Over Hill and Dale

by Gervase Phinn

  We were as motionless as the statue of St Bartholmew of Whitby, who looked down upon us sympathetically from his plinth at the front of the hall. It was the same St Bartholomew, the hermit, who betook himself to the Farne Islands in the twelfth century to escape the strident noises of the world and to spend his life in complete peace and quiet meditation. I surmise we all envied him at that moment.

  16

  Harold and Sidney were in animated conversation when I walked into the office one mild, misty morning a week before the end of the Spring term. They were facing each other across Sidney’s desk like aggressive chess players.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Harold,’ Sidney was saying. ‘I have got more than enough work to keep me fully occupied for the rest of the year without taking all that on.’ He paused to wish me ‘Good morning’ before continuing in a loud and combative voice, ‘There’s the inspections, three courses to direct, the “Arts in School Project”, the Fee-Fo exhibition of children’s art to organise, adjudicating that wretched Art Competition at Fettlesham Show yet again. I could go on and on.’

  ‘You are going on and on,’ replied Harold, quietly. He gave me a toothy smile and wished me ‘Good morning’ before returning to Sidney. ‘Now look, Sidney, we all have to take on extra responsibilities from time to time.’ He opened his large hands like the Pope about to give a blessing. ‘Gervase and David have the core subjects to deal with. It would be unfair to ask them. Without denigrating your curriculum area, I am sure you will agree that mathematics and English do take up far more time than art and design.’

  ‘I would be absolutely hopeless,’ retorted Sidney, shaking his head vigorously. ‘I’d be about as successful as a garlic salesman at a vampires’ convention. I am temperamentally unsuited and I have no intention whatsoever of agreeing.’

  ‘What is it you are asking him to do, Harold?’ I enquired, hanging up my coat.

  ‘To completely redefine my role, that’s what!’ cried Sidney. ‘Well, I’m not doing it.’

  ‘What nonsense, Sidney!’ said Harold. ‘I am merely asking you to take on a little extra work.’

  ‘A little extra work? A little extra work? Is that how you would describe it? You are asking me to pick up all the hot potatoes on the curriculum, all the complex, vexatious, troublesome, tricky and controversial subjects of which I have no experience and in which I have no expertise. There is simply no question of –’

  ‘I wish one of you would tell me what it is Sidney has been asked to do,’ I said.

  ‘Harold,’ Sidney told me, scowling in the direction of the Senior Inspector, ‘has asked me, in addition to creative and visual arts and all the other multifarious jobs I have to do, to be responsible for sex education, drugs awareness and anti-bullying.’ I was unable to suppress a smile. ‘I am sure you find this highly amusing, Gervase, but –’

  ‘Look, Sidney,’ interrupted Harold, rubbing his heavy bulldog jaw, ‘I can’t waste any more time arguing with you. I’m seeing Dr Gore at half-past eight and I need to sort out the briefing papers. Someone has got to do it and you are best placed.’

  ‘Best placed!’ exclaimed Sidney. ‘Oh, I am best placed all right. With my head beneath the guillotine, you mean? Up against a wall facing a firing squad? On the scaffold waiting for the trap to open? Sitting on a bloody land-mine!’

  ‘You would think I was asking him to sell his soul,’ said Harold wearily, turning in my direction. He stood up to go and peered at Sidney with his large pale eyes. ‘The fact is, Sidney, there is no one else.’

  ‘Why can’t our new colleague, the multi-talented and massively qualified Dr Mullarkey, take it on? I am sure she knows far more than I do about sex, drugs and violence.’

  At that very moment a head appeared around the door. ‘Did I hear my name mentioned?’

  Dr Mullarkey was due to take up her post as County Inspector for Science in early June and Harold had organised some school visits before she started so she could get a feel for things and meet a few people. At present, she was a lecturer in education and had asked if this preliminary visit could be before the end of the Spring term rather than early next term when she would be frantically busy preparing her students for their end-of-year examinations.

  That morning it was my turn to accompany Gerry, and I had arranged to take her into three primary schools to observe some design and technology work.

