The Other Side of the Dale Page 6

  She thought for a while. ‘Do you use OPs when you dip ’em?’

  ‘Pardon?’ I replied in that all too familiar feeble voice.

  ‘Organo phosphates. Do you use ’em when you’re dippin’?’ I was lost for words. ‘They get a deal of sheep scab Texels do, don’t they? And of course you’re not free o’ blow fly at this time of year.’

  Before I could answer, Tony, shaking his head like a little old man, remarked, ‘He dunt know owt abaat sheep!’

  ‘But I must admit,’ I continued playfully, ‘that I do like cross-breed Leicesters nearly as much. They’re a very hardy breed and they weather very well up on the wolds. Good head, straight back, four solid legs.’ This time it was Tony who was stuck for words. Marianne smiled knowingly.

  ‘Well thank you for coming to see us,’ said Mrs Beighton as we shook hands at the door of the school.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Phinn,’ echoed Mrs Brown. ‘And you must come again soon.’

  ‘Yes, you must,’ said Mrs Beighton. ‘It’s been a real pleasure, hasn’t it, Mrs Brown?’

  ‘It has indeed, Mrs Beighton.’

  As I left the school that lunch-time, I paused at the school gate for a moment to take in the awesome view before me: the vast, white expanse of sky, the undulating green pastures dotted with sheep, the tall pine woods and distant sombre peaks. I thought for a moment of Marianne and Tony and John and all the other amazing children of the Dales I had met that morning. I thought of those two wonderful, dedicated, eccentric teachers who could have made a living on the stage as a double act. How very fortunate I was to meet such people. A shepherd, lean and hard, his bright-eyed collie beside him, waved as I made for my car. ‘Grand day!’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ I replied. ‘Yes, indeed.’ I knew I was going to like my new job.

  6

  Harold Yeats was quite right. There was nothing Julie, the office clerk, did not know about the workings of the school inspectorate. I had only been in post for four weeks but was immensely impressed by this cheerful, clear-headed and highly efficient young woman who seemed to know every telephone extension number by heart, all the names of the headteachers and their schools and, of course, exactly who in the Education Office to contact for what. She could be very frank and forthright, as many a Yorkshire person can be, but she could also be charm and tact itself if she thought that approach was better. I had listened to a few calls she had taken from worried parents and anxious teachers and been full of admiration for the way she calmed down the caller, told them that the request or the complaint would be dealt with immediately and finished the conversation with a charming salutation of: ‘Don’t worry. It will all be sorted out. Thank you so much for calling.’

  I arrived at the office one misty early October morning to find Julie sorting through the pile of letters with great gusto and with an expression on her face as if waiting for an unpleasant smell in the air to evaporate. She was clearly not in one of her charming or tactful moods.

  ‘I’ve finally got to the bottom of the free school meals fiasco, you’ll be pleased to hear,’ she announced with almost manic intensity as she plonked my mail on the desk with a heavy thump.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ I replied. ‘I’m tired of getting calls about free school meals. I was beginning to have dreams about Kimberley and Cherise.’

  ‘It’s that Mrs Savage!’ exclaimed Julie. ‘She’s the one responsible for letting everyone know about staffing, new people, that sort of thing. In the new County Handbook with all the telephone contact numbers in, she only put you down for extension 5989 instead of 8989. Extension 5989 is discretionary grants.’

  ‘It’s an easy mistake to make,’ I replied.

  ‘It’s a real pain in the neck, that’s what it is,’ countered Julie, ‘because they don’t go to print again until next term so it can’t be changed until then. When you continue to get inundated with calls to sort out meals and clothes, you’ll realize what a nuisance it is and then you’ll not be saying, “It’s an easy mistake to make.” ’ Julie was really getting into her stride now. ‘And that’s not all. She has you down as: the “English and Drama Inspector, Gervase Thinn”! You can imagine what confusion that will cause – and amusement because it makes you sound like something out of a fairy story. Now I call that sheer incompetence on a grand scale. I told Mrs Savage in no uncertain terms about the commotion, confusion, havoc and complete chaos she’d caused and how you’d been altogether disrupted, disturbed and disorganized. I must say, for once in her life, she was quite lost for words. Of course, there was no apology forthcoming. I just wonder how she would have reacted if her name had appeared in the new County Handbook as “Mrs Ravage” or “Miss Cabbage”. She’d have gone up the wall! Have you met her yet by the way?’ The flow ceased temporarily.

