‘Hello, Jack. Jolly fine day, what?’ he said.
‘It is, Major,’ I said. ‘Good to see you.’
‘Just checking on the news of school closures, Jack, from those chappies at County Hall,’ he said. ‘Got to make sure Ragley isn’t for the chop.’
‘I’m sure Miss Evans will bring you up to date, Major,’ I said. ‘I’m due back in class now.’
‘Understood, old boy,’ he said and patted me on the back.
I watched him tap gently on the office door and walk in.
‘Good afternoon, Vera,’ he said.
‘Oh, Rupert!’ Vera’s cheeks reddened slightly.
‘Please excuse the intrusion, Vera,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ said Vera, quickly removing an error-strewn letter from the typewriter. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
He took a large brass timepiece from his waistcoat pocket. ‘I’m afraid duty calls, Vera. I only called in to catch up on the latest school closure news.’
Vera stood up and took a file from her beautifully organized filing cabinet. ‘It’s all in here, Rupert. Perhaps you can let me have it back next week.’
‘Why not call round for tea on Saturday and I can return it then?’ said the major.
Vera reddened again. ‘Well … perhaps, Rupert. I’ll let you know.’
The major stroked his neatly trimmed moustache thoughtfully, studied her strained appearance and quickly summed up the situation. ‘My word, what’s this?’ he said.
‘It’s my new typewriter,’ said Vera, ‘and I’m afraid it’s proving rather difficult to handle.’
‘But, Vera, you are a remarkable woman.’
‘That’s kind of you to say so, Rupert,’ she said.
‘I am confident you can master this blighter, my dear.’
‘Yes, of course, I shall do my best.’
‘I know you will,’ he said.
‘It’s just … you know … different routines and changes.’
He leant forward and held her hand. ‘Vera, some things never change.’
She looked into his unwavering steel-blue eyes and felt like a young woman again. ‘I know, Rupert.’
He stood up, opened the office door and looked back. ‘So, then … tea on Saturday, what?’
Vera took a deep breath, gave the typewriter a fixed stare and replied softly, ‘That would be lovely.’
The major closed the door and marched away.
Slowly, but with huge determination, Vera showed she would not be beaten and began to make progress. She forced herself to cock her wrists at a different angle and use the pads of her fingers rather than the tips. While her new typewriter was very sensitive and had a mind of its own, occasionally printing out a line of full stops, it also had the benefit of an extra ribbon to correct mistakes. Vera smiled. A world free of Tippex stretched out in front of her. By Friday afternoon, she was entirely competent in using the new typewriter and, apart from casting the odd wistful glance in the direction of her old machine, now consigned to the top shelf of the stationery cupboard, she had moved on in her life.
On my way home that Thursday I stopped on the High Street and called into Piercy’s Butcher’s Shop. The owner, Old Tommy, was chatting with the customers, and his grandson, Young Tommy, was busy serving them. The Ragley refuse collectors, Big Dave Robinson and his diminutive cousin, Little Malcolm Robinson, known locally as ‘the bin men’, were being served. Two farmworkers, Shane Ramsbottom and his younger brother Clint, were leaning on the counter, waiting for their weekly joint of beef.
‘ ’Ow’s t’school, young Mr Sheffield?’ said Old Tommy.
‘Fine, thank you, Mr Piercy,’ I replied.
‘We’ve been ’earing about these killer-metres an’ killer-grams y’learning ’em,’ said Old Tommy. He pronounced the units as if they were in the same family as killer sharks. ‘Ah don’t ’old wi’ it m’self.’
‘I can understand that, Mr Piercy,’ I said. ‘It’s just that the world is changing and children will need to understand metrication as they grow up.’
Old Tommy shook his head. He was a firm believer in the system of avoirdupois weights, traditionally used throughout the English-speaking world and based on sixteen ounces to the pound. ‘Well, ah’ll tell y’summat,’ he said. Everyone in the shop looked with reverence at Old Tommy. ‘Twenty-two yards will allus be t’length of a cricket pitch.’
‘Y’reight there,’ said Little Malcolm.
‘Can’t be owt else,’ said Big Dave.
‘ ’Cause of ’istory,’ said Clint Ramsbottom.
There was a pause while they all considered this meaningful comment by Clint. It had a certain gravitas they had never associated with a farm labourer who had highlights in his hair.
