Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad

by Phinn, Gervase

  I still possess my English exercise books, all backed in brown paper as was the requirement. In them are letters, compositions, dictations, punctuation exercises, spelling lists, handwriting practice, grammar exercises, all surprisingly neat for a twelve-year-old and all carefully marked. There were also listed at the back of the books a set of 'Rules of Spelling':

  'i' before 'e'

  Except after 'c'

  (Or when it's 'eigh',

  As in 'neighbour' or 'weigh').

  Then there were what the teacher called his 'little wrinkles'. These were clever ways of remembering difficult spellings:

  The principal pal of the principal

  Is always polite on principle.

  NECESSARY: one coffee and two sugars

  ACCOMMODATION: two cottages and two mansions

  ACCELERATE: two cars and one lorry

  ACCEPT: two comics and one paper

  DEFINITE: definitely no letter 'a'

  There were also acronyms to help us remember:

  BECAUSE: Big elephants can always understand small elephants.

  RHYTHM: Rejoice heartily, your teacher has measles.

  EMBARRASS: Every mother's boy acts rather rudely after some sausages.

  WEIRD: When ever I run, disaster.

  DIARRHOEA: Died in a Rolls Royce having over-eaten again.

  Some years later in a school I came across another acronym, perhaps rather more memorable but more risque, for helping older pupils in a biology A level class to remember how to spell one of the difficult words: 'Dash in a real rush, help, or exploding arse.' I don't think Mr Dyeball or Mrs Cartwright would have approved.

  In the exercise books there were also 'Hints for Pronouncing "Ough":

  Though the tough cough and hiccough plough me through,

  O'er life's dark lough, my course I still pursue.

  Teachers like Mr Dyeball increased my fascination with this tricky, troublesome language. Should Mr Dyeball hear a boy using an expletive, however, the slipper would be produced. He had the remains of a plimsoll, just the thin rubber sole (nicknamed Sam) which he would use infrequently on any boy who misbehaved or used rude words. One day two boys felt it across their backsides for getting in a fight after school. Mr Dyeball turned the corner of the red brick building to find the two young pugilists, red-faced and furious, facing up to one another.

  'Don't you call me a bastard, ya bastard!' shouted one, holding his fist aloft just as the teacher appeared as if on cue, like the villain in a pantomime.

  'My room!' ordered Mr Dyeball. Sam was produced from the bottom drawer of the desk and put to good use.

  Another time a pupil brought to school a small, multi-coloured ball called 'Superball'; they were the rage at the time. When thrown down, this amazing ball bounced off the floor incredibly high and shot off in every direction. The boy was telling us about the amazing qualities of his 'Superball' when another pupil snatched it from his hand and threw it at the floor. To great cheers it bounced up high and ricocheted off the ceiling, bounced again and smashed the light fitting just as Mr Dyeball entered. He always seemed to appear at the opportune moment. The culprits owned up and received their punishment bravely, returning to their desks rubbing their rears and trying to stem the tears.

  On another occasion a boy stuffed a blackjack in his mouth just when the bell sounded for the end of break. Blackjacks were liquorice chews and could be bought for a penny each, and they turned the inside of your mouth a really ghastly black colour for several hours. Eddie's pet hate was boys chewing in class.

  On this particular day it was unfortunate for the blackjack chewer that he was the one at whom Mr Dyeball directed his first question. Despite his heroic efforts, the boy was unable to disguise the fact that he had a mouthful of sticky black chew and when he began to speak he sounded like Charles Laughton playing Quasimodo in the film version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  'Whatever is wrong with you this morning?' demanded the teacher. 'Spit it out, lad!'

  And the boy did just that - right across the desk. This was accompanied by loud 'Uuuuurrrrghs' and 'Arrgggghhhs' from the other pupils. Mr Dyeball opened his bottom drawer and we knew what was in store for the miscreant.

