Out of the Woods But Not Over the Hill Page 11

  I recall the small child of six, with hair like a bristly lavatory brush, who mused, ‘Have you ever thought that, when I’m twenty-one, you’ll probably be dead?’, and the child emerging from the infant school, informing the VIPs there to see the Nativity play that: ‘It’s off! Virgin Mary’s got nits!’

  There was the little angel with her dolly clutched to her chest, who told me when I approached her in the infant classroom, to: ‘Go away! I’m breast feeding.’ There was the four-year-old I came across in the nursery department at an infant school, inside a huge cardboard box. ‘Brmm, brmm, brmm,’ he went, and the box moved from side to side. I peered over the top and asked the child: ‘Are you in your racing car?’

  ‘No,’ he replied seriously, ‘I’m in a cardboard box.’

  In a small primary school, I commented on the writing of a seven-year-old girl.

  ‘Your writing is very neat and tidy at the top of the page,’ I observed, ‘but it goes all squiggly at the bottom.’

  ‘I know,’ replied the child, looking up. ‘This pen’s got a life of its own.’

  ‘I know how to mek babies,’ a young boy of nine informed me when I visited a school in Swaledale.

  ‘Really?’ I sighed.

  ‘Do you know how to mek babies?’ he asked.

  ‘I do,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, how do you mek babies?’

  ‘You go first,’ I told him.

  ‘I knock off the “y” and put “ies”.’

  I was inspecting a primary school in Wensleydale, and thought I would test a youngster on his number work. We looked out of the classroom window at the spectacular panorama before us.

  ‘How many sheep can you see in that field?’ I asked.

  ‘All of ’em,’ he replied.

  Young children are nothing if not honest, and their honesty is invariably disarming and comical. At a time in the world where everything seems so gloomy and depressing and there is constant conflict and violence, the words of small children lift our spirits, they help us to feel good about ourselves and others and they make us optimistic for the future.

  Out of the Mouths

  I recently became a grandfather for the second time. Nina, my daughter-in-law, gave birth to a bonny little girl with large round eyes and a captivating smile. Her parents were intending to call the baby Scarlett. What a relief it was for me when they decided on the name Megan. Scarlett Phinn sounds to me like a disease of tropical fish. When I became a grandfather for the first time, my preferred name for the baby boy was Sebastian. Perhaps understandably, it was not my son and daughter-in-law’s. ‘One unusual name in the family is quite enough,’ said my son Richard. I once heard Lord Sebastian Coe speaking at a dinner and he confided in the audience that: ‘When you grow up in Sheffield with a name like Sebastian, you have to learn to run.’ Well, what about being brought up in Rotherham with a name like Gervase? I could tell him a few tales.

  Anyway, here I am in my sixties, a grandfather, and like a child myself. I have so many things planned for little Harry John Gervase and Megan Rose. We will walk along the beach at Bridlington, paddling in the sea, getting sand between their little toes. We will explore rock pools for crabs, collect shells and bits of smooth coloured sea glass, eat sticky candyfloss and feed the screeching seagulls on the harbour wall. They will snuggle up with Grandpa for a bedtime story, help Granny make gingerbread men, squeal with delight at the pantomime and do all the other things little ones so love to do. Everything for them will be bright and new and exciting.

  Of course, my little grandchildren will also make the shrewdest observations as they grow older, as all young children tend to do: ‘Grandpa, your face needs ironing’, ‘Oh, I do like the smell of old age’, ‘Daddy, that fat lady needs to go on a diet.’ And they will confound me with the most difficult questions that innocent children frequently ask: ‘Why are holes empty?’, ‘Why are bananas bent?’, ‘Why do you have to talk to God with your eyes closed?’, ‘Grandpa, who will fetch the fish and chips when you’re dead?’, ‘Why can’t we walk and wee at the same time like cows do?’, ‘Grandpa, why are there more idiots on the road when Daddy’s driving?’