  ‘You’ll get used to Sidney,’ I said as we walked towards the car park. ‘He’s a sort of extravagant, larger-than-life character, but a marvellous colleague. Everything is a drama with Sidney. The one thing about our office is that it’s never dull.’

  ‘I’m really looking forward to starting,’ said Gerry, as we skirted the grey exterior of County Hall and headed across the narrow gravel path through the formal gardens. I gave her a quizzical look. ‘Really,’ she said, laughing. ‘Of course, I’ve got to find somewhere to live, so could do with a bit of advice about location and houses.’

  ‘I’m the last one to ask. I began searching for a place when I started eighteen months ago but am still in my rented bachelor flat on the High Street. I just don’t seem to have found the time for house hunting.’

  ‘So you’re not married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll probably do that at the outset,’ she said. ‘Rent a flat or a little cottage, I mean. I suppose a place in Fettlesham is the most convenient?’

  ‘Yes, it’s pretty central.’ We walked in silence for a while. ‘So, you’ve no family?’

  A smile came to the delicately boned face. ‘No, just me. Footloose and fancy free.’

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  The clock on the County Hall tower struck eight o’clock as I drove down Fettlesham High Street which was just becoming busy with early morning traffic. I was soon on a twisting, empty road, bordered by craggy grey limestone walls and verges fringed by last year’s dead, murky-brown bracken and tussocky grass. Beyond the walls was an austere, still scene, a vast undulating world of dark fields covered in a light, fleecy mist, empty save for the small cluster of barns and square farmhouses, and the occasional twisted hawthorn tree. The shadowy green foreground lay ahead of us, backed in the distance by the sombre, pale blue peaks. Bars of purple cloud stretched across the sky. Gerry didn’t speak until the pale sun, shining through the clouds with an almost luminous warmth, made the whole landscape before us glisten with the splendour of a gemstone.

  ‘It’s magnificent,’ she said quietly.

  ‘It is, isn’t it? I can never get used to it.’

  The small stone primary school we were to visit first was nestled in the very heart of the village of Tarncliffe. It was sandwiched between the post office-cum-general store and the squat, grey Primitive Methodist chapel and looked like a private dwelling at first glance. From the pavement the door opened directly into the one large classroom and passers-by could peer through the leaded windows to see the pupils at work. We were given a warm welcome by the Headteacher, Miss Drayton, and her assistant, Mrs Standish, who both shook our hands vigorously and ushered us into the classroom.

  Gerry and I started with the junior-aged children who were behind a large partition, working industriously on various models and construction work. In the corner of the amazingly cluttered and busy classroom were two girls of about ten or eleven, their school clothes shrouded by large men’s shirts. They explained to us that they had been asked to design and produce a labour-saving device for use in the home. They had come up with the idea for a gadget which would tell the milkman the number of pints required each day. Their first, not very novel idea had been to design a clockface with numbers from one to eight around the rim and a hand which could be adjusted to point to the number of pints needed that particular day.

  ‘But then,’ explained one of the girls enthusiastically, ‘what if you wanted some cream as well as milk?’

  ‘Or orange juice?’ added the other.

  ‘Or eggs or yoghurt?’

  ‘And some milkmen sell potatoes
as well.’

  ‘So the problem has become very complicated,’ observed Gerry, looking at their plans. ‘Have you managed to resolve it?’

  ‘One solution would be to have six different faces, each one for a different thing – milk, cream, eggs, orange juice, yoghurt and potatoes – but Mrs Standish said our design has to be simple, clear, easy to use and cheap to produce.’

  ‘This is a real problem, isn’t it?’ said Gerry. ‘Have you found the solution?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ exclaimed one of the girls. ‘Tessa had a brainwave.’ She plucked a piece of paper from her folder and pushed it in Gerry’s direction with a triumphant look on her face. Gerry examined the sketch, smiled, nodded and observed, ‘Ingenious’ before passing it to me. The design was for a small square of thin plywood on which was written in bright capital letters: ‘MILKMAN! SEE NOTE IN BOTTLE.’

