Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad

by Phinn, Gervase

  Behind the curved wooden counter sat Miss Tissiman, the librarian, scanning the room, ever alert and watching in case anyone should raise a voice or be seen eating.

  I got to know Miss Tissiman well during the two years I studied for my O levels. At first I was daunted by the prim little figure in the white blouse and grey pencil skirt, with silver hair scraped back savagely over her scalp and into a tight little bun. When I asked for a particular book she would emerge from behind her counter and lead the way to the appropriate shelf where the tome was to be found. On one occasion she came over to my desk, both hands clasped in front of her, and told me she had observed me using the books. I felt suddenly guilty of something. She then explained that when turning a page one should do so by sliding an index finger beneath the top of the page and turning it. 'To do as you are doing, turning the page from the bottom, damages the paper and leaves a thumb mark.' I apologized. She gave a small smile. 'Most people turn the page from the bottom. You are not alone in doing so.' Since then I have always turned the pages of a book the way the librarian taught me and passed the instruction on to those I have taught.

  On another occasion, after she had rung her small bell to signify that the library was about to close, she stopped me and commended me on my diligence.

  'Perhaps when you have completed your studies,' she told me, 'you might consider a career in a library. You clearly like books.' Then she gave a little smile before adding, 'And know how to handle them.'

  The following week she presented me with a collection of pens, some paper and a pencil case, explaining that these had been left unclaimed in the library and perhaps I could make use of them.

  Miss Tissiman was another person in my life who opened a door for me. As the O levels approached she suggested that I study some past papers, to give me an idea of the kind of questions which might come up, and on one occasion she sat with me, dictionary in hand, stressing that I should become very familiar with the words used by the examiners, words like 'consider', 'evaluate', 'assess', 'describe', 'estimate', 'calculate', 'justify' and 'summarize', because many a student has failed through not answering the question.

  The week before the start of the three-week examination period I told the librarian that I wouldn't be coming into the library again for some time. She shook my hand and wished me well.

  'Remember to read the questions carefully,' she said, 'check through your work and never leave the examination room early.' She gave a little smile. 'I'll be thinking of you.'

  38

  Mr Theodore Firth (Theo) was a very different sort of teacher from the other members of staff at South Grove. He was a stout, red-cheeked man with tufts of sandy-coloured hair at the side of an otherwise bald head and had a roar like a lion and a stare like the sweep of a scythe. He was the archetypal Yorkshireman: bullish, plain-speaking, lacking in sophistication, a no-nonsense sort of man who could put the very fear of God into his pupils. There was no pacing up and down the classroom for him, no sitting on the end of the desk and, above all, no noise. He would stand like some great Eastern statue, legs apart, arms folded over his barrel chest, jaw jutting out, surveying the neat lines of desks that faced the front of his classroom.

  Many pupils lived in fear of this larger-than-life character, and when we entered his room we did so in complete silence and with great trepidation.

  Mr Firth rarely addressed any pupil by his or her name. Boys were invariably called 'Johnny' and girls 'Mary', but in my last year at South Grove he started to call me Phinny or Phineas.

  Mr Schofield recalls Theo thus:

  When I first joined the staff at South Grove, I was greatly impressed by the number of strong characters, some of whom were very forceful. The most memorable was Theo Firth who specialized in history. He had a fearful countenance and his classroom was meticulously clean and ordered. Strangely enough he often came to school in an old sports jacket with leather patches on the arms, no tie, baggy corduroy trousers, plimsolls in the summer and Wellington boots in the winter, which made him look a somewhat bizarre, unkempt character. I often wondered what happened to his teeth, for his gums were bereft save for one large tooth, what he called his 'pickle-chaser'. When container dinners were served at the church hall near the swimming baths, Theo was always in charge of taking a contingent of dinner boys down Alma Road in perfect order. People often commented how well-behaved the pupils were. Of course, no boy would have been so foolhardy as to misbehave when Theo was in charge.

