Over Hill and Dale

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘That’s quite all right, Mr Phinn,’ the Headteacher replied. ‘I, too, enjoy listening to someone else holding forth about education. And you are correct, of course. The purpose of education is to change an empty mind into an open one. Mr Armstrong has been with us for a long time and it’s very difficult to get a leopard to change its spots. He has attended course after course but with little apparent benefit. His lessons are still exceptionally tedious, I have to admit. He is a well-meaning man and hard working and the boys do have a certain affection for him, but I think the time has come for me to have a stronger word with him about his methods. The other teacher concerned, as you are aware, is covering Mrs Simkins’ maternity leave. We had an excellent teacher lined up but she secured a full-time post and pulled out at the last minute. I’m afraid I just could not get anyone else at such short notice. I have to agree, however, the pupils do deserve better. I shall most certainly act on your advice and do everything I can to find a different teacher to fill in before Mrs Simkins returns.’

  I nodded, pleased that Mr Fenton was prepared to deal with the problem quickly.

  ‘As for Miss Mullane and Miss Darlington,’ he continued, ‘your assessment of them comes as no surprise either, and I am delighted that you found their teaching so refreshing. When I was a lad, we plodded through the text in maximum, pleasure-destroying detail. That was the reason, I suppose, that I never took to Shakespeare, not, that is, until I came across Jan Darlington. She brings the words to life, as you quite rightly observe. You know, Mr Phinn, you should pay us another visit for the performance next week. Performing Romeo and Juliet in an all boys, secondary modern school is quite a challenge, I can tell you.’

  ‘I would very much enjoy that, Mr Fenton.’

  ‘Sadly, Miss Mullane will not be with us much longer. She’s joining the English Department at West Challerton High School next term as second in charge. I shall be very sorry to see her leave.’

  ‘I will send a full written report, Mr Fenton,’ I said, making ready to go. ‘Now, if there is nothing else?’

  ‘It’s been a great pleasure to meet you, Mr Phinn,’ said the Headteacher, walking with me to the door. ‘It’s very reassuring to have inspectors who are so keen about children. I do really believe, you know, that those of us in education can really make a difference, particularly in the lives of less fortunate children, those who are labelled failures.’

  ‘I know that, Mr Fenton,’ I said, shaking his hand and looking into the dark, sincere eyes. ‘I know that.’

  ‘My father was a miner, Mr Phinn, and I remember him returning from the pit in Maltby where I was brought up, weary and caked in black coal dust but always smiling and good-humoured. He had no degrees or diplomas but he was a well-read and intelligent man and always wanted me to do well at school. He’d never had the chance, you see. My mother was a school cleaner and she too gave me every bit of support and encouragement. She worked hard and long to buy me the grammar school blazer and everything else I had to have, and to keep me on at school. I try to make Sunny Grove like the good home that I was brought up in, a place where there is work and laughter, honesty and fairness. I think I owe it to my parents.’

  As I walked across the playground towards the dingy rows of terraced houses, shabby factory premises and derelict land, I looked back at the grim, towering, blackened building with high brick walls. I thought of Mr Fenton and his missionary zeal, and the words of Blake’s poem came again to mind:

  I will not cease from mental fight,

  Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

  Till we have built Jerusalem,

  In England’s green and pleasant land.

  13

  ‘Excellent news, gentlemen!’ Harold Yeats crashed through the door making the three of us shoot up from our chairs as if given a sharp electric shock.

  ‘For goodness sake, Harold!’ cried Sidney, retrieving the bundle of papers which he had scattered across the office floor in his alarm. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that – exploding into the room like some maniacal genie from the magic lamp and nearly giving everyone a heart attack!’

  ‘It’s just that I have some really wonderful news!’ exclaimed Harold, showing his mouthful of teeth and vigorously rubbing his large hands.