  In another corner of the room a large boy was humming quietly and contentedly to himself, his body moving backwards and forwards in time to the tune as he filed away at a long piece of wood.

  ‘And what are you doing?’ asked Gerry cheerfully.

  He looked up for a moment. ‘Oh, I’m just raspin’, miss,’ he replied simply, before returning to his work.

  I left Gerry with the ‘rasper’ and moved into the infant section of the classroom.

  ‘Would you like me to read to you?’ asked a small girl, with wide, cornflower-blue eyes and a mass of blonde hair which was gathered in two large candyfloss bunches.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I would like that very much.’

  ‘I’m a very good reader, you know,’ she confided in me, while she searched in her bag for her book.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I read with expression.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘And I can do different voices.’

  ‘Really? I expect you use dramatic pauses as well,’ I said mischievously.

  She looked up for a moment and then added seriously, ‘I don’t know what they are, but I probably can.’

  She was indeed a very accomplished little reader and sailed through her book confidently and fluently. ‘I am good, aren’t I?’ she announced when she had completed three pages.

  ‘Very good,’ I said.

  ‘I’m good at writing as well.’

  ‘I imagined you would be.’

  ‘Would you like to see my writing?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘Poetry or prose?’

  ‘Poetry, please.’

  ‘I keep my poems in a portfolio.’

  ‘I guessed you would,’ I said, smiling.

  Her writing was neat, imaginative and accurate. ‘I am good at writing, aren’t I?’

  ‘Very good,’ I agreed.

  ‘I’m good at talking as well.’

  ‘I can tell that. I think your mummy’s got a little chatterbox at home.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed the child. ‘My granny has asthma and I’m not allowed to keep pets.’

  ‘I see,’ I said chuckling. I couldn’t imagine what sort of animal she thought ‘a little chatterbox’ was.

  ‘My granny calls me her “bright little button”.’

  ‘That’s a lovely name,’ I told her. ‘They’re very special are grannies and we must really look after them.’

  ‘My granny wobbles, you know,’ the little chatterbox continued.

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘She has a special disease which makes her wobble and forget things.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the little girl, nodding sagely. ‘It’s called “Old Timers’ Disease”.’

  Gerry, who had joined me a few moments before, just in time to hear the end of my interesting exchange with the ‘bright little button’, whispered in my ear. ‘You know, Gervase, if I get Alzheimer’s Disease when I’m feeble, old and grey, I think I would like my children to say that I have got “Old Timers’ Disease”. It sounds much more friendly and humane, don’t you think?’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t have a family?’ I replied, surprised at the revelation.

  ‘I don’t – yet,’ she told me, throwing her head back and laughing, ‘but I intend to one day.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the ‘bright little button’, patting my arm, ‘would your girlfriend like to hear me read?’

  At the second school, Sheepcote Primary, Gerry looked through the children’s work and discussed the science curriculum with the teacher while I moved around the classroom talking to the children about the tasks they were undertaking that morning. On the table, tucked in a corner, were two boys busy sewing. One looked as if he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. He had spiky hair, a round red face and large ears. His nose was running and a front tooth was missing. His shirt was hanging out, his socks were concertinaed around his ankles, his legs were covered in cuts and bruises, and his shoes were so scuffed I could not tell whether they were originally black or brown. His hands and face were both entirely innocent of soap and water. His companion looked as healthy as a prize-winning bull. He was a very large, amiable-looking boy with a round moon of a face, great dimpled elbows and knees, and fingers as fat as sausages. Both boys were surrounded by threads, cottons, fabrics, an assortment of needles, boxes of pins and scissors and both were sewing furiously, their arms rising and falling like pistons.

  ‘Hello,’ I said brightly.

  ‘Hello,’ replied the larger boy. His companion continued to sew with a vengeance, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

  ‘And how are you?’

  ‘Middlin’ well,’ replied the large boy.

  ‘And what are you two up to?’ I asked amiably.

  ‘Samplers,’ he answered.

  ‘Samplers?’