  Young people these days clearly know a great deal more than I did at school on a whole range of subjects; they seem more adventurous, outspoken and sophisticated, but many I have met on my visits to schools sadly don't have the grasp of English history and knowledge of important historical dates that I had at their age. One reason for this is that history, when I was a lad, had a much higher status in the curriculum and was compulsory for all, but another, more important, is that I had a teacher who brought the subject to life.

  At primary school I undertook projects about the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Vikings and the Normans as children do today, and then at secondary school I started on the fascinating journey of discovery through the history of England and then Great Britain, learning about significant events and famous characters, important treaties and world-changing wars, great battles and life-changing inventions in chronological order. Now pupils choose their options and after the age of fourteen it may be the case that they never study history again.

  Some would say that there is no room in education for teachers such as Mr Firth, those unusual individuals who are out of the ordinary, idiosyncratic, who don't always follow the various directives. In my view they are wrong. Such teachers frequently have a greater impact than the more conventional teachers and are often remembered years later when the 'ordinary' teachers have been long forgotten. Mr Firth was strict but he was scrupulously fair, totally committed but rather unpredictable and, provided you worked hard and were well-behaved, he posed no problem. He insisted on every pupil's undivided attention, neat and accurate writing and work to be completed on time. In answer to his questions he expected the right hand of the pupil to be raised straight as a die and for the pupil to answer clearly and confidently. He could, so I was told, be a violent man and rumours were rife about him. The only occasion when he lived up to this fearsome reputation was when I was in my last year at South Grove and witnessed him dealing with the bully while I was trying to get my head around algebra with Mr Duffield on the other side of the hall partition. I had never seen him hit a boy in any of the history classes I attended.

  Even before I met the man, my brother Alec had related gruesome accounts about how Mr Firth had hurled an insolent pupil through a partition in the school hall and there was blood and broken glass everywhere. Another time he was reputed to have thrown a board rubber at an inattentive pupil and the unfortunate boy was been taken comatose to Doncaster Gate Hospital. Then there was the occasion when Theo had supposedly hit a boy so hard with his slipper that he had set the unfortunate miscreant's trousers on fire. Another time, it was said, he flicked, with unnerving dexterity, a piece of chalk which ended up lodged in a boy's nostril. Stories about Theo, largely invented I guess, were legion, and such a reputation did wonders for his discipline.

  I recall my first history lesson with Mr Firth. We nervous first years queued up outside the history room as he walked up and down the line scrutinizing us as a sergeant-major might inspect his new recruits. We filed into the history room and were assigned seats (hard wooden desks with fold-up seats, lids and holes for inkwells, entirely unsuitable for growing adolescent boys with long legs), and, much to my chagrin, I was placed on the very front desk. Portraits of English monarchs lined the walls, with a timeline stretching above them, and at the front, dominating the room, was an impressive teacher's desk on a dais. At the side, under the window, was a substantial bookcase containing neatly stacked books and folders, a set of dictionaries and some reference texts. D
irectly outside the window, in full view of all the class, was a flagpole, which Mr Firth seemed to regard as his very own. On St George's Day the white flag with the red cross would be hoisted, and the Union Jack was flown on Trafalgar Day and the Queen's birthday. The Friday before Remembrance Sunday and on Armistice Day the Union flag flew at half-mast.

  I began to really like history. I would sit silently, listening wide-eyed as Mr Firth related in his deep gruff voice stories which would later be written as notes on the blackboard for us to copy into our exercise books. We learnt of the tragic death of the noble Richard III ('maligned by Shakespeare and betrayed by his supposed friends'), the murder of the seventeen-year-old Duke of York in the Wars of the Roses ('beheaded by the perfidious Lancastrians and his head placed on a spike on the gates of York'), the ill-fated Queen Katherine of Aragon ('poor betrayed Spanish princess'), the embittered Mary Tudor and mad King George III. I learnt about Mary, Queen of Scots ('put to an untimely death by her jealous cousin, mishandled, traduced, a political pawn in the hands of the cold-hearted, treacherous Scottish lords'), the mighty Spanish Armada ('defeated by the plucky English sea-dogs'), the Gunpowder Plot ('which was all a put-up job by Queen Elizabeth's scheming adviser, the Lord Cecil'), the foolish and fanatical James II ('who threw his throne away') and poor, weak misguided Bonnie Prince Charlie ('the rightful King of England'). Of course he would tell us that there was the other side of the story; it depended on what accounts you read, but it was rare that the other side of the story was ever revealed to us. I still possess my history notebooks, which contain some memorable if suspect assertions: 'Henry VIII was a bloody tyrant who, when he could not get his own way or when anyone challenged his authority, resorted to murder. He had his chancellors beheaded, left his opponents to die lingering deaths in the Tower of London, killed off two of his wives and, because the Pope wouldn't give him his own way, broke from Rome and started his own church.'

  We were given our exercise books and textbooks and instructed to back them in brown paper for the following lesson. We were told we must write neatly in fountain pen and warned that there would be serious repercussions for any foolhardy boy who failed to hand in his homework on time. He then reached for a stick of chalk and twirled it around in his fingers. We all covered our noses.

  It sounds extremely daunting at first, but I soon learned that 'his bark was worse than his bite', that Mr Firth was a bit of a showman with unflinching opinions about the events of history. He was above all a performer, always master of his audience, always in command of the stage. Theo, like many impressive teachers, was something of an actor. I am sure he knew we were mimicking him when we were out of his sight, copying his rituals, his gestures, his way of speaking, his mannerisms, and I guessed he played up to his caricature.

  I well recall his description of the Battle of Culloden. The ill-equipped and bedraggled clansmen were dragged from their homes in feudal observance to their chieftains to follow Bonnie Prince Charlie. Armed with only claymores and farming implements, they met the long ranks of heavily armed and disciplined English redcoats, who knocked them over like ninepins. Several pupils were asked to come out to the front of the class with rulers to represent the bayonets of the English troops and the claymores of the Scottish. Theo demonstrated that each English soldier had been instructed to bayonet the opponent to his right, who would be lifting his sword arm and thus exposing his body. In my mind I saw and heard the vivid picture of the English army in crimson jackets marching in strict order, bayonets fixed, the periwigged officers on white horses, the skirling of the Highland pipes and the wild rush of the tartan-clad clansmen.

  Three incidents relating to Mr Firth remain in my mind. The first was when I was in the fourth year. A new boy arrived. We never found out exactly why he had suddenly appeared halfway through the O level course, but it was rumoured that he had been expelled from the grammar school for pinning a large bed sheet to the front of the school with 'FOR SALE' written in large letters on it. I shall call the new boy Desmond Smith, to save his embarrassment if he ever gets to read this. I guess now he is a highly successful businessman, entrepreneur or captain of industry, or some very upright judge or distinguished doctor. He was obviously very clever and the work he was set and the questions asked were no problem for him. But Desmond was a real handful, and I guess he had what these days a psychologist might diagnose as Attention Deficit Hyper-active Disorder. He just couldn't sit still for a moment or keep his mouth shut. From the start the new boy didn't seem at all in awe of Mr Firth. He would shout out, make comments and offer his unsolicited views, much to the teacher's irritation. The quiet calm and orderly routine of his classroom was disturbed and the teacher did not like it. In fact Theo looked somewhat unnerved on occasions and grimaced angrily. When he was in trouble with Mr Firth, which was most of the time, Desmond would be made to stand at the front where he would shuffle, fidget and pull faces. Amazingly, Mr Firth never hit him.

  On one occasion Desmond returned to school after a few days' absence. He sauntered into the classroom, the last in the line, and took his place next to me at the front.

  'And why were you off school, Smithy?' enquired Mr Firth.

  'I was ill, sir,' came back the reply.

  'Nothing trivial, I hope,' said Mr Firth, reaching for a stick of chalk.

  On another occasion Mr Firth remarked rather caustically after he handed back our essays, 'You know, Smithy, keep up this standard of work and you have a promising future behind you.'

  'Thank you, sir,' replied Desmond, smiling widely as if he had been given a rare compliment.

  On one occasion the teacher asked the class why it was decided that Admiral Lord Nelson should be buried in Westminster Abbey. Desmond raised a hand. 'Because he was dead, sir?' Even Theo had to smile.