‘ ’E’s reight is our Clint,’ said Shane, flexing his muscles under his Status Quo T-shirt and cracking his huge knuckles.
Everyone agreed very quickly and I nodded hurriedly. It was important never to hesitate when agreeing with Shane.
‘So what’s it t’be, Mr Sheffield?’ asked Young Tommy.
‘Sausages, please, Tommy,’ I said. ‘Er, a pound’s worth, please.’
Young Tommy weighed out the sausages. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please. I’d like some lean bacon.’
‘An’ what weight would that be?’ asked Old Tommy with a chuckle.
‘About eight ounces, please,’ I replied.
Everyone nodded. Old Tommy had made his point.
Saturday morning was a day of calm reflection and soft breezes. In the vicarage garden, bright plump blackberries filled the hedgerows and apples were turning rosy-red.
After the hectic week, Vera was finally back in her kitchen and at peace in her world. She glanced at the grandfather clock in the hallway and wondered what time she should leave to have tea with the major. It would be polite to take a small gift, she thought. Then she had an idea, picked up her Be-Ro recipe book and nodded to herself. She put her weighing scales on the worktop and lined up her brass imperial weights like a family of chess-pieces. As Vera weighed out eight ounces of flour, she smiled. In this Eighties world of metrication and electric typewriters some things never changed.
She would make some scones … and they would, of course, be perfect.
Chapter Three
A Rose for Ruby
Mrs Smith, school caretaker, completed 10 years’ service at Ragley School. We were informed that Richard Gomersall, Senior Primary Adviser, will be visiting school later this term.
Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:
Wednesday, 8 October 1980
‘AH LOVE ROSES, Mr Sheffield, an’ that’s a real bobby-dazzler,’ said Ruby the caretaker, sniffing the carmine-pink rose appreciatively.
I had put it in a tumbler of water next to the brass paperweight on my desk. It was Wednesday, 8 October, and late-afternoon autumn sunshine filled the school office.
‘It’s a Zephirine Drouhin from Beth’s garden, Ruby – one of the last blooms of the season,’ I explained.
Ruby Smith weighed over twenty stones and her extra-large double-X orange overall was straining to bursting point over her plump frame. Her cheeks were flushed bright-red and she pushed a few strands of damp wavy chestnut hair out of her eyes. ‘That’s a funny name,’ said Ruby thoughtfully. ‘Ah like a proper English rose m’self.’
She picked up the wickerwork basket from under my desk and emptied the crumpled carbon sheets and torn manila envelopes into her black bag. Then she dragged it towards the office door and paused, absent-mindedly polishing the door handle with a duster. ‘Ah once ’ad roses, Mr Sheffield.’
‘Did you, Ruby?’ I said softly, looking up from my logbook.
She stared out of the office window, reflecting on happy times of long ago. ‘On m’wedding day … They were yellow … an’ smelt o’ posh perfume an’ new babies an’ Christmas, all rolled into one. Ah’ll never forget them roses.’
I put down my fountain pen and looked at her. On impuls
e I plucked the rose from the tumbler and held it up. ‘Take this one, Ruby.’
‘That’s kind of you, Mr Sheffield, but ah’d better not if it were a present from Miss ’Enderson.’
I replaced the rose and smiled. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Then a thought struck me. ‘Maybe Ronnie will surprise you.’
‘Huh, some ’opes,’ said Ruby in disdain. ‘ ’E never ’as an’ ’e never will. Y’know what they say, a leopard never changes its stripes.’
She sighed deeply and walked out into the corridor. As a parting riposte, she called over her shoulder: ‘ ’E’ll allus be t’same, Mr Sheffield. ’E still eats peas off ’is knife.’
* * *
Vera came into the office, put the plastic cover over her new typewriter and tidied her desk. Then she picked up her handbag and gave me the familiar look that indicated she wanted a word.
In the entrance hall I could hear the clatter of Ruby’s galvanized bucket and the sound of her singing ‘Edelweiss’ from her favourite musical, The Sound of Music.
Vera sat down in the chair opposite my desk, looking thoughtful. ‘Mr Sheffield,’ she said, ‘on Friday it’s Ruby’s birthday and she’s going to The Royal Oak with her family.’
‘She’ll enjoy that, won’t she?’
