Greetings Noble Sir

by Nigel Flaxton

  ‘These kids may not be very bright when it comes to the three Rs,’ she said, ‘but they’re natural actors. With mime they don’t let themselves down with poor diction, so they can do very well.’ The commendations received in previous years bore testimony to this, and her enthusiasm.

  I, too, like Drama and later also entered children in the festival with other keen teachers, but that was well in the future. Anyway, Drama had no place in the College curriculum, only Art, Craft and Music from which we had to select one. I was Crafty.

  ‘Would you mind if I took individual children out of your rehearsal lessons when they’re not acting so I can go over their work?’ I asked, and she agreed.

  It did not require much research to discover that those not acting much tended to be those who made most mistakes in Arithmetic. Possibly the odd moments of extra individual teaching had some marginal use.

  Margaret was slightly below average ability for the class as far as my record of the IQs shows. Over the years I came to distrust such measurements. Now all those people are in their seventies it would be highly interesting to see how well or otherwise those IQs predicted future success. It would be equally interesting to investigate thoroughly the school records of some now famous people. To prevent that one Prime Minister famously had his records classified as secret documents!

  In the production Margaret and Jean, who didn’t show great miming skills, were 1st and 2nd Fan Slaves respectively, my notes record. Margaret’s absence on one occasion was hardly noticed when I went through her Arithmetic in the staffroom - the only place a spare table was available. The work was on proportion and ratio and the children had not found the concepts easy to grasp. No doubt my teaching had not been pitched at the right level and a number had made mistakes. Margaret, I remember, made many.

  ‘Oh, Margaret,’ I said staring at a long line of sums. I had put red ticks by the first two but the rest had crosses. ‘Look at all these mistakes. You did the first two sums correctly. Why didn’t you do the same with the rest?’

  She surveyed the page with a puzzled look; suddenly her hand flew to her mouth as she realised her error.

  ‘Ah, now you’re using your brain,’ I said. ‘You must have had your mind on something else when you were doing this work. You’re not stupid, Margaret. What are we going to do with you?’

  I was rattling on to no purpose and was about to say she had do some corrections. Margaret, however, did not take my question rhetorically.

  ‘You should give me the cane, Sir,’ she said brightly!

  ‘Oh,’ I said with rather a gasp, ‘I don’t think it’s that serious.’ Then, equally unthinking, ‘In any case I haven’t got a cane.’

  ‘’But I’ve got a ruler, Sir, you can hit me with that if you like.’

  Margaret also taught me that not only will some children do anything for attention, they can also be persistent. Two weeks after my junior practice the College term ended. At home during the first weekend I was helping my father in the garden. This was his one and only pastime and normally it was immaculate. However we had dutifully dug up the larger of two lawns to grow vegetables in the Dig for Victory campaign. It wasn’t obvious what role we had played in the nation’s success, so two years later we were trying to return the garden to its former pristine condition.

  My father was hoeing with his usual skill, producing a fine tilth as level as a billiard table and I was weeding where I was not likely to make too much of a mess of things. Mother came to the french windows.

  ‘Love, there are two young ladies at the door asking for you,’ she called, sounding surprised.

  ‘For me?’ My father echoed the surprise.

  I was equally puzzled. They were very happily united and the only member of the family who had any connection to young ladies was me, naturally. I had a brother but he was only nine.

  My father took off his gardening gloves, scraped his feet carefully on the spade, and went indoors. I stared nonchalantly at my weeds, wondering which to slaughter next and failing to envisage my father with young ladies. Someone from Church, I decided, needing advice. He was on the Church Committee.

  He returned quite quickly. ‘It’s not me they want, it’s you,’ he said, laughing. I forgot the weeds with alacrity. ‘Obviously,’ I thought to myself. Then another thought struck me.

  ‘But why did Mother say they wanted you?’

  ‘Because they asked for Mr Flaxton.’

  Inside the house my mother was smiling, too. ‘I’ve put them in the front room, Mr Flaxton!’

  She was enjoying a joke at my expense but I couldn’t fathom what it was. But I hurried into the room expecting some delectable female company, even if there was an unseen string attached.

  They were both sitting bolt upright on the settee, grinning happily.

  ‘Hello, Sir. We were ever so sorry you left School so we found out where you lived and walked all the way from Spenser Street to see you!’

  Margaret and Jean were gazing at me with very goofy eyes.

  Chapter 11

  Dear God, what might happen to ten year old Margaret and Jean tramping the streets unaccompanied to-day? I grant they would be more streetwise and also could afford bus fare. I also grant that to-day they certainly wouldn’t waste their time chasing up a student teacher. But there is no doubt that our streets to-day are nowhere near as safe for young children as they were before and after the Second World War. To that extent life was better then. I can remember in the thirties walking to and from both Infants’ and Junior School, about a mile away from home, four times a day, alone apart from other children. I had caring parents but they, nor I, nor anyone else thought it unusual for a six year old. In any case, had I been accompanied I couldn’t have played marbles along the gutters with the other kids before they reached their homes and I wandered on with pockets bulging with winnings or bemoaning my losses.