  Desmond seemed unperturbed by the sometimes scathing wit of the teacher, but he must have been waiting for the moment to strike. We were all to discover that Desmond had this amazing skill. He could throw his voice. On one memorable morning, when Mr Firth turned to write his copious notes on the board, there was a clucking noise. The teacher swung around and glared.

  'Who was that?' he demanded. There was an eerie silence as the teacher surveyed the blank faces staring back at him. 'I said who was that?' he repeated, raising his voice. He scanned the room. 'Who made that silly noise?' There was still no answer. 'Was it you?' he asked Desmond, who had been placed next to me at the front where the teacher could keep an eye on him.

  'Oh no, sir,' replied Desmond in the most outraged voice. 'I don't even like chickens, sir.'

  'Humph,' grunted the teacher. Then he addressed the class. 'I shall ask again, who made that silly clucking noise, and if the boy responsible does not own up, you will all remain in during break.' Of course, we all knew who the culprit was but we kept quiet. No one likes a sneak in a school. So that morning break we were all made to stay in. The following lesson, each time Mr Firth turned his back on the class, there came the clucking noise. No one dared laugh but inside we were weeping with laughter. We remained in the classroom again at morning break. After he had kept us in for the fourth consecutive break, Mr Firth had to concede that this was not the best means of flushing out the phantom clucker because as soon as the bell sounded for the end of break we would all rush out to the toilets and then arrive late for the next lesson. Clearly Mr Firth's colleagues had convinced him that there was a more effective method of discovering the mischief-maker.

  The next lesson and the one after that Mr Firth, much to our surprise, ignored the clucking. I guess he knew it was Desmond but the noise seemed to come from the back of the room, which must have confused him. Mr Firth made certain that there were few occasions when he had to turn his back on the class, for when we arrived at the history room for the last lesson of the week we found the notes already written on the blackboard. As we copied them into our exercise books, Mr Firth glowered at the front, legs apart, arms folded over his chest. Desmond was obviously getting to him. But someti
mes during that lesson the teacher forgot, and as soon as his back was turned the phantom clucker struck again. The very next lesson was on the Monday morning and, through sharp observation, Mr Firth discovered the culprit. He was patrolling the room, clutching a large textbook and ostensibly looking over our shoulders to ensure we were writing neatly, when there was a faint 'Cluuuuckkkk, cluuuuckkkk, cluuuuckkkk.' Mr Firth ignored it and continued to stroll from desk to desk. 'Cluuuuckkkk, cluuuuckkkk, cluuuuckkkk,' came the noise again. By now, after several lessons of clucking, we pupils had all got quite used to the noise, so we carried on writing. 'Cluuuuckkkk, cluuuuckkkk, cluuuuckkkk,' came the noise again just as Mr Firth arrived at Desmond's desk. The teacher raised the great tome and brought it down with a resounding thud on the boy's head with the words 'Cock-a-doodle-do!' That was the last we saw of Desmond. The next lesson Mr Firth warned us, I think with a twinkle in his dark eyes, 'And anyone else who has the mistaken belief he is a chicken or any other farmyard creature, I suggest he thinks on.'

  The second memorable moment was when a parent came up to school to 'get him'. I was in the fifth year and a prefect on duty after school, standing at the top of the stairs by the science labs making sure the pupils kept to the left, didn't run and left the school quickly and quietly. Most of the pupils by this time had gone home and I was about to go to the art club when the excited voice of another prefect came up the stairs.

  'Oi, Phinny, tha'd berrer come and see this!'

  I ran down the stairs, three at a time, to see a teacher blocking the door as a very large and angry man, furiously red-faced, attempted to enter the school. Mr Price, Head of Religious Education and a very inoffensive and quiet-natured man, was attempting to reason with the aggressive visitor.

  'I'll cut 'is throat!' the man was shouting. 'So 'elp me, I'll cut 'is throat! I'll murder t'bastard!' Then, catching sight of me, he ordered, 'Thee theer, thee wi' bloody badge on thi blazer, go and tell that theer Mester Firth to get down 'ere now. I wants to see 'im! When I gets 'old of that bastard, I'll cut 'is bleedin' throat, I swear I will.'