‘She will … but there’s something else that I came across a while ago. This week Ruby will have completed ten years’ service at Ragley.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘She started when Mrs Trott retired. Mr Pruett appointed her because everyone in the village knew she was a hardworking cleaner and completely trustworthy.’
‘So what are you suggesting, Vera?’
‘We should celebrate it in some small way – perhaps tea and cakes after school on Friday.’
‘Good idea. I’m sure Ruby would be thrilled.’
Half an hour later, Ruby packed away her dustpan and brushes. The school was quiet again and I turned my thoughts to the tough life of our cheerful caretaker.
Ruby had been blessed with six children. ‘The first ’n’ last were an accident but ah love ’em all,’ she had once said. Her eldest son, twenty-nine-year-old Andy, was in the army and due to be home on leave soon, and her eldest daughter, twenty-seven-year-old Racquel, worked in the Joseph Rowntree chocolate factory. She lived in York with her husband, a factory storeman, and was trying for a baby with little success, much to her distress and Ruby’s amazement.
‘Ah’ve been trying t’get pregnant, Mam, but nowt’s ’appenin’,’ she had confided to Ruby while sitting in her mother’s kitchen. Ruby was puzzled. With Ronnie it had been as easy as falling off a log – in fact, six logs.
‘Never mind, luv. It’ll ’appen when t’times reight,’ said Ruby with a consoling hug.
Ruby’s other four children lived with Ronnie and herself in their council house at number 7, School View. Duggie, a twenty-five-year-old undertaker’s assistant with the nickname ‘Deadly’, said his mother’s full English breakfast on a Saturday would win a prize and he was happy sleeping on his little wooden bunk in the attic next to his Hornby Dublo train set and his collection of Playboy magazines. Twenty-year-old Sharon was considering getting engaged to the local blond-haired Adonis, Rodney Morgetroyd, the Morton village milkman; eighteen-year-old Natasha was an assistant in Diane’s Hair Salon, and the baby of the family, seven-year-old Hazel, was a happy, rosy-cheeked little girl in Jo Hunter’s class. Ruby often wondered if there would ever be a day when she didn’t have to mop floors in order to feed them.
Back in her house, Ruby looked in the kitchen cupboard. The door had fallen off long ago and was now a shelf in Ronnie’s shed, where he kept his racing pigeons. She selected a box of Cadbury’s Smash and peered at the writing on the back. It said something about ‘16 servings of potato substitute’ but Ruby knew her family had large appetites, particularly Duggie, so she tipped it all in a bowl and added some boiling water. ‘That’ll fill ’em up,’ she murmured to herself and began to hum ‘I am sixteen going on seventeen’.
After a lifetime of hard graft, Ruby had accepted her lot in life. Deep down she knew that the hapless, beer-swilling, unemployed Ronnie would never be like Christopher Plummer in The Sound of Music. But, one day … perhaps just for one day … she wished that she might be like Julie Andrews on an Austrian mountaintop, singing to all her children.
Suddenly the back door opened and in walked Racquel.
Ruby looked at her eldest daughter and shook her head sadly. Racquel was trying to earn some extra money as a representative for a couple of clothing catalogues, Kay’s and Freeman’s.
‘Ah get commission, Mam,’ she said with excitement in her eyes: ‘a pound f ’every ten pound in orders.’
‘Give it ’ere,’ said Ruby with a sigh and a shake of her head. ‘Let’s ’ave a look … Ah need a new pinny.’
On Thursday morning at nine o’clock, the enthusiastic Simon Nelson was waiting for me by my desk. The previous evening he had asked for homework and he proudly gave me his book for marking. He had completed a piece of writing about his namesake, the English admiral Horatio Nelson.
‘Well done, Simon,’ I said, putting a tick next to his final sentence, which read, ‘He died at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.’ ‘You got the date right.’
Simon looked up at me and grinned. ‘My mam told me, Mr Sheffield. She said it’s easy to remember ’cause it’s exactly a week after Cliff Richard’s birthday.’ It occurred to me that I could learn a lot from Mrs Nelson about teaching history.
Vera worked half-days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it was lunchtime when she arrived from her weekly Cross-Stitch Club in the village hall. She looked preoccupied and was clutching a copy of a newspaper. Apparently, the ladies had downed needles while attempting to solve the final clue in Vera’s weekly labour of love – namely, the Yorkshire Post prize crossword. Sadly, they were unsuccessful.
