had read this part to me when I was small, my eyes had widened like saucers and my mouth had fallen open in expectation of the capture of the poor little rabbit by the cruel gardener. It was Mr MacGregor who had caught Peter's father, and his wife had put him into a pie. But John stared impassively at me with tight little lips and wide staring eyes.

  'What a terrible thing it would be,' I said, hoping to encourage him on again, 'if poor Peter Rabbit should be caught.'

  'Rabbits! Rabbits!' cried the angry-faced little lad, scratching the tangled mop of hair in irritation. 'They're a blasted nuisance, that's what my dad says! Have you seen what rabbits do to a rape crop?' I answered that I had not. 'Rabbits with little cotton-wool tails and pipe-cleaner whiskers,' he sneered, 'and fur as soft as velvet. Huh! We shoot 'em! They can eat their way through a rape crop in a week, can rabbits. Clear nine acres in a month! Millions of pounds' worth of damage when it's a mild winter. No amount of fencing will stop 'em.'

  'We gas ours,' added a little girl of about ten with round cheeks and closely cropped red hair whom I'd met earlier, and who was sitting nearby. 'That stops 'em, I can tell you.'

  'Nay, Marianne,' retorted the boy, curling a small lip, 'gassin' doesn't work.' Then, looking me straight in the eyes, he added, 'Never mind poor old Peter Rabbit. It's Mr McGregor I feel sorry for - trying to grow his vegetables with a lot of 'ungry rabbits all ovver t'place!'

  'Perhaps we should look at another book,' I suggested feebly.

  There is a lesson here for all adults who select books for children, which is that books that an adult enjoys may not necessarily appeal to a child. Many children's writers (including J. K. Rowling) have had their manuscripts rejected by editors only to go on to have massive success with their work when it is finally published. But I digress. Back to my badge.

  Badges awarded to children for effort I believe to be important. They give recognition, which is something we all strive for. They show achievement and make a child feel good. After my mother's death, my sister, Christine, was sorting through some personal effects when she came across an old box in which my mother had kept her prized possessions. There at the bottom, with my swimming medals and cycling proficiency pin, was an old tin badge: 'I AM A FREE READER.'

  One inspector and former colleague once told me that he had a real dislike of the practice so common in infant schools where teachers awarded 'these silly little badges with smiley faces on - "Headteacher's Award", "Good Work", "Well done".' I disagreed. One should never miss an opportunity of celebrating young people's accomplishments, however small, for we all thrive on recognition and success often leads to greater success. I have so many memories of being congratulated on the things I did well and can still recall the great sense of achievement and pleasure when I was awarded that little badge at the age of six, the sensation of success I felt years later when I was awarded my O and A levels, my Certificate in Education and my degrees.

  A month after a school inspection I was giving an address at a very prestigious charity dinner at the medieval Merchant Adventurers' Hall in York. It was attended by the Lord Mayor, the Lord Lieutenant, the High Sheriff, the Masters of the Guilds and all the great and the good of the city. Printed on the tickets was the instruction that 'decorations will be worn'. Those attending all sported their badges. They happened to be CBEs and OBEs, elaborate chains of office, golden insignia, knighthoods and various medals and awards. Like the badges given to small children, they gave recognition, showed achievement and, I am sure, made the wearers feel good. I was sitting next to a heavily be-medalled individual who enquired of me what the small enamelled badge was that I was wearing rather discreetly on my lapel. I told him it was the only decoration I possessed: 'I AM A FREE READER.'

  'Really,' he said with a bemused smile.

  'I do have another decoration,' I informed him seriously, 'but I felt it a little pretentious to wear it.'

  'And that is?'

  'Cycling Proficiency,' I said.

  'I guess we are in for an amusing evening,' said my colleague.

  In the year 2004 an Honorary Doctor of Letters was conferred upon me by Leicester University. The ceremony was in Lincoln Cathedral, and, prior to all the graduands ascending the platform to receive their degrees, I was presented with my award and asked to say a few words. I told the assembly that I was greatly honoured, that I only wished my parents could have been there that afternoon to see me receive such an accolade and to celebrat
e my success. I told them I was an average scholar who tried my best and worked hard and that there are many, many children in schools, like me, described as average but with parents and teachers who believe in them, encourage them to aim for the moon and delight in their success. With this kind of support, I told them, young people can achieve something in life. I described my own early schooling and mentioned my wonderful parents, dedicated teachers and the little girl who sat at the top of the top table. 'For those exceptionally bright children,' I told the congregation, 'it must be hard for them to understand why other children aren't as quick on the uptake. Some of us have to work hard and persevere but we can get there in the end.' I then mentioned Susan Barlow, the bright little girl who was top of the top table and no doubt went on to great academic success. Following the degree ceremony, I progressed down the aisle of the hall to the thunderous strains of the organ. At the door a small, crimson-gowned figure turned to face me.

  'Hello,' she said.

  'Hello,' I replied smiling. 'Have we met?'

  She returned the smile. 'I'm the little girl who sat at the top of the top table,' she said. 'I'm Susan Barlow.'

  It was such a pleasure to meet her again after so many years. She had - which came as no surprise to me - gone into academia and was a professor at the university.

  One memory of Broom Valley Infants that stays in my mind is when Miss Greenhalgh organized Book Day. All the children were to come dressed as characters from books, and along Broom Valley Road that morning could be seen Peter Pan, Paddington Bear, Noddy, Pooh Bear, Heidi, the Wicked Witch of the West, Snow White, Pinocchio, Humpty Dumpty, Long John Silver and a host of other characters from fiction.