  When Princess Diana visited the North, crowds came to see her. She knew young children well and had a great empathy with them. Seeing, among the children thronging to give her flowers, a rather sad little boy with hair like a lavatory brush and a small green candle appearing from a crusty nostril, she went straight to him. He was holding a single wilting bloom. She singled him out and, bending low, took the flower and ruffled the child’s hair affectionately. ‘And have you had the day off school to see me?’ she asked the child, giving him one of her stunning smiles. ‘No,’ he replied bluntly, ‘I’ve been sent home with nits!’

  Something Colourful

  I do like bright colours. Red, in particular, is such a cheerful, uplifting hue. Young children also like bright colours. One only has to see their paintings, so full of bold reds, vivid greens and bright blues, to appreciate this.

  In an infant school, I once encountered a serious-faced little girl with more paint on herself than on the large piece of paper in front of her. She had drawn what I thought was a snake. The long, multicoloured creature curled and twisted across the page like a writhing serpent from a fairy story. It was a small masterpiece, with intricate patterning and delightful detail.

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ I told her.

  She looked up and eyed me solemnly. ‘Is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I replied. ‘See how your snake wriggles across the paper.’

  ‘It’s not a snake,’ the child told me, putting down her brush and folding her little arms across her chest. ‘It’s a road.’

  ‘It looks like a snake to me.’

  ‘Well, it’s not,’ she told me pertly. ‘It’s a road. I know because I painted it.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I can see now,’ I said tactfully. ‘It’s a magical road that twists and turns up into the grey sky and through ragged clouds and to the ice palace, where the Ice Queen herself sits on her crystal throne. She has a face as white as snow and long nails as sharp as icicles.’

  The child stared at the picture for a moment and then at me. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said. ‘It’s an ordinary road.’

  ‘It looks like a magical road to me.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t,’ said the child. ‘It’s an ordinary road.’

  ‘But it’s full of greens and reds and blues. It looks like a magical road.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ said the child, sighing. ‘It’s an ordinary road and it doesn’t lead to any ice palace.’

  ‘Why all the colours?’ I asked, intrigued.

  Her finger traced the curve of the road. ‘Those are the diamonds and those are the rubies and those are the emeralds,’ she explained.

  ‘It is a magical road!’ I teased.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ the child replied, ‘it’s a jewel carriageway.’

  It was during that school visit that I was joined on the team by a fellow school inspector from Lancashire. I had not met John before, and telephoned him prior to the inspection to say we would meet in the school entrance on the Monday morning at eight o’clock.

  ‘And be sure to wear something cheerful,’ I said. ‘You know how young children like bright colours, and it is a little daunting for them if we all appear in grey suits and dark ties.’

  On the morning of the inspection, Joyce, the inspector for mathematics, approached me.

  ‘Gervase,’ she said quietly, ‘what did you tell that inspector from Lancashire to wear?’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I’ve just passed Coco the Clown in the entrance,’ she told me.

  John, I soon discovered, was dressed in a smart navy jacket with bright brass buttons, pristine white trousers, fuchsia pink shirt and a blue polka-dot bow tie.

  ‘Will I do?’ he asked amiably.

  Before I could reply, a passing infant stopped, stared at him for a moment and then, taking his h
and, departed with him down the corridor. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after you.’

  At morning break I asked my colourful colleague from the Red Rose County where he had got to.

  ‘Well,’ he said, smiling widely, ‘that little girl took me to the school office and told the secretary that she had just found Willy Wonka.’

  Growing Pains

  Young people nowadays tend to get a bad press. Newspapers often feature articles about the unruly youth of today, the ‘hoodies’ and the ‘yobbos’, the football hooligans and lager louts, the rude, the selfish and the aggressive. It is frequently said that if they perform well in their examinations then it’s because the exams are easier these days. If they do not perform well then it’s an indication of the steady decline in standards. They just can’t win. ‘It wasn’t like that when I was young,’ you will hear the older generation say. It is a fact, of course, that young people down the centuries have included those who have kicked over the traces, misbehaved, been unruly and recalcitrant, ignored the advice of their elders and been in want of some good old-fashioned discipline.