‘Just one left, everyone, and it’s tricky,’ announced Vera.
‘What’s the clue?’ asked Anne.
‘Nineteen across, nine letters: confused or perplexed,’ recited Vera. She knew it off by heart.
‘What letters have you got?’ said Sally, taking her notebook and pencil from her shoulder bag.
‘It’s something-L-something-something-M-something-X-something-D.’
Sally wrote it down and stared intently.
‘Sure about the X?’ asked Jo, looking over Sally’s shoulder.
‘Yes, if TAXES is right,’ said Vera, staring sadly at her almost completed crossword.
Everyone racked their brains for the solution but, while we had enough degrees, certificates and essay prizes between us to sink a ship, the solution was not forthcoming and Vera folded up the newspaper. ‘How frustrating,’ she said. ‘We just need someone who’s brilliant at crosswords. Perhaps I’ll ring the major later.’
When the bell rang a slightly deflated group of crossword-failures wandered back to class.
It was just before afternoon break when Cathy Cathcart looked up from her poster colour painting of York Minster and announced, ‘Mr Smith’s coming up t’drive, Mr Sheffield.’ Ruby had often described Ronnie as ‘no more than seven stones dripping wet’ and in his crumpled baggy suit and his Leeds United bobble hat he certainly looked it.
When I walked through the school hall, Anne’s reception class was deeply involved in a dramatic production of the epic tale ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. However, Jemima Poole, delighted to be given the part of the wicked troll, had not entirely grasped its carnivorous nature.
‘Would you please stop all that clipetty-clopetty on my bridge …’ cause it’s hard to concentrate?’ said the polite Jemima in a sweet voice.
Meanwhile, in the entrance hall, Ronnie had not got past Checkpoint Vera.
‘Mr Smith would like a word with you, Mr Sheffield,’ said Vera coldly.
‘Ah’m wond’ring abart this do after school,’ said Ronnie.
‘It should be fine, Ronnie. Miss Evans is
looking after it.’
Ronnie glanced nervously at Vera. ‘Well, do ah need t’do owt?’
‘How about a nice surprise for Ruby?’ I said.
‘Bit awkward, Mr Sheffield. Ah’ve no money t’spare.’
I racked my brains. ‘You could tidy up your front garden, Ronnie. Ruby’s always on about that … Mind you, she’d probably have a seizure.’
Ronnie was confused. He thought a seizure was a Roman emperor. All the same, ‘M’back’s been playin’ up,’ he said quickly.
Vera looked at him with cool appraisal. ‘Ronnie, you really ought to do that for Ruby.’
‘Er … yes, ah s’ppose, Miss Evans.’ He knew when he was cornered.
When he finally left, Ronnie felt as though he had just gone ten rounds with Henry Cooper.
At the end of school, I was at my desk in the school office and Vera was doing some filing when Anne walked in.
‘We’re all set for tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Shirley and Mrs Critchley are in charge of refreshments and Ruby’s family have been invited.’
‘Thanks, Anne,’ I said.
Suddenly, mop in hand, Ruby appeared at the door with her latest announcement. ‘Our Duggie’s got a new girlfriend, Miss Evans,’ she said, with a note of disapproval in her voice. ‘Y’know t’type: butter wouldn’t melt in ’er mouth.’
‘Who is she, Ruby?’ asked Vera.
‘She’s called Julie an’ she works in t’X-ray department in t’hospital … But ah saw through ’er straight away.’
‘I suppose you would if she worked in the X-ray department,’ I quipped.
Anne frowned at me and Ruby pressed on, oblivious to the joke.
‘An’ ah don’t know what’s got into my Ronnie. ’E’s tidying t’garden an’ going at it like a fiddler’s elbow.’
Vera gave me a knowing look.
‘Ah’m absolutely flabbergasted,’ said Ruby and she wandered off to mop the entrance hall.
Friday dawned cold but clear. The season was moving on and as I drove to school I could hear in the distance the deep-throated chugging of a tractor. Shane and Clint Ramsbottom were ploughing in Twenty-Acre field. They were supervised from the neighbouring treetops by the dark brooding shapes of rooks, their beady eyes searching for a juicy breakfast among the ruler-straight furrows.
04 Village Teacher Page 4