  But not much else was better in my student days, Rationing was still in force, indeed ration books were in use well into the fifties. Most commodities were subject to restrictions, including domestic fuel. It seemed to snow most winters, not for Christmas but usually in January or February. It was always cold, I remember, though in retrospect that was due to the way we heated houses. Or rather, did not heat them.

  Pleasant though our house was, heating was effected by coal fires and occasional use of a small electric fire. The kitchen fireplace was the usual type with a boiler set into the back so it heated water for the house. Later, I remember, my father lashed out on an immersion heater for the hot water tank. They became widely fashionable in the years after the war, like double glazing much later.

  We also changed the entire grate. The one installed when the house was built in 1931 had side trivets that you swung over the fire to boil a kettle, whilst above was an oven. These appliances were rarely used because we had a much more efficient gas cooker. But they came into their own during the blitz on the various occasions when both gas and electricity supplies were cut off. The new facility we changed to was the all night fire. This had a high front allowing a fire to be banked up so it merely smouldered. With luck it went on doing this happily all through the night. Then in the morning you opened up the front, opened the airflow, attacked the remains with a poker and, with more luck, it burst into life again. It gave minimal warmth to the kitchen during the night - perhaps kept the cold at bay would be more accurate. But it did keep the hot water lukewarm so the morning wash was no longer such a livener-upper.

  In some circumstances, though, cold was held to be synonymous with health. I record the fact, simply because it was typical, that my father believed anyone sleeping in a heated bedroom would become weak and probably ill. Even more healthy was the open window; only a small one and only with the latch on the first hole so the gap was a mere two inches on the coldest nights. Nevertheless the room had to have direct contact with the he
althy outside air irrespective of temperature even on foggy nights. With the amount of coal burnt on city fires some quite spectacular smogs were achieved on occasions.

  But at least we had warm bedclothes and plenty of them. Our ordinary clothes were warm as well. They had to last, of course, but we had adequate supplies and they were washed and kept clean. Also, during cold days, the fires in both kitchen and lounge-cum-dining room were certainly kept well made up. I was fortunate.

  Spenser Street and its environs, like the area near the College, had many far less fortunate families living in very poor housing where cold was not a matter of choice. This penetrated my awareness one day during the first winter at College when I passed the local gasworks. The by-product, coke, was sold cheaply at the gates and instant news spread the moment a supply was available. The composition of the ensuing queue revealed life in the local houses. Any container was drummed into use - old sacks, tin baths, perambulators (devoid of babies), buckets, often carried on primitive sledges when snow was on the ground.

  The people might have stepped out of a Lowry painting. Hunched and huddled, in various stages of undress, without exception they looked pinched and drawn. Most were teenagers, sent on this so necessary chore. The prizes, obtained by those heading the queue, no doubt gave welcome cheer and warmth in the tiny terraced houses whilst the stocks lasted.

  Such minimal houses were built in most towns and cities in the nineteenth century to house factory labour. Though small and primitive, nevertheless they were built to last. Many can still be seen in areas not cleared to make way for flats, supermarkets, ring roads and other modern developments. Usually the survivors have been refurbished. These now provide interesting urban fieldwork for History lessons.

  When the still video camera appeared (at a very high price, a forerunner of the digital variety) I had access to one loaned by the manufacturer to experiment with for educational purposes. I used it to record a group of fourteen year olds on such an exercise. They were surveying a reasonably well-adapted area of old terraced housing, learning to interpret its history. The narrow roads had traffic calming features, small raised beds had been built and stocked with shrubs, pavements renewed and roads resurfaced. But the main alterations were to the houses and the students were soon copiously writing notes, drawing and photographing the varied refurbishments made by owners.

  That camera could be connected, a tad cumbersomely, to a television set and the images on its small disk played immediately. Alternatively they could be transferred to videotape with an explanatory soundtrack. My purpose was to demonstrate possible uses of this new technology for schools. Later I showed this particular fieldwork exercise to groups of teachers, demonstrating how easy it was to make such pictorial records as resources. They could be stored in the library and easily used for research and revision.

  I included shots of typical house front alterations. Some showed new windows - were these in keeping with the original architecture, my voice-over asked the students. Painting schemes were highly varied - comments were invited on these, too. Small front gardens had called forth much ingenuity and, with window boxes, were delightful splashes of colour. There were examples of one or two complete mock stone façades - again students were challenged to comment.

  I concluded with one shot that always raised an immediate burst of laughter. Each house front had one window alongside the front door - these were two up two down dwellings with one up and down in front and the other two behind. This owner had removed the entire front room for his conversion. The elevation now had the front door immediately flanked by an up and over garage door!

  There are still very many houses of the type of the Spenser Street environs in urban areas throughout the Country. No doubt, with our greatly improved standard of living the great majority have been thoroughly modernised in many other ingenious ways.

  I managed to reach the end of junior practice without falling foul of the VP again. Miss Beaumont said I’d improved as the four weeks progressed which was encouraging. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the children who were always lively and responsive. They were well behaved without being repressed; Mr Overton and the staff contrived an environment to which most responded with respect in their rough and ready terms. When tempers boiled over, not unusual given some backgrounds, the children knew the reasons would be investigated patiently and fairly.