  ‘Is it a pay rise?’ asked David lugubriously. ‘It’s about time we had an increase in our miserable salaries. We ought to get a raise when the teachers do. Four years it is since my income –’

  ‘No, not a pay rise, David, but it is something which will, I have no doubt, bring a smile to that austere Welsh countenance of yours.’

  ‘Mrs Savage has been given the sack?’ announced David gleefully. ‘Now that would bring a smile to my face. When I think of that woman, I genuinely warm to Lucretia Borgia.’

  ‘No, no.’ Harold rumpled his hair, frowned, sighed and shook his head.

  ‘We’re moving into a new office?’ I suggested.

  ‘No, we are not moving into a new office.’

  ‘Connie is retiring?’ ventured Sidney, leaning back in his chair, placing his long fingers behind his head and staring at the ceiling. ‘That would bring a smile to my lips.’

  ‘If you three would just listen for a moment and let me get a word in, I’ll tell you. Dr Gore has agreed, with the Education Committee’s approval, for us to expand!’

  ‘Expand!’ exclaimed David.

  ‘Appoint another inspector, one to cover science and technology.’

  ‘Oh, be still my dancing feet!’ exclaimed David. ‘You mean I will no longer be responsible for science and technology?’

  ‘I thought that would please you,’ said Harold, again showing his set of tombstone teeth.

  ‘It is absolutely superb news, Harold,’ chortled David. ‘Of course, it’s about time too. I’ve had to cover science and technology for far too long. It will be a blessed relief to pass on all that work in physics and chemistry to some bright young thing. When will he start?’

  ‘It will be after Easter,’ announced Harold pleasantly. ‘Some time after the start of the Summer term. The advertisement goes into the Education Supplement next Monday, then there will be the usual few weeks to receive applications and references. Then, of course, there will be the interviews and the successful candidate will have to give a couple of months’ notice to his employer.’

  ‘He! His!’ exclaimed Sidney. ‘Don’t you two think, in this age of equal opportunities, that it may very well be a woman who is appointed? Why is there an assumption that the new inspector will be a man?’

  Harold took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied. ‘You are quite right. It was a slip of the tongue. It’s just that most science inspectors seem to be men.’

  ‘All the more reason for appointing a woman, I would have thought,’ I added.

  ‘It would, of course, be splendid if we were able to appoint a woman,’ replied Harold. ‘Actually, when we were shortlisting for the English post we all thought that Gervase was –’

  ‘A woman!’ exclaimed Sidney.

  ‘Well, er, yes,’ Harold stuttered. ‘I’m sure Gervase will be the first to admit he has a most unusual name and it does sound… oh dear… I’m digging in deeper, aren’t I?’

  ‘It’s all right, Harold,’ I laughed, ‘I’m used to it. I often get letters addressed to Ms Phinn.’

  ‘But seriously, Harold,’ persisted Sidney, ‘I think it would be an extremely sensible move to have a woman on the team. The thing is, a woman inspector would offer a very positive role model for all the female science and technology teachers and female students in the county and, of course, an attractive, intelligent, bubbly young woman would add a little verve and colour to this drab cubicle we euphemistically describe as an office. You could go in for a bit of positive discrimination.’

  ‘Now, who’s being sexist?’ spluttered David. ‘Why has she got to be an attractive, intelligent, bubbly young woman? It’s not a beauty contest she’s competing in, you know.’

  ‘Oh,
I don’t think there will be any positive discrimination,’ said Harold thoughtfully. ‘I think not. The CEO and the Education Committee would not go along with that. This is Yorkshire after all. They will want the best candidate for the job, regardless of sex.’

  ‘Gender,’ corrected Sidney, ‘regardless of gender.’

  ‘Look!’ said Harold. ‘I came in today really excited about the prospect of another member for our team. I do wish you would stop nit-picking, Sidney. Now, if you could all bear with me for one moment, without interrupting, I shall go through the new procedures.’

  ‘What new procedures?’ asked David.

