Greetings Noble Sir

by Nigel Flaxton

  ‘Well, Mr Flaxton, can you tell us?’

  ‘Er, no, I don’t think I can,’ I stuttered in total confusion.

  The members of the committee sat back, moved in their seats, looked at one another, collected their papers together and generally made it quite obvious they were interviewing an idiot. I stared helplessly at Mr Bartram who continued writing, apparently oblivious to the situation.

  ‘Very well, Mr Flaxton. That is all. Good morning,’ said the Chairman in very final tones. I stood up, turned and groped for the door. Immediately I was outside the other three candidates pounced.

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Who’s doing the interviewing?’

  ‘Is it an inspector, or is it a panel?’

  I collapsed weakly into a chair beside them. ‘Hell, that was really awful,’ I began. Then the door opened and Mr Bartram came up to me. He looked down at his papers.

  ‘Well, Mr Flaxton,’ he said in a flat tone, still not looking directly at me, ‘that was alright. We shall let you know in a few days which school you will be sent to.’ I heaved myself to my feet.

  ‘You mean....they’re going to appoint me....after that?’

  ‘Oh yes, there was never any question about that. I think the Chairman wanted to see what you were made of. He’s got something of a reputation for that sort of thing. Still, it’s all good practice. You may have to face quite a number of interviews in your career.’ Then he vanished into the room again with the second candidate.

  He was absolutely right. That interview, together with my memory of mistaking a Group Captain in civvies for a clerk, taught me valuable lessons and ever afterwards I was prepared for most questions and situations. I managed to escape similar disasters by being open and frank, which is what most people respect. In company with many of my colleagues I collected various experiences at these mild forms of torture, although I never had anything to match the situation which a friend once told me about. He was a candidate for a headship in a small Welsh town. He was ushered through a door into the interview room to find himself in a courtroom. The interviewing panel were ranged along the judges’ bench, interested spectators were in the well of the court and he was in the dock!

  A few days later I received a letter asking me to join the staff of Dayton Road Junior Mixed School and to report to Mr Brand, the Headmaster. I remember looking at the letter with contentment; I now had my first truly permanent appointment as a qualified teacher. Then I took out a map to find Dayton Road for I’d never heard of it. I located it with a twinge of concern because its surroundings were similar to those of Spenser Street with old houses and a conglomeration of factories. I wondered whether I was being given my deserts for an appalling interview.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Chapter 23

  ‘So that’s it,’ I said to myself as I cycled along Dayton Road. It was Sunday, the day before I was due to join the staff. I was making sure that I knew where to find the School.

  It was similar to many of the city schools, solidly built in red brick. But it differed in one respect from most - its buildings were virtually on the pavement’s edge. They were long but divided by a house set incongruously in the middle. This, I was later to learn, housed the Caretaker who literally lived on the job. Access to the School could be gained through various doors, set back slightly from the pavement.

  I was able to see it from three sides. The fourth comprised two high walls, painted black, which were the ends of two back-to-back rows of houses set in two roads of which Dayton Road was one. It seemed a gigantic knife had sliced into the house rows to carve out space for the School. The site extended across the space between the roads and obviously had spacious playgrounds. I couldn’t see these from outside because they were surrounded by high walls.

  The surrounding houses were typically terraced and built, like the School, at the turn of the century. Most were situated on the edge of pavements; their front doors surmounted large single slabs of stone which were either scrubbed or ignored according to the characters of the occupants. A few rows had miniature front gardens, though a single dusty privet hedge hardly merited the title. There was no room for anything else.

  The afternoon was warm and sunny so there were plenty of children about, playing in small groups on the pavement or chasing in and out of doorways. Some girls were skipping, two holding a long rope and chanting whilst five or six others joined in one at a time until all were encircled by the rotating rope. Some boys were playing marbles in the gutter, reminding me of my own Junior School days when I had done just the same, so long as my parents didn’t see me.

  The scene was very different next day. There was a general bustle along the pavements as five hundred children between the ages of five and eleven skipped, ran, or dawdled their way into the School. Some two hundred were infants, between five and seven, and these went to a part of the building organisationally separate from my destination, the Junior School.

  I chose one of the inevitable green doors and walked through to find a very short corridor with another door ahead. This led immediately into the playground which ran the entire length of the building, and more. It was large, though the effect of size was reduced by surface air raid shelters virtually dividing it into two sections.

  The playground was rapidly filling with children. I stopped one boy with a bright, friendly face,

  ‘Can you show me where Mr Brand’s office is, please?’

  ‘Yes, it’s this way,’ he replied and set off briskly through the crowd. I followed, failing to dodge the occasional little body which hurled itself into my legs without looking where it was going. Fortunately none felled me in the process. My guide skipped through a door on his left, then turned to me and indicated another door on his right.

  ‘It’s in there’, he announced.

  I looked through the small glass panes set solidly in the upper half of the door. The room was obviously a cloakroom. I turned to my companion,

  ‘Come on, young man,’ I said heavily, ‘I asked you to show me the Headmaster’s room. This is...’

  ‘That’s right, in there, and up them stairs.’