  What tends to be forgotten is that there are thousands of young people who come from loving, supportive homes, are taught by dedicated and enthusiastic teachers and are a credit to their homes and schools. And some have their crosses to bear, and do so without complaint.

  I met Rebecca in a comprehensive school in Sheffield. She was studying for her ten GCSEs and had a Saturday job in a shoe shop, to earn a bit of extra money to supplement the disability allowance her mother received. Rebecca was a carer. She looked after her mother, who was crippled with a debilitating disease, and she washed, cooked, cleaned and dealt with the bills. This bubbly, unself-pitying, good-humoured young woman had little social life and, although her friends were sympathetic, they had stopped inviting her to be part of the activities teenagers enjoy because, invariably, she was unable to join them given her commitments at home.

  ‘You have a challenging and demanding life,’ I told her.

  She smiled. ‘Not half as challenging and demanding as my mother’s,’ she replied.

  Matty was six, and stood out from the rest of the children in his infant class. His skin looked unhealthily pale and his untidy, greasy hair was clearly unwashed. There were milk stains down his jumper and his trainers were grubby. He was one of the sad, fragile children whom I had come across on my travels as a school inspector – children who are neglected, disparaged, damaged and sometimes abused, children who would never know the warmth, encouragement and love of a good home.

  ‘He’s such a sad little boy,’ explained the head teacher. ‘Can you imagine a child of his age having to get himself up in the morning, come to school without any breakfast, unwashed, in the same coat he has had for two years and which is now far too small for him? A child so smelly that none of the other children will sit near him or play with him, a child who watches all the other mummies collect their children from school but who has to walk his lonely way home alone, to a cold, empty house? Poor child hasn’t a chance, has he? Is it any wonder he steals and spits and gets into fights? He’s never been shown any different. You know, some children come from homes where there is acceptable behaviour and positive attitudes to others, where there’s laughter and love and lots of books. And then there are some children, like Matty, who get nothing. Of course, it’s the same old story: poverty, inadequate parenting, absentee father, string of stepfathers. There are drugs, of course, and, I suspect, violence.’

  On my visit to Matty’s school, just before Christmas, I was asked to tell the children the story of the birth of Jesus. Little Matty sat cross-legged and wide-eyed before me, a little apart from the others. There was the unpleasant smell of an unwashed body in the air.

  ‘Baby Jesus was born in a stable, a cattle shed,’ I explained, ‘and he had a manger for a bed. It wouldn’t have been nice and clean and bright, like the crib in shopping centre. The stable in which Baby Jesus was born would have been full of rather smelly, noisy animals, mice and rats and dirty hay. There was no room in the inn, you see, so Mary and Joseph had to stay in the stable and it didn’t have lovely furniture and carpets and central heating. Mary had to have her baby in a cold, dark barn,’ I continued. ‘He had no nice new clothes, no toys and no cot. He came into the world with nothing. He was one of the poor and mean and lowly.’

  Matty, who had been watching with eyes like saucers, shook his head slowly and said, quietly but with feeling: ‘Poor little bugger.’

  Perhaps more than any, he knew what it was to have very little.

  I met Mark, aged twelve, at the college for the blind which he attended. He had lost his sight at ten and, amazingly, seemed to take it in his stride. He had a wonderful sense of humour and chatted away as if I were an old friend, explaining that he was very happy at the school, doing well in his work, and he hoped to be a teacher one day. I arrived at Mark’s classroom before the children and, as inspectors are wont to do, ensconced myself in the corner as the teacher (who was sighted) nervously shuffled her papers. In came the students. Of course, they were not aware of the figure at the back.

  ‘Miss,’ asked Mark, ‘will we be having one of these school inspectors in with us this morning?’

  ‘We will indeed,’ answered the teacher, glancing in my direction.

  ‘Do you know who it will be, Miss?’

  ‘His name’s Mr Phinn.’

  ‘Oh, I met him this morning, Miss,’ cried the boy. ‘He’s from Yorkshire and he talks funny. He says, “Eee by gum!” ’

  ‘No he doesn’t, Mark,’ said the embarrassed teacher. ‘Now sit down and get out your Brailler.’

  ‘What does he look like, Miss?’ persisted the boy.

  ‘All these questions, Mark.’

  ‘I’ve never met a school inspector before,’ he continued, undeterred.

  ‘Well, now’s your chance.’

  ‘Go on, Miss, tell me what he looks like. I want to put a face to his voice.’

  ‘Well,’ said the teacher, drawing out the word and looking again in my direction, with a mischievous smile on her lips, ‘he’s young, handsome, elegant, cultivated and very well dressed.’

  Mark thought for a moment before replying: ‘And he’s also in the room, isn’t he, Miss?’

  Terry was bullied. I met him in the library of an inner-city school where he was leafing through a book on cars.

  ‘They pick on me,’ he told me, ‘cos I’m little and don’t give ’em what they want – money and sweets. I come in the library to get out of their way.’

  ‘I think perhaps you should tell somebody at school,’ I said.

  ‘Naw,’ he said dismissively. ‘What’s the use? They never do owt. You just ’ave to put up wi’ it.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to put up with it. If you are being bullied you should tell someone you trust. Have you told your parents?’

  ‘I’m fostered out,’ he said. ‘I’ve just started at a new place and don’t want to cause no trouble.’

  ‘You must never ignore bullying,’ I said. ‘It won’t just go away. Something should be done about it. You should tell your foster parents.’

  ‘Naw, it’d only mek things worse,’ he replied.

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ I said.

  He looked at me and his face tightened. ‘And how would you know? Have you been fostered, lived in a children’s home, taken away from your mam, not allowed to see your little brother, always moving around from one place to another, switching schools, having to go to all these meetings when they talk about you? Then you get to this new school and all the teachers know you’re in care and then everybody knows and you stand out and kids start to pick on you because you’re different. Then they say things about your mam and where you come from and you get into a scrap and sent to the year tutor and you can see it in the teacher’s eyes – “These kids are all the same – trouble.” ’

  I listened to his outburst but couldn’t reply.
I really had no conception of the life this child led. What a sad, angry and troubled child he was.

  ‘Will you promise me you will tell someone?’ I said.

  He looked up. ‘I’ve told you, haven’t I?’ he said.

  In a small primary school, in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, I found a small boy who was putting the final touches to a written account of his father, and we got to talking. His mother had left when he was small, and he saw little of her. He saw nothing of his maternal grandparents. He felt sad about this and found it difficult to understand, but he was happy living with a father who, he said, was as much a friend as a parent. They did most things together. The account of his father described ‘an ordinary-looking sort of man, a bit bald and overweight, the kind of man who wears shiny trousers, baggy cardigans and old slippers’, but it went on to tell how special he was and how much he loved him.

  ‘Your account is very honest,’ I told him. ‘Do you not mind sharing such personal details with other people?’

  ‘Why should I?’ he replied. ‘It’s the truth. I’m not ashamed of it. My father says it is always best to be honest.’

  ‘He sounds a remarkable man, your father.’

  ‘He is.’

  There is a stereotype about the one-parent family. It is thought by some that children with only one parent are, inevitably, in some ways deprived, achieve worse at school than their peers and are likely to be more troublesome. Of course, in an ideal world, a child should have a mother and father, but in all relationships there is likely to be friction and discord and it is best sometimes for parents to part. Some children, like this young man, who have just the one parent looking after them, have a warm, loving, supportive and rich life. His father was indeed remarkable and his son was a credit to him.

  ‘And what quality do you admire most in this very special father of yours?’ I asked.

  The boy thought for a moment, staring at his book and biting his bottom lip. Then he looked up and into my eyes. ‘When he makes a mistake, my father says he’s sorry. Grown-ups don’t tend to do that. If my father gets it wrong, he says so. He says it’s not being weak to admit you don’t always get things right or that you don’t know something.’