  ‘No, not yet. She phoned to fix up the meeting with Dr Gore. She was quite formal but seemed pleasant enough.’

  ‘Huh!’ exclaimed Julie. ‘Wait till you meet her.’

  ‘Well, her error wasn’t too bad, Julie,’ I chuckled. ‘We all get things wrong from time to time. Most people get my name wrong anyway. When I was invited for the interview for this job, the letter was addressed to Mr G. R. Pinn.’

  ‘Well, that makes it even worse!’ exclaimed Julie. ‘Mrs Savage would have been responsible for sending out the letters so she got it wrong again.’ Julie thought for a moment and then in a much quieter, tentative voice asked, ‘I haven’t spelled your name wrong, have I?’

  ‘Well, now you come to mention it, Julie,’ I replied, ‘there’s no letter “i” in Gervase.’

  It is a fact that wherever I go I have to either repeat or explain this unusual name of mine. I have got quite accustomed to this by now and have come to expect that it will inevitably be misspelt or mis-pronounced. Over my years in teaching I collected a delightful range of inventive guesses which appeared on my letters. They ranged from ‘Grievous Pain’ to ‘Gracious Dhin’. I have been called ‘Germane’, ‘Germain’, ‘Germinal’, ‘Gercase’, ‘Gerund’, ‘Gervarse’ and even ‘Geraffe’. My surname has appeared as ‘Flynn’, ‘Finn’, ‘Thin’, ‘Tinn’, ‘Pinn’ and ‘Chinn’. My favourite appeared when I was in my first year of teaching. A letter arrived addressed to ‘Mr Phunn, Master-in-Charge of Games’.

  ‘All Phunn and Games, eh, Gervase?’ the Headteacher had remarked drily as he passed me the letter.

  I explained to Julie, therefore, that I was not too disturbed about Mrs Savage, or indeed herself, getting my name wrong and that I didn’t want her to go for the poor woman’s jugular.

  ‘Huh! If there are any jugulars to go for, Mrs Savage goes for them,’ scoffed Julie. ‘It’s like arguing with a barracuda.’ She raised an eyebrow and curled her top lip. ‘Savage by name and savage by nature – that’s her. Let anyone else make a mistake and she goes completely off her trolley. She’s into Dr Gore’s room to complain, like a rabbit with the runs. All her staff are terrified of her. Her management style is an iron hand in an iron glove. Anyway, it’s sorted. The free school dinners that is. I have informed Marlene on the switchboard to redirect your calls if there is the slightest mention of dinners or school uniforms. If they do happen to get through, just transfer the call to extension 5989 – or, if you are feeling really mean and vindictive, to Mrs Savage. She’ll sort out Kimberley’s mum and no mistake.’

  ‘I take it you’ve had a few skirmishes with Mrs Savage then?’

  ‘More like world war battles. But I am not going into that. It’ll spoil my day.’

  ‘Well, thanks for sorting it out, Julie, you’re a real gem.’

  ‘Did you ever think of changing it?’

  ‘Changing what?’

  ‘Your name. I know I would get sick and tired of people always getting my name wrong.’

  I told her about the one short period in my life when I did change my first name. Just after the sixth form and during the weeks before departing for college, I had secured a part-time job in a large bread fac
tory in the outskirts of Rotherham. On the first morning, the other three students and I had met the foreman, a loud, bald-headed, rotund little man called Chuck.

  ‘What’s thy name?’ he had fired at the first student.

  ‘Edward,’ had come the faint reply.

  ‘Reight, Ted, get thee sen down theer, thar on t’Farmhouse Crusties.’ He had turned to the next. ‘And what’s thy name?’ he had snapped again.

  ‘Robert,’ the nervous student had replied.

  ‘Reight, Bob, get thee sen down theer,’ he had said pointing in the opposite direction, ‘tha’r on t’slicers. And watch weer tha’ put thee hands. We don’t want fingers in t’bread.’ He had turned to the third student. ‘And what’s thy name?’

  ‘Julian,’ had come the reply.

  Chuck looked as if he had been smacked in the face. ‘Julian?’ he had exclaimed. ‘Thy name’s Julian?’

  ‘Yes,’ the student had whispered.