  Sam didn't last much longer after this incident. One boy, I forget who it was now, but I guess it was one who had felt the stinging pain of the slipper across his backside in the past, crept into the classroom and posted Sam down the grille at the back of the classroom. Behind the grille there was a pipe leading down into the boiler room and the heating system. One cold afternoon, when the heating was full on, the most awful smell of burning rubber emanated from the grille. We all knew it was Sam slowly smouldering beneath us. Mr Dyeball never did find out.

  Ken Pike, who later went on to become the distinguished headteacher of Spurley Hey High School in Rotherham, taught me for my O levels in English Language and English Literature. He was an inspirational teacher who spoke with wonderful conviction and developed in me a love of language and a passion for literature.

  As an inspector I often used to think that if the material were to be appropriate to the age and maturity of the students, and if the teacher managed to interest and challenge them, if they possessed some sensitivity, understanding and had a sense of humour, there would be far fewer discipline problems in schools. It is often when the lessons are dull and the teacher lacklustre that poor discipline emerges. Mr Pike had a great sense of humour. It is of inestimable importance that teachers do have a sense of humour, indeed a sense of fun.

  37

  For O level English Literature we studied Macbeth, A History of Mr Polly, an anthology of poems called Fresh Fields and a collection of extracts entitled The Comic World of Dickens. I had never read Dickens before but devoured the O level text from cover to cover the day it was given to me, staying up late to do so. Charles Dickens had an immediate and deep resonance for me. He was unlike any novelist I had read before, creating wonderfully descriptive and unusual characters whose names have become embedded in the national consciousness: Betsy Trotwood, Mr Murdstone, Fagin, Little Dorrit, Lord Deadlock, Sarah Gamp, Mr Pickwick.

  When, as an inspector of schools, I observed some tedious, ill-prepared lesson where the pupils trawled through Shakespeare or Seamus Heaney in maximum, pleasure-destroying detail, I would remember Mr Pike and think how lucky I was to have been taught by him. I could have listened to him for hours as he paced the front of the classroom declaiming Shakespeare or when he sat on the end of his desk reading the poetry or explaining some technicality in the English grammar system. His lessons were meticulously prepared, well taught and supported by invaluable notes, which I have to this day. Homework was set regularly and our books were marked rigorously (in pencil, not in red). On school inspections I used to dislike intensely the sight of children's work covered in red pen, as if the teacher had bled over it. No editor to my knowledge 'marks' a writer's work in red ink. My coveted distinction in English at O level was much to do with Mr Pike's excellent teaching.

  Like all great teachers he did not stick slavishly to a script but would deviate and tell stories to arouse our interest. What I learnt from Ken Pike was the importance of young people having high expectations and self-belief.

  When he and his wife Margaret bought a new house on Herringthorpe Valley Road with a large square plot of land at the back resembling a bomb site, Mr Pike asked if I would like to earn some extra pocket money and help him dig it over. I spent many a Saturday, with my friend Raymond Sadler, forking out the couch grass and the stones, uncovering bones and bits of clay pipe, the occasional corroded coin and rusty shard of metal, all the while watched by Mr Pike's three young sons. We talked as we dug, and I learned a great deal about books and literature. On those Saturday morning digs, my ongoing fascination with words and writing developed apace.

  Mr Pike started a book club when I was in the second year. Each week pupils could, if they wished, bring in sixpence or a shilling and receive a coloured stamp with a pi
cture on the front of some famous writer. Of course, Shakespeare commanded the two-shilling stamp, then came Chaucer, then Dickens, and for sixpence (the least we could pay) we got poor old Emily Bronte. We would buy a stamp at the end of the lesson and stick it into a small square book. At the end of the month an order was placed and a week or two later a box arrived containing all the purchases. It sounds pretty tame these days, but back then there was a deal of excitement when the brown box was delivered to the classroom and Mr Pike took out the contents and passed them around. He would handle each book almost lovingly, talk about it for a while and then dispense it to the boy who had bought it. I loved the smell of a new book and still do.

  My very first purchase was The Diary of Anne Frank. The description in the catalogue had said it was a powerful and poignant account in diary form set during the Second World War and was a story of great personal heroism and amazing courage. I didn't take a great deal of notice of the title, which, with hindsight, wasn't an altogether bad thing. I thought the book would be a rattling good action-packed war story, with lots of battles - a bit like D-Day Dawson, whose daring exploits I read each week in my comic. D-Day Dawson had a bullet lodged near his heart and could die at any moment, but, being the devil-may-care hero, he was totally fearless and carried on with winning the war, lobbing grenades at the Krauts, rattling his machine gun, creeping behind enemy lines, saving his pals and being bedecked with yet more medals for his outstanding bravery. D-Day Dawson was like all good British soldiers - he never did anything underhand or dishonourable. I was greatly disappointed when I started on the first page of The Diary of Anne Frank to discover it was a seemingly very ordinary account written by a girl who lived in an attic in Amsterdam. But I persevered and soon became intrigued by the details of everyday life, the petty squabbles, inconsequential conversations, small incidents and touches of humour, described by a bright, rather precocious girl spending her teenage years in a cramped apartment, while outside was the horror of the Occupation and the dreaded Gestapo. One entry I remember to this day: 'Whoever is happy,' wrote Anne, 'makes others happy.'

  When I was invited to Amsterdam in 2001 to deliver a lecture there, I visited the house of Anne Frank and found it an immensely moving experience. Visitors walked around in silence, clearly very much affected by the photographs, diary extracts, letters, horrific facts and historical details shown on the displays. We walked through the small entrance to the upper floor, originally hidden by the bookcase. How could several families manage to survive in this space for so long? I asked myself. Still on the wall were the little cut-out pictures, one of Princess Elizabeth, which Anne had stuck up.

  In 2002 I took my daughter Elizabeth to see the stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield. I remembered sitting in that vast theatre, now beautifully restored to its former glory, all those years ago to see a very different production: The Rivals. Lizzie and I were now in the posh seats in the circle, but I glanced back to see the very top of the balcony where I had sat in the seats Mr Williams bought for me nearly forty years before.

  At the end of the last act of the play, Anne runs down the stairs on stage chattering excitedly. She is now a young woman and tells her parents how good it is to be alive on such a bright sunny day. She is full of optimism and hope. Her mother and father, clasping each other, stand frozen centre stage. Beneath the stairs in the half-light, unseen by Anne, are two sinister figures in dark trench coats. The Gestapo have found them. When the curtain fell there was no applause. The huge theatre was completely silent. Then people left the theatre quietly, unhurriedly. Lizzie cried on the way home. The following day she read my old dog-eared copy, bought from the book club, of The Diary of Anne Frank, from cover to cover.

  A Christmas treat at the school was the showing of a film to the whole school, crammed into the hall. It was a black and white film flashed on to a large white sheet pinned to the back of the stage, and the projector invariably broke down at various intervals, usually at the most exciting parts, to loud catcalls and whistles of disapproval. Being Christmas and near the end of term, the teacher operating the projector was tolerant of the noise. The film always seemed to be a Second World War drama like The Cockleshell Heroes or The Cruel Sea. In Ill Met by Moonlight, the youthful Dirk Bogarde was on stirring form as the British army officer given the task of working with the partisans in occupied Crete to kidnap a local Nazi commander. We booed when the Germans came on screen and cheered the British. We were all very patriotic in those days.

  *

  I guess I must have had a very pronounced Yorkshire accent when I was at school, but my teachers made no attempt to teach me to 'speak properly' as the poor woman in the primary school had attempted to do. Of course, Mr Dyeball and Mr Pike would correct us if we were slovenly in the way we spoke; they were quick to point out jargon, colloquialisms and slang and certainly would not tolerate swearing, but we were never criticized for the way we spoke. We were encouraged to answer questions, express our views, perform choral readings, read plays aloud in class, debate and make presentations. I am grateful for that, for to attack a child's way of speaking is to attack something which is so much a part of him, which he brings from his home and which he has learnt from his parents. I have met so many people with regional accents who had teachers who tried, by one means or another, to 'knock it out of them'. They have been corrected, held up to ridicule, given lines and sometimes punished for supposedly mispronouncing words.

  So - I have been massively fortunate in my schooling. Much of what I hold dear was first shown to me by teachers like Miss Greenhalgh, Mr Williams, Mr Firth, Mr Schofield and Mr Pike. They inspired me, encouraged me, took an interest in me, and convinced me that, despite my humble background and my average abilities, I could achieve anything.

  It was Mr Williams who decided that some of the Eleven Plus failures were bright enough to be entered for GCE O level and persuaded his staff and the local education authority to go along with him. It was unheard of at the time for a secondary modern school to enter students for external examinations, and it was thought by many that if these youngsters hadn't come up to scratch at eleven they wouldn't achieve much five years later. It is a fact that there are some of us in life who are 'late developers', and I have met many people who performed poorly at school but flourished in later life.

  The prevailing view at the time was that the secondary modern pupils would be best occupied studying practical subjects like woodwork, metalwork, technical drawing, rural studies, housecraft and cookery - to equip them for apprenticeships and the more menial jobs in society. Leave the academic stuff to the teachers at the grammar school.

  The pupils at South Grove were the product of a working-class generation which clearly knew its place in the pecking order. At the time there was little in the way of aspiration for boys at the secondary modern beyond going down the pit, working in the steelworks or maybe getting an apprenticeship. They were raised in a close-knit, homogenous community and learnt not to have too many expectations, because this would only lead to disappointment later on. Young people, very largely, accepted this and knew their place in the world, their only ambition being to secure a job locally that they could keep for the rest of their lives.

  Mr Williams, the product of a working-class Welsh mining family himself, thought otherwise. He believed that many of his pupils had real potential to succeed academically and he was determined to give them a chance. So the staff at South Grove embarked on an exciting initiative to teach the older pupils the O level syllabuses. It was a brave enterprise when I look back, for many of the teachers, I guess, were inexperienced in teaching for external examinations, unlike their colleagues up the road at the grammar school. My teachers were being tested themselves, and perhaps this was an added incentive for them to work with greater enthusiasm, drive and determination. In the event the cynics were proved wrong, for many of us left South Grove with a string of O levels, many with distinctions in the different subjects. For ex
ample, twenty-seven in Mr Pike's class passed O level English Language and twenty-two passed O level English Literature, with some, like myself, achieving the very highest grades.

  It was impressed on us by the headmaster when we embarked on the courses that we had to work very hard, spend a deal of time on our studies and be prepared to stay in at night to complete the large amount of homework that inevitably would be set. He also told us that the school was, in a sense, being tested and we should prove wrong those who didn't think we were capable.

  Listening to Mr Williams telling us that we were the first in this new initiative, the guinea pigs, and that we shouldn't let him and the school down, I was determined to succeed and applied myself seriously to my studies. After school I would walk down Moorgate Road into town and straight to the public library, where I would spend a couple of hours in the peace and quiet of the reading room. It was an enormous, silent place with wall-to-wall shelving, large square tables and hard-backed chairs. It smelt reassuringly of floor polish and old books. I would sit at one of the large tables below a leaded window, which was set ten feet above the floor so that no one could peer in and those in the library would not be distracted by the bustling world outside.

  The public library tended to attract a certain clientele. The regulars included the industrious mousy girl with round glasses poring over a textbook, the unshaven individual in the flat cap reading the Rotherham Advertiser, the intense-faced woman researching her family history, whose table was piled high with books, the elderly man come in out of the cold who gently snored in the corner and the sad-faced misfit, in the National Health glasses and wearing a ridiculous coloured bobble hat, who spent his time flicking aimlessly through a tome the size of a doorstep on some esoteric subject like The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Medieval Woodcuts.