  The teachers, without exception, were enthusiastic in their work. That always was and remains, the sine qua non of good teaching. It certainly was the touchstone of Spenser Street Junior Mixed.

  We all felt the return to College, albeit only for two weeks before the end of term, was an anti-climax. There was much catching up with commenting on lesson notes and making suggestions for the future, which should have been done during the practice, of course, but there never seemed enough time because preparation was so intense. Returning to lectures was also irksome. There was also one lecturer who viewed us students in the same light. He taught part time - indeed he gave two lectures a week, on Hygiene, part of the core requirements for the Certificate in Education. He was a local doctor, press ganged I suspect because there was no one else with adequate qualifications.

  I, however, did not view his lectures as merely irksome. I hated them because I never knew what was coming. The first term had been fine - he spent the whole of it on Rheumatism in Childhood. Initially I had been amazed that children had any contact with this condition which hitherto I considered a matter entirely for the elderly. Later when I learned much more about the local children I realised why it assumed such importance in his practice - and thus our course. Anyway I could cope with rheumatism.

  It was different with some other topics. To be accurate, one particular group of topics. At the beginning of his lectures I was always apprehensive when he strode in, seized a piece of chalk and wrote the title on the board. A typical bête noire was ‘Injuries’.

  ‘If a major artery is cut in the thigh a body can lose all its blood in a few minutes. It doesn’t just trickle, it spurts with every heart beat, so if that happens to anyone whilst you’re on playground duty you must get your skates on. You’ve got slightly longer if it’s an arm artery, but even then one in the upper arm can flow like a cut hose pipe.’

  Despite having only one lecture a week devoted to it, the Hygiene course covered a vast range of topics, from school drains to major surgery and then some. When the Doc strode in to give his first lecture we had been instantly silent; assessing this rotund figure with flaccid cheeks beginning to droop a little, sparse grey hair plastered sideways across a shining pate, eyes concealed behind thick rimmed glasses with equally thick lenses through which he rapidly read his notes. He had much to convey.

  But it was his voice that so surprised us. We expected deep, resonant tones but there seemed to be a soft pedal effect in operation which also elevated it half an octave. It simply did not match his appearance. This, together with his non-stop reading of notes, allied to the fact that he hardly ever looked directly at his audience, probably because he couldn’t see them, meant he lacked presence. Like any group of children or students we exploited the fact. To be frank we gave him hell.

  He was such a contrast to the other lecturers who were either authoritarian or engagingly funny. For them we behaved impeccably. For the Doc we were exactly the opposite, just like kids in school. Generally there was general chatter and a certain amount of commenting on what he was saying which he totally ignored. Most of the chaps could listen with half an ear and make enough notes to pass the exam. But I couldn’t. I would listen with mesmerized attention in case he mentioned blood, and arteries, and veins, flowing, pumping, oozing, draining..... His quiet voice seemed to get louder and louder in my head and merge into a roaring sound which filled my ears.

  Crump! I would slide under the desk as far as I could. The others, who always kindly filled in the details for me afterwards, would carol happily:

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sp; ‘Old Nigel’s gone again. Stretcher party, at the double - move!’ Then with a quite unnecessary amount of fuss and disturbance they would endeavour to extricate me.

  ‘Keep his head down!’

  ‘Two of you, grab his shoulders.’

  ‘Stop his legs flapping - and mind those big feet, they’re lethal!’

  ‘Ready everyone - one, two, three, heave!’

  ‘You weak-kneed lot, you couldn’t shift a sack of potatoes!’

  ‘Right, open the door someone.’

  ‘All set, right, after three - one, two, three! Dum, dum, dum, dum, de dum, de dum, dee dee. The slow tones of the funeral march would ring out solemnly from the less energetically involved spectators and I would be carried out prone and laid reverently on the corridor floor outside. After a short while I would rise, resuscitated, and after a walk in the quadrangle feel perfectly fit again.

  During my teens I fainted with boring regularity whenever I listened to talks or saw films about any vaguely gory aspect of the human body. I could cope with the skeleton; solid bones, their diseases and breakages didn’t bother me at all. Neither did infectious diseases, brain surgery, sickness and diarrhoea and associated conditions in children and all matters related to drains. Nor rheumatism. But a hint of a drop or two of blood pumping through any tube-like passage and my head would reel. Then if I didn’t get my head between my knees I would be out.

  I remember clearly the first time it happened. I was nine at the time and I was listening to two uncles describing their operations for the benefit of my Mother. One sketched graphically his experience as the ether anaesthetic took effect:

  ‘I could see the two big lights above me and they seemed to revolve around each other as they moved away from me down a long tunnel.’

  It took me in much the same way except that my two uncles did the revolving as I slipped into unconsciousness. Then they were both looking at me with worried expressions as I tried to figure out why I was lying on the floor. Assuming it was a one-off event I later listened to them explaining what each operation had comprised - both involved bloody surgery. My subconcious duly informed my conscious that whenever I heard the latter I should repeat the former.