  He pointed to a small side door almost concealed behind a long row of pegs, on which a few coats were hanging.

  ‘Up there?’ I looked, then turned back to him, but he had gone. Hesitatingly I went into the cloakroom and headed towards the door. But just as I reached it a figure appeared framed in its glass. He opened it and greeted me.

  ‘You must be Mr Flaxton. I’m Mr Brand; I’m glad you managed to find us without any difficulty. Perhaps you’d like to leave your things in my room just for now. It’s up here.’

  He was fairly tall with a rather elderly, smiling face. He carried himself very erectly - indeed throughout the time I was to teach at Dayton Road I never saw him standing or sitting with the slightest hint of slouching. He must have had a board strapped to his back throughout his growing years. Even when he bent, as he did whenever he laughed, he hinged at the hips. He had a luxuriant shock of greying hair and I guessed his age as in the fifties.

  This made his next action all the more astounding because he all but disappeared in front of my eyes: He leapt at the stairs and simply fled up them two at a time. I stumbled after him but was still well down the long flight when he reached the top and walked along a corridor to his room.

  ‘I’m afraid this is rather out of the way but there’s nowhere else I can use,’ he said to thin air assuming I was at his shoulder. I heard him open a door.

  ‘Here we are - oh, I’m sorry, you’re still down there are you?’ He peered over the bannisters and watched me breathlessly reach the top.

  ‘Ah, you’ve got a heavy case. Here, give it to me and I’ll put in here out of harm’s way - oh, it’s not as heavy as I thought.’ He took it from me and disappeared into his room. I padded after hi
m, panting.

  ‘There we are. You can collect it later when I’ve shown you the staffroom.’ I looked at him in surprise but couldn’t detect a trace of exertion. I was to learn his power with stairs was an enigma. He was never seen to hurry, certainly never to run on any other occasion, and his life consisted solely of the School and his garden at home. He seemed to take no other exercise whatsoever. But in dealing with the two flights of stairs in the building - there were about twenty steps in each - he was an absolute champion. Ascending or descending he easily outstripped anyone including young and very active male teachers.

  ‘I’ll take you round the classrooms and introduce you to the staff after I’ve dealt with your details. I have to fill in various forms on all staff, so I might as well get that chore over straight away. Actually, today is rather unusual, because we’re not starting with an assembly. Everyone has some lists to complete, so we’ve had to use assembly time. Never mind, this will be a good way to look around the School.’

  He asked me a series of questions about my school and college records and experience of schools’ practice, then asked infomally about my time in the RAF. After a while he said we should go and meet the other teachers. We left the room and he calmly turned to the stairs again then hurled himself downwards with such ferocity I was sure he would fall. Watching him left me still standing immobile on the second top stair when he turned at the bottom and casually held the door open for me. I then descended awkwardly under his waiting gaze.

  ‘Didn’t you get much sport in the RAF?’ he quizzed drily with a gentle lift of his eyebrows. Before I could answer he pottered off in front of me through the cloakroom and out into the playground, whilst I tottered shamefacedly after him.

  ‘I have four women and two men on the staff - oh no - three now. Dear, dear, I’m forgetting my new addition.’ he chuckled. ‘That won’t do, will it?’ I managed a vacuous grin. ‘The point is there are six classes. You are an extra teacher at the moment, but that won’t last long. One of the men has been appointed Chief Assistant at another school and you are his replacement. Fortunately, because you’ve just been demobbed, the Office sent you a few weeks early so that will help you to get the feel of teaching again.’

  I nearly replied that I hadn’t yet had a chance to get the feel of teaching at all but decided against it. Instead I turned my thoughts to the four women that Mr Brand had mentioned.

  During my time in the RAF opportunities for regular friendship with members of the opposite sex had been rather limited. Kim and I parted company before I left St. Andrew’s. I dated the excellent tennis player next but that friendship concluded some months after I joined up. Since then there had been no regular girlfriend on the Flaxton scene. But during the couple of weeks following my exit from HM Forces I had turned my thoughts to this problem.

  I knew it to be a fact that junior schools contained more women teachers than men. It was also fact that women students became teachers as soon as they left college, because they hadn’t had to do National Service for some years. That meant there was a proportion of young women of twenty years and upwards adding a lively touch to many staffrooms; so it was my fervent hope that the drab building of Dayton Road School would have its due quota. Mr Brand’s statement told me the basic odds were in my favour; the crucial question concerned the age brackets into which these four women fell.

  ‘This is Class Five,’ Mr Brand was saying as he opened a door. ‘Ah, Miss Browning - may I introduce Mr Flaxton to you? He’s come to take Mr Pardoe’s place when he leaves.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Flaxton. I’m very pleased to meet you, I do hope that you’ll be happy here.’

  ‘Well, if he follows you, he certainly will be. How long is it now?’

  ‘Oh, don’t Mr Brand! You make me feel so old when you say that.’ Miss Browning turned to me. ‘I hate to admit it, but for the record I’ve been here twenty years, and I positively refuse to say how long I’d been teaching before; but I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed all my years - War included.’

