04 Village Teacher

by Jack Sheffield

  ‘Thