Up and Down in the Dales Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  UP AND DOWN IN THE DALES

  Praise for Up and Down in the Dales and Gervase Phinn:

  ‘If you enjoyed his earlier books you will certainly like this one… a light, frothy, entertaining read with a plot that twists and bends to link the many funny stories the author has gathered over the years’ The Times Educational Supplement

  ‘Hilarious and touching’ Daily Mail

  ‘You have heard it before. You may hear it again. For the Phinneasts amongst us, having relished this fourth book, will assuredly clamour for the fifth’ Yorkshire Post

  ‘Gervase Phinn has a unique understanding and love of children, and a wonderful gift for storytelling… a real star’ Esther Rantzen

  ‘Gervase Phinn has become one of Britain’s best-loved comic writers.

  Dubbed the James Herriot of schools, he writes with enormous warmth and wit about his romantic adventures, career struggles, and – above all – the children in the schools he visits, with uncanny ability to charm and embarrass him in equal measure… Uproarious and touching by turns, it is perfect Bank Holiday reading’ Daily Mail

  ‘Gervase Phinn writes warmly and with great wit, about the children and adults he meets in Yorkshire’s schools. An enchanting montage of experiences. Colourful, funny, honest’ Express on Sunday

  ‘Gervase Phinn’s memoirs have made him a hero in school staff-rooms’ Daily Telegraph

  ‘Gervase Phinn is a natural story teller… He has a marvellous ear for one-liners and a constant flow of anecdotes about the things children say’ Yorkshire Post

  About the Author

  Gervase Phinn leads a very full and busy life: he is a teacher, freelance lecturer, author, poet, school inspector, educational consultant, visiting professor of education – but none of these is more important to him than his family.

  For fourteen years he taught in a range of schools until, in 1984, he became General Adviser for Language Development in Rotherham. Four years later he moved to North Yorkshire, where he spent ten years as a school inspector, time that has provided so much source material for his books; he was subsequently appointed Principal Adviser for the county. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

  Gervase Phinn is now a freelance lecturer and adviser and is in constant demand both as a social after-dinner speaker and at educational level. He speaks and lectures throughout the country. In 1998 he was one of the stars of Esther Rantzen’s show, Esther, being invited to appear three more times due to public demand.

  Rights in his first three books have been sold to television: The Other Side of the Dale, Over Hill and Dale and Head Over Heels in the Dales. He has also written three books of poems for Puffin.

  Up and Down in the Dales

  Gervase Phinn

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Michael Joseph 2004

  Published in Penguin Books 2005

  16

  Copyright © Gervase Phiinn, 2004

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192458-8

  Dedicated to

  Tony Storey, Headmaster of The Hayfield School, Doncaster.

  For me, he sets the standard by which headteachers are judged.

  Acknowledgements

  I should like to thank Richard ‘Fairy’ Fairclough for suggesting the title; my ever-patient editor and dear friend Jenny Dereham for her continued encouragement and advice; and my wife and family for their forbearance.

  ‘A Parent’s Prayer’ on page 342 is taken from The Day Our Teacher Went Batty (Puffin 2002).

  So There!

  Our English teacher, Mr Smart,

  Says writing English is an art,

  That we should always take great care

  When spelling words like wear and where,

  Witch and which and fair and fare,

  Key and quay and air and heir,

  Whet and wet and flair and flare,

  Wring and ring and stair and stare,

  Him and hymn and their and there,

  Whine and wine and pear and pare,

  Check and cheque and tare and tear,

  Crews and cruise and hare and hair,

  Meet and meat and bear and bare,

  Knot and not and layer and lair,

  Loot and lute and mayor and mare.

  Well, frankly, sir, I just don’t care

  So there!

  1

  I stared with disbelief at the object in the display cabinet. It took pride of place amidst the shells, pebbles, fronds of dried seaweed, pieces of coloured glass, bits of driftwood and other detritus collected from the beach.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked the nun with a great smile on her round, innocent face.

  ‘It’s… er… well… er… interesting,’ was all I could manage to splutter out.

  I was at Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Primary School, the second week of the new school term, to inspect the English teaching. I had been a school inspector now in the great county ofYorkshire for three years and each week brought something new and unexpected. And I was certainly not expecting what I saw in the display cabinet that cold September morning.

  ‘You see,’ explained Sister Marie-Thérèse, the headmistress, ‘I like to mount a colourful display in the first week.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I said, my eyes still glued to a certain object.

  ‘Mount a display,’ she said, ‘to make the entrance hall that little bit brighter and more cheerful. This year, I have decided it would be about the seashore. At the end of last term we took the junior children, Mrs McPhee and I, on a school trip to the East Coast. We visited Whitby, climbed all the steps up to the abbey, called in at the Captain Cook Museum and had some lovely long walks along the beach. I asked the children to pick up anything of interest which they found on the seashore – shells and pebbles, of course, but also any unusual or interesting items which might have been washed up. No old bottles, though, I had to put my foot down about bottles.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, still staring incredulously at the object resting in the centre of the display cabinet.

  ‘And they came back with so many fascinating things.’

  ‘So I see,’ I murmured.


  ‘You’d be surprised what gets washed up on a beach.’

  No I wouldn’t, I thought to myself.

  ‘We’ve got all manner of different shells and strangely shaped pebbles, polished glass and some amazingly coloured seaweed. Mrs McPhee found some pieces of jet on the beach. It’s fossilised Monkey Puzzle Tree, you know. It’s quite rare, I’m told. They still make jewellery out of jet. Not that I wear jewellery, of course!’ I continued to stare at the display as the nun chattered away. Words failed me. ‘It was all the rage in Victorian times.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Jet. I think Queen Victoria took to wearing it after the death of Prince Albert and it started a trend. Of course, it’s not so popular today. Oh, and one child found some fossils near the cliffs and another a dried starfish and there’s a little seahorse there, see. All sorts of flotsam and jetsam that was washed ashore. Such intriguing bits and bobs. So we have a nice little collection to stimulate the children’s discussion and their writing.’

  ‘Sister,’ I said, ‘about the flotsam and jetsam, the… er… bits and bobs.’

  ‘And do you know what that is?’ she said pointing to the centre of the display.

  ‘What?’ I asked, with a sinking heart.

  ‘That little shiny orange pebble, at the front.’

  I sighed with relief. ‘No, I’m afraid, I don’t.’

  ‘That’s amber. Sometimes little pieces of amber are washed up on the beach but only along certain parts of the coast and it’s very difficult to find. It’s fossilised resin from trees, you know, millions of years old and quite valuable, I believe. It starts off in the Baltic and is washed across the ocean and ends up on the East Coast. That’s used for jewellery too,’ the nun burbled on. ‘Sometimes you find little insects fossilised inside. Mrs McPhee – she’s my deputy by the way – met a delightful man on the beach, used to be the curator at the museum at York, I believe, who lived just along the coast at Runswick Bay, and he showed her –’

  ‘Sister,’ I began.

  ‘Yes, Mr Phinn?’ She looked directly at me, smiling.

  ‘About the display.’

  ‘Yes?’ She stared up with a wide and innocent expression.

  ‘Well, Sister, there is –’ I opened my mouth to continue but lost courage. ‘Oh, nothing.’

  Someone was going to have to tell her, I thought, but it certainly wasn’t going to be me.

  ‘Last week,’ she babbled on, ‘the older children wrote some delightful little poems and descriptions, which I’ve mounted on the wall around the display. Don’t you think it looks wonderful?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, wonderful,’ I murmured, my eyes still riveted on the offending object in the cabinet.

  ‘I want the school to look really nice for when the bishop visits on Monday.’

  ‘The bishop’s coming on Monday?’ I asked in a doom-laden voice.

  ‘Yes, he’s coming to talk to the children about their First Holy Communion. Last year he brought his crosier to show them. One child wrote to him afterwards: “Thank you for coming to see us, Bishop Michael. I now know just what a real crook looks like.” We did laugh, Mrs McPhee and me.’

  Just then a small boy approached the headmistress and tugged on her cloak. At last the nun stopped her babbling, and bent down to hear what the child wanted to tell her. I grabbed at my chance to get help.

  ‘Sister,’ I said quickly, ‘I’ve forgotten to sign in. I’ll go and do it now.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that now, Mr Phinn,’ said the nun. ‘You can do it at morning break.’

  ‘No, no, I had better do it now,’ I insisted. ‘I’ll just pop into the office.’

  Without waiting for a reply, I shot across the hall and into the school office, making the school secretary jump with surprise.

  ‘Quick!’ I hissed. ‘Can you come with me?’

  ‘Pardon?’ she replied.

  ‘Can you come with me now, it’s urgent!’

  ‘I’m in the middle of checking the dinner money,’ she told me. ‘It’s extremely inconvenient.’

  ‘It really is very important,’ I told her.

  ‘But I’m halfway through –’

  ‘Please,’ I begged.

  ‘Oh very well,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘but I don’t know what can be so urgent.’

  ‘You’ll see in a minute,’ I said, and popped my head out of the office to see where Sister Marie-Thérèse was. Fortunately the headmistress had moved down the corridor with the small boy who was showing her a picture on the wall.

  ‘Look,’ I whispered, pointing to the manifestation in the display cabinet.

  There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘Oh dear,’ groaned the school secretary, raising her hand to her neck and wincing visibly.

  ‘Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘I do,’ she mumbled. ‘However did that get in there?’

  ‘I suppose Sister must have put it in, without realising what it is. Perhaps you ought to tell her.’

  ‘Tell her?’ she hissed.

  ‘What it is.’

  ‘Me?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why me? You’re the English inspector, you’re the one who’s supposed to be good with words.’

  ‘No, no, I couldn’t possibly do it. It would be much better coming from you.’

  ‘Mr Phinn,’ she said, looking me straight in the eyes, ‘I am prepared to do most things as a school secretary but explaining to a nun what a condom is, is not one of them.’

  ‘Well, I certainly can’t,’ I said.

  ‘And what are you two talking about?’ came a cheerful voice from behind us.

  The school secretary and I swung round together to find Sister Marie-Thérèse, with that sweet innocent expression on her round face.

  ‘We were just looking at your lovely display, Sister,’ I replied feebly.

  ‘I’m very pleased with it,’ trilled the nun. ‘I am sure Bishop Michael will get quite a surprise when he comes on Monday.’

  ‘I bet he will,’ I said sotto voce.

  ‘It’s very nice, Sister,’ said the school secretary, giving a watery smile. There was a nervous red rash creeping up her neck. Then she turned to me and gave me a conspiratorial look. ‘I’ll see to it,’ she whispered. ‘Just keep her occupied.’

  ‘Perhaps we should make a start, Sister,’ I said pleasantly.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, Mr Phinn,’ said the nun. ‘The children are all very excited about meeting you.’

  I followed the headmistress as she headed for the junior department with a veritable spring in her step. When I glanced back, I saw the school secretary still staring at the display cabinet like a hungry cat watching a tank full of goldfish.

  At the end of the corridor was a large plaster statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. She had a pale, gentle face with downcast eyes, a golden halo, and her hands were pressed together in prayer. In the long blue veil and white cloak and with an innocent expression, the figure did not look dissimilar to Sister Marie-Thérèse. I was brought up short and gasped out loud. On a plinth, beneath the statue, was the instruction:

  As you pass Our Lady,

  Say an ejaculatory prayer.

  ‘Whatever is an ejaculatory prayer, Sister?’ I asked the nun, who had turned back to me when she heard my gasp.

  ‘ “Our Lady of Lourdes pray for us.” ’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘That’s an ejaculatory prayer, Mr Phinn,’ said the nun. ‘Just a small appeal for Our Lady to watch over us and keep us safe.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, my mind whirling back to the object in the display cabinet.

  The junior classroom was warm and welcoming. The children, aged between nine and eleven, looked up eagerly as we entered.

  ‘Good morning, children,’ said the headmistress with jovial earnestness.

  ‘Good morning, Sister Marie-Thérèse. Good morning, everybody,’ chorused the children.

  ‘Have they been good, Mrs McPhee?’ the nun asked the teacher.

  ‘Need you ask,
Sister?’ replied her colleague, scanning the sea of faces before her, with an expression which defied contradiction.

  Mrs McPhee was a plump woman with a thick fuzz of white hair and the pale eyes of a piranha. She wore a tight-fitting, wheat-coloured turtleneck sweater, heavy brown tweed pleated skirt, thick woollen stockings the colour of mud and substantial brogues. Around her neck hung a single rope of large blue beads. I could tell she was the ‘I-stand-no-nonsense’ sort of teacher.

  ‘This is my indispensable deputy headteacher, Mr Phinn,’ said the nun, giving her colleague the fullest and most charming of smiles. ‘She’s worth her weight in gold.’

  ‘Oh, Sister, really!’ said Mrs McPhee, laughing in an enthusiastic, horsy sort of way.

  ‘Now, children,’ said the headmistress, ‘I told you that we would be having a very special visitor this morning and here he is. Mr Phinn is a school inspector, here to look at all the lovely work you have been doing.’ The nun turned in my direction, rested a small hand on my arm and said, in a lower voice, ‘This group, Mr Phinn, is one of the junior classes. There’s quite a range of age and ability, as you will see. The children have been busy composing prayers and when Bishop Michael comes on Monday, we shall have a very special assembly when some of them will read out their efforts.’

  ‘That sounds splendid,’ I said, wondering what sort of mood the bishop would be in if he had seen what I had seen in the display in the entrance hall.

  ‘Now, Mr Phinn,’ continued Sister, ‘would you like to have a little look around the classroom, perhaps listen to some of the children read and examine the work they have been doing and then –’

  ‘There’s not much written work in their books,’ interrupted Mrs McPhee in one of those deep, loud voices possessed by market traders. ‘But you will not be expecting to see a lot, will you, Mr Phinn, this being the start of term?’ She gave me a look which said: ‘Disagree with me, if you dare!’

  ‘No,’ I assured her. ‘I shall not be expecting to see a lot.’

  ‘Well, that’s just as well,’ said Mrs McPhee, her face relaxing, ‘because they haven’t done much yet – just the prayers they are working on.’