  Chuck’s voice had roared the full length of the factory. ‘Hey lads, we have a Julian in!’ This had been followed by wild guffaws from the twenty or so men, and by Chuck mincing along with his hand on his hip. Then he had turned to me. ‘And what’s thy name, pal?’ he had asked, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes.

  ‘Dick!’ I had replied.

  At college I retained the name Dick for a couple of days but then returned to Gervase. I had joined a ‘brush-up-your-German’ class and had arrived at the lecture room to find Julian, who I had worked with at the factory, sitting in the front row.

  ‘Hello, Dick,’ he had greeted me brightly. ‘I didn’t know you were coming to this college.’ We had chatted for a while until the tutor had arrived. At that first lesson the teacher, having introduced herself, had moved from student to student, asking each to say who he or she was.

  ‘Wie hieβen sie?’

  ‘Ich bin Maria Thomas,’ the first student had replied.

  ‘Wie hieβen sie?’

  ‘Ich bin Elspeth Ward,’ had come the second.

  ‘Wie hieβen sie?’

  ‘Ich bin Julian Witherspoon,’ had come the third. Eventually the question had been directed at me.

  ‘Wie hieβen sie?’

  Because of Julian, and not wanting to have to go into a long explanation, I said, ‘Ich bin Dick Phinn.’

  This had been followed by a series of giggles and chuckles from those around me.

  ‘We always have one funny man,’ the teacher had remarked. ‘I shall be watching your progress, my fat friend, with interest.’

  I learned later that ‘dick’ in German means fat. I quickly abandoned the name Dick.

  The day after my conversation with Julie I was sitting with the Head of the English Department in the staffroom of West Challerton High School at the start of an inspection of the English Department, when my unusual name entered the conversation again.

  ‘Is it Welsh?’ asked the Head of English, a small woman with hair pulled back in a bun, rimless spectacles and a round shiny face.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘I have a Welsh cousin called Geraint. I thought it might have been of Celtic origin. Is it Irish then?’

  ‘No, my name’s not Welsh or Irish,’ I replied. ‘In fact, the name Gervase –’

  ‘It ees a French name.’ The French Assistante, who was sitting behind us, broke into the conversation. ‘Gervase ees pronounced “Gervez” with a soft sounding “g”, as in zer word “genre”. It ees a French-Norman name and ees very common in France. Everywhere you go, you will ’ear zer name Gervase. It ees pronounced “Ggggervez”.’

  ‘Would you mind pronouncing it again?’ I said. ‘I rather like the way you say it.’

  ‘Ggggervez,’ she repeated in a most seductive voice. Then she added, ‘It ees the name of a yoghurt.’

  The first English lesson I observed that morning was taught by an exceptionally garrulous, rather eccentric, but obviously well-intentioned and dedicated teacher. Mr Palmer was nearing the end of a long and undistinguished career in which promotion had evaded him. He was still, nevertheless, resolutely optimistic and cheerful, enjoyed teaching his subject and attempting, in his own way, to share with his pupils his enthusiasm for Shakespeare and Dickens and Chaucer and all the other great classic writers. During the long time I have worked in schools I have met teachers in similar positions – at the same school all their careers, watching others move on to greater and higher things, and becoming wearied and cynical and ready for retirement.

  Mr Palmer was not in this category. In his shiny, pinstriped suit, limp bow tie and frayed shirt he looked like a schoolmaster of another century. He was a genial, sandy-haired individual who chattered on inconsequentially, clearly in no way unnerved by the presence of a school inspector. Before the arrival of the pupils, I endeavoured to find out what the theme of his lesson would be. He rattled out words like a Gatling gun, frowning and twitching and gesticulating by turns.

  ‘I’ve seen so many inspectors in my long career, Mr Phinn,’ he confided. ‘I’ve seen them come and I’ve seen them go, with their theories and suggestions, their pet projects and imaginative initiatives, with their important government directives and weighty educational reports, but I just carry on in my own little way, trying my best to teach. Now this morning it is a group of eleven-year-olds you will be observing.’ He waved in the direction of the classroom door, outside which a group of youngsters was beginning to queue. ‘They are bright and keen and willing enough and do apply themselves but like many young people are not greatly enamoured by poetry.’

  ‘So today you –’ I tried unsuccessfully to intervene.