  Miss Browning was an extremely pleasant person; dark hair streaked with grey and a smiling face behind very sensible glasses. She was like a mother to her class and, as I was to find, young teachers as well. For years I heard from her each Christmas and she followed my career with interest. I am glad that she enjoyed many happy years of retirement. But at Dayton Road it was quite obvious she was not in the age group I was thinking about at that moment.

  Neither was Miss Shenton, nor Miss Rees. Miss Shenton was a great friend of Miss Browning but was slightly older. Miss Rees was the Chief Assistant and although somewhat younger than the other two she was nevertheless just about old enough to be my mother. All three had been teaching since the days when, if a female teacher married, she had to leave. The odds were lengthening considerably.

  I was taken into Mr Pardoe’s room. He was a tall, thin man with a round, cheerful face.

  ‘It’s a case of hail and farewell with me, I’m afraid. Still, I’m sure you’ll be happy here. You’ll find the staff and children are very friendly. In many ways I’m sorry to be leaving.’ I looked at the children. ‘Will this be my class when you’ve left?’

  ‘No, yours will be younger than these. We’re making an extra class in one year group because it has so many children in it,’ said Mr Brand. ‘In fact it won’t be long before we take on another new young teacher, ready for the next increase in our roll.’

  For a moment I had the feeling I was to be the only representative of my age group male or female on the staff, at least for some weeks. But then I was introduced to Mr Hughes. He was about my age and had emerged from the Army some months previously. He was a short and stocky Welshman.

  ‘Welcome to Dayton Road,’ he said shaking my hand as though he meant it.‘ I hope you’re keen on football and cricket - we’ve got good teams here and they need plenty of encouragement.’ Memories of my efforts at football on school practice floated into my consciousness but I didn’t like what I saw.

  ‘Er, well....cricket, possibly...’

  ‘You don’t need to be good at them yourself, we want anyone with a loud voice to shout at the kids whilst they’re playing.’

  Better memories from the RAF appeared, cricket on airfields and yelling at the flight as I marched them around Wellesbourne M.

  ‘In that case, I’m your man.’ I said.

  ‘Great, see you later,’ he replied.

  My spirits rose as Mr Brand led me out of Mr Hughes’ classroom. ‘There’s only one more; I expect she’ll be in the staffroom now. That’s upstairs, but at this end of the building.’

  We had been making our way along the length of the building visiting various rooms, having passed the back of the Caretaker’s house halfway along the playground. It was devoid of any suggestion of a garden; there was only a yard enclosed by a massive brick wall. Mr Brand gently ushered me through another door leading from the playground. Immediately on the left I saw the stairs. ‘It’s just at the top here,’ he said and was up them in a flash.

  They were long, straight, and each stair was covered in a rubberlike substance with extra thick protection on each leading edge. Obviously they offered an excellent grip.

  I’ll show him, I thought.

  I let him reach the top where he turned, very casually, and looked down at me. I put my head down and charged. My mistake was to try them three at a time. My legs just failed near the top and I crashed on to all fours, narrowly missing nudging his feet with my nose.

  ‘Those need a bit of practice,’ he said. I looked up in time to catch the faint gleam in his eye. He opened the first of two doors in the upstairs corridor. ‘This is the staffroom,’ he announced. I looked in and saw a small room, dominated by a table completely covered with a thick faded green material. Round it were set six solid chairs. There was an old grate with a mantelpiece on one side of the table, and tall cupboards on th
e other. Through glass panes in their upper sections I could see rows of class text books. There were two fireside chairs with solid sides identical to the one in the workshop office at St Athan I so recently vacated. High windows faced the door, giving the room plenty of light but no view. There was no one in the room at the time.

  ‘I’ve lost Miss Rockliffe. I thought she would be in the staffroom.’ Mr Brand looked momentarily perplexed. ‘Ah... I know, she’ll be using the duplicator. Let’s try the kitchen.’ He moved to another door on the landing and threw it open.

  ‘Ah, yes, here she is. Last but by no means least. Miss Rockliffe, let me introduce Mr Flaxton to you.’

  I followed him into another small room which served as a kitchen by virtue of the fact that it contained a tiny cooker and a sink. Otherwise it looked exactly like the staffroom. On a table in the middle of the room was a small hand duplicating machine. Operating this was Miss Rockliffe.

  Dayton Road School suddenly became a much more lively and attractive place. Miss Rockliffe was certainly in the right age bracket. Our eyes met as we formally shook hands.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘ ‘Hello,’ I replied.

  Mr Brand dissolved the ensuing silence. ‘Come on, Miss Rockliffe, you’d better show Mr Flaxton how to use this machine. He’ll need to know quite soon and you’re our expert.’

  ‘Oh, I’m hardly that,’ she laughed.

  ‘Well you use it far more than anyone else.’ He turned to me. ‘She’s very good with it. I often find the children using duplicated sheets with coloured drawings and diagrams which Miss Rockliffe has produced for them. You’ll do well to let her teach you to use it.’

  ‘Fine, I’d like that,’ I said.

  I certainly meant it. Miss Rockliffe had lovely eyes and a warm smile. There was rich dark brown hair with a natural look to its gentle curls and waves. There was a slim waist, a trim figure and an air of vitality that made the old room shine.