  ‘If you would give me the chance,’ cried Harold, ‘I will tell you! Thank you. Now, things will be rather different from when Gervase was appointed last year.’

  ‘Did they think they got it wrong, then?’ asked Sidney, giving me a wry smile.

  ‘Not at all, it’s just that Dr Gore feels we need to refine the process and update it. Mrs Savage –’

  David grimaced distastefully. ‘I thought she would be lurking in the background somewhere, like the Ghost of Christmas Past,’ he growled. ‘Is she going to appoint the school inspectors now? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. She has those long, red-nailed fingers in every other pie.’

  ‘Not at all!’ said Harold. ‘I really do think that you are rather hard on Mrs Savage, David. She’s a very industrious and efficient woman, a little on the sharp side with people, maybe, but that’s the way with her. Underneath that very steely exterior –’

  ‘There beats a heart of iron?’ concluded David.

  ‘The woman is irritating beyond endurance,’ agreed Sidney. ‘You ask Gervase about the industrious and efficient Mrs Savage.’

  ‘Please don’t bring me into this,’ I said. ‘The last person I wish to talk about is Mrs Savage.’

  ‘She was supposed to send Gervase all the information for another Fee-Fo meeting and, for the second time, deliberately withheld it from him to make him look a fool.’

  ‘No, Sidney,’ I began, ‘it wasn’t exactly like that and I certainly didn’t say that I was made to look a fool. In fact –’

  ‘And he had to attend the meeting with all these big-wigs,’ continued Sidney obliviously, ‘bereft of the necessary papers. For the second time running. When he phoned her up, rather than being apologetic, the vixen said that she had been under the impression he was going to collect them. Furthermore –’

  ‘Sidney,’ I interrupted, ‘I am quite capable of explaining what happened myself.’ I turned to face Harold. ‘It was just a misunderstanding, Harold. Mrs Savage said that she would send me the minutes, new agenda and all the accompanying papers for last week’s planning meeting just as soon as she received them, but then later denied this and said she had asked me to collect them from her office and –’

  ‘Look, can we hear about the new procedures?’ said David in an exasperated voice. ‘It has gone six and I was hoping to get home before midnight.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Harold. ‘But that has just reminded me. I would like to have an update from you sometime, Gervase, about how the Feoffees’ event is progressing –’

  ‘The new procedures, Harold,’ sighed David, drumming his fingers on his desk.

  ‘Well, as I was about to say, Mrs Savage has recently attended a course on selection procedures and has come back with some ideas which Dr Gore is really taken with. He’s going to try out some modern and rigorous techniques. I will be drawing up the shortlist of the final five candidates as usual, but I shall also be attending the interviews myself this time. For the first part of the day, the candidates will sit a short sociometric test before meeting a selection of primary school headteachers in an informal setting. At this point, some preliminary judgements will be made. I thought perhaps Sister Brendan and Miss Pilkington and three others could be invited along. After morning coffee, each candidate will make a fifteen-minute presentation to the interview panel of councillors, Dr Gore and myself. It will be on some topical issue related to science education. Following this, he – or she – will be asked a series of pertinent questions on his or her presentation. Lunch will be with three secondary headteachers and the candidates will again be assessed in an informal setting. In the afternoon they will sit a written paper and this will be followed by the formal interviews. It should all be over by about five-thirty and the successful candidate will be informed at the end of the day.’

  ‘Is that all they have to do?’ asked Sidney. ‘What about hang-gliding from the clock tower at County Hall while singing selections from Oklahoma or making a model of Buckingham Palace out of used matchsticks whilst performing a limbo dance beneath the CEO’s desk?’

  ‘I have to admit that it does sound like the Spanish Inquisition!’ exclaimed David. ‘I’m certainly glad I didn’t have all that carry-on to go through when I was appointed in the dim and distant past. If you were warm and breathing, then they gave you the job. I was in and out of the interview room in no time at all.’