  ‘So today,’ he continued, ‘I intend to read, appreciate and comment upon a poem, a piece of quite exceptional verse, in an attempt to reveal to them how powerful vocabulary, vivid imagery and heightened emotions contained in good quality writing can so enhance their lives.’

  ‘What is the poem which –’

  ‘I feel it is so important to try and instil in young people the love of great literature, to endeavour –’A small boy popped his head around the door and achieved greater success than I had accomplished in stemming the waterfall of words.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Palmer!’ he shouted. ‘Can we come in, sir?’

  ‘You can come in, Thomas Ashbourne,’ replied the teacher. ‘You have the legs which will enable you to come in, you have the ability to walk through the door, you have the facility to enter the room but whether or not you may come in is another matter entirely.’

  ‘Pardon, sir,’ replied the boy entirely confused by the teacher’s response.

  Mr Palmer sighed. ‘Yes, come in, Thomas Ashbourne. You may come in.’ Turning to me he disclosed, ‘Of course, I blame the television and the Americans for the decline in English grammar. I do not possess one myself – a television that is.’

  The pupils, who had waited quietly and patiently outside the door, entered in an orderly manner, sat down, took out their pens and books and prepared for the first lesson of the day. They looked bright eyed and eager and I wondered if any would get a word in during the course of the lesson.

  ‘Today,’ began Mr Palmer, ‘we have a visitor. Mr Phinn, a school inspector no less, will be remaining with us for the duration of this lesson. I hope he will leave suitably impressed.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Phinn,’ the class chorused.

  ‘What is the name of a person who steals from another?’ asked Mr Palmer suddenly. A hush came over the class. Had someone stolen something? What had gone missing? The pupils looked very apprehensive. The teacher repeated the question. ‘Now come along, what is the name of a person who steals from another?’

  ‘Thief, sir,’ came a tentative reply.

  ‘Yes, there is “thief”, but are there any others?’

  ‘Burglar, sir.’

  ‘Mugger, sir.’

  ‘No, no, I wasn’t thinking of those.’

  ‘Robber, sir.’

  ‘Shoplifter, sir.’

  ‘Well
, yes,’ said the teacher, ‘but it is not the one I have in mind. They are all words for someone who steals, but none of you has come up with the one I want,’ said the teacher. ‘Any others?’ At this point I really could not see in which direction this lesson on poetry was going. The interrogation continued during which the class exhausted every possible variation of the word ‘thief’, but still the pupils had not guessed the word which was clearly implanted in the teacher’s head, the word he wanted to hear.

  ‘A person who stole from others in bygone days,’ the teacher persisted. ‘Now, does that give you a clue?’

  There was a forest of hands and an eagerness to answer. ‘Sir! Sir! Sir!’

  ‘Yes, Thomas?’ the teacher asked.

  ‘Pirate, sir.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of a pirate, but you are getting warmer.’

  ‘Buccaneer, sir,’ came a triumphant voice.

  ‘Not a buccaneer. Any more?’ The class was silent.

  ‘Well, I was thinking,’ said the teacher, ‘of a highwayman. And the poem we are going to look at today is called The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.’

  ‘Mr Palmer,’ I quizzed, after the lesson, ‘what was the point of going laboriously through all the words for “thief” at the beginning of the lesson? What was the rationale for it? Why did you not merely explain the class was to study the poem The Highwayman, read it, talk a little about it and get on with the discussion?’

  ‘Ah, my dear Mr Phinn,’ replied the teacher stroking the thinning sandy hair and blinking rapidly, ‘I believe in getting the pupils’ ideas and points of view rather than merely expounding my own. One should always value the opinions and ideas of others. Children are not empty vessels to be filled up with a few arid facts, you know. They are delicate plants that need careful and sensitive nurturing.’

  I was stumped for an answer and instead watched as he carefully took a small, polished brass box from his waistcoat pocket, tapped it gently and clicked open the lid before asking, ‘Do you take snuff?’

  The next English lesson I observed was quite a contrast. The young woman teacher chaired an immensely lively and good-humoured debate on the set examination text of Macbeth, with a large group of fifteen-year-olds. She challenged their views, encouraged them to defend their ideas, asked for examples and illustrations and reminded them of the various stage productions they had been to see. She involved the whole of the group in an animated discussion on the play. It was an immensely impressive lesson. These pupils were certainly not empty vessels filled with a few arid facts but had been stimulated to express their own opinions and have some independence of thought.