  ‘Victorian embroidery,’ the toothless one informed me, still vigorously sewing.

  ‘For Mother’s Day on Sunday,’ added the other.

  ‘I see,’ I said, bending over them to get a closer look at their work. ‘May I see?’

  ‘Can’t be stopping,’ said the toothless one, continuing to sew with great determination, forcing the needle savagely through the canvas. ‘Got to get it finished.’ He turned to his friend. ‘Pass us t’pink will tha, Dean?’

  His companion searched through the assortment of coloured threads. ‘All gone,’ he replied bluntly.

  ‘All gone!’ exclaimed the toothless boy. ‘All gone! Tha’s gone and used all t’pink?’

  ‘I needed it for mi roses.’

  ‘And tha’s used all t’purple, an all?’

  ‘That were for mi lilac.’

  ‘And t’yella?’

  ‘That were for mi daffs,’ said the large boy apologetically.

  ‘And tha’s left me wi all t’blacks and t’browns and t’greys. Thanks very much, Dean!’

  The boys, entirely oblivious of my presence, resumed pushing the large needles through the fabric as if their lives depended upon it.

  ‘Just stop a moment, will you, please,’ I told them.

  The toothless one paused, looked up, wiped the dewdrop from his nose with the back of his hand and then returned to his sewing as if he had not heard me.

  ‘I can’t stop,’ he told me. ‘I’ve got to gerrit done.’

  His companion, clearly very pleased with his effort, held up a pale square of cream fabric. In large, uneven letters were the words: A MOTHER’S LOVE IS A BLESSING. The border was ablaze with a whole host of large, unrecognisable but extremely vivid flowers.

  ‘I’ve just got mi name to put at t’bottom and I’m all done,’ he announced proudly.

  ‘And tha’s used up all t’pink,’ grumbled his companion, who was still stitching away madly.

  The large boy straightened his sampler with a fat, pink hand and admired his handiwork before asking, ‘Are you one of these school inspectors Miss was on about?’

  ‘I am,’ I replied.

  ‘What do you reckon to mi sampler, then?’

  ‘Well, it’s very bright an
d original but, you know, if I had come into your school a hundred years ago, you’d have been in real trouble.’

  ‘How old are you, then?’ asked the toothless boy.

  ‘What I meant is that if a school inspector had visited your school at the time it was built, you would have been in trouble.’

  ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘Because your stitches are too big. If you look at the Victorian samplers, you will notice that the lettering and designs are very delicate and very carefully stitched.’

  The toothless boy stopped sewing abruptly, examined his sampler and carefully put down his needle and thread, before turning to look me straight in the face. ‘Aye, well, if I did ’em all small and delicate like what you say, mi mum’d nivver gerrit, would she? I’ve been on this for four week and I’ll be lucky to get it done for next year’s Mother’s Day, way things stand.’

  ‘I’ll get mine done,’ Dean chimed in smugly.

  ‘Aye!’ snapped the toothless one. ‘And we know why, don’t we?’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Because, when Miss give out all these different Victorian sayings and proverbs, I was off poorly and when I got back I was stuck wi’ t’one nob’dy wanted. Dean got shortest – A MOTHER’S LOVE IS A BLESSING – and I got t’longest!’ He displayed his piece of fabric with a grubby finger. It read:

  THERE IS NOTHING SO PURE,

  THERE IS NOTHING SO HIGH,

  AS THE LOVE YOU WILL SEE

  IN YOUR MOTHER’S EYE.

  ‘I’ve only just started mi border,’ he moaned. ‘And Dean’s used all t’pinks and t’yellas and t’purples and I’m stuck wi t’blacks, t’browns and t’greys!’

  ‘You could do animals instead of flowers,’ suggested his companion with a self-satisfied smirk on his round red face. ‘You don’t need colours for sheep and cows and goats…’

  ‘I’d need summat for t’pigs, though, wouldn’t I?’ cried the toothless one. ‘And tha’s used all t’pink!’

  ‘I’m sure that, however it turns out, your mother will love your sampler,’ I reassured him.