  ‘When I was interviewed,’ Sidney told us, ‘I tripped over the carpet going into the Council Chamber, tottered forward, gripped the first hand in sight to get my balance – which happened to belong to a military-looking county councillor with a bright red face – and after that it was all plain sailing. I think he thought I was giving him some kind of Masonic handshake.’

  ‘I’m certainly glad I didn’t have to go through all that last year,’ I said. ‘The single interview was stressful enough.’

  ‘I agree,’ said David sadly. ‘I don’t think I’d get over the first hurdle if I was put through all the things you’ve planned for these poor souls, Harold.’

  ‘We have to move with the times’ said Harold. ‘Now, I would like you all to arrive at the Staff Development Centre at about five-thirty on the day of the interviews on March 1st. Could you just check in your diaries that you are available?’

  ‘St David’s Day!’ exclaimed our resident Welshman. ‘Well, I hope we are not going to be long. We’re having a Welsh evening at the Golf Club. Anyway, Harold, why do we have to be there? Are the candidates to get a further grilling from us? Do I twist the thumbscrews, turn the rack or pour the boiling oil?’

  ‘Just be a good chap, David, and look in your diary,’ said Harold.

  ‘Do you hear that, Gervase?’ announced Sidney, smiling broadly. ‘You are to attend another interview and have the opportunity to wear that red and yellow monstrosity you fancifully call a suit.’

  ‘Don’t mention the suit,’ I warned him, flicking through my diary. ‘Why do you want us there, Harold?’

  ‘It’s for you three to meet the successful candidate,’ Harold told us. ‘Gervase, after you were appointed, you mentioned that it would have been rather nice if you had been given the opportunity of meeting your new colleagues, so I intend to put that suggestion into practice. And another thing you mentioned was that you would have welcomed the chance of visiting some schools prior to taking up your post. I shall be arranging that for our new colleague as well. Before he – or she – starts, I would like you, David, to take him – or her – into some secondary science lessons and you, Gervase, to spend a day with him – or her – observing some primary design technology work.’ Harold bent down to retrieve his briefcase from the floor. ‘Well, I think that’s everything unless someone has something to ask.’

  Julie, who had been standing by the door listening, raised her hand. ‘Could I ask something, Dr Yeats?’

  ‘Of course, Julie, what is it?’

  ‘Where is he, she or it going to sit? On top of the bookcase? In a filing cabinet? On the window sill? This office is already overcrowded. You’ll never get another desk and cupboard in here. Tom Thumb would have difficulty finding a place to stand.’

  ‘Perhaps you could positively discriminate in favour of the smallest candidate, Harold,’ suggested Sidney flippantly. ‘Someone about four foot tall and as thin as a rake.’

  ‘And what about all the added typ
ing and filing,’ continued Julie, ignoring the interruption, ‘and all the extra running about I’ll have to do, with another inspector filling up my in-tray? And then there’s the coffee –’

  ‘Julie, Julie,’ Harold reassured her, ‘let’s try and be positive. We are in desperate need of someone to take on the extra work. I am certain that all these little internal difficulties can be overcome. I shall have a word with Mrs Savage and see if she can arrange a little extra secretarial help and sort out the room situation.’

  ‘Oh, well, if you have a word with Mrs Savage, the fount of all knowledge,’ said David sarcastically, ‘all our problems will be solved. She’ll just wave her magic wand or, more appropriately, wiggle her witch’s broomstick, and everything will be fine. One could not hope for a kinder, more considerate, co-operative, easy-going, invariably cheerful and generally all-round likeable person than the ever-helpful Mrs Savage.’

  Harold gave a great heaving sigh. ‘I just hope our new colleague has a sense of humour, a thick skin and the patience of a saint.’

  The day of the interviews arrived. Harold was in the office early, as were we all that morning to find out who had been shortlisted for the post. Harold was dressed in an extremely smart dark blue suit, a crisp white shirt and college tie, highly polished black shoes, and he carried a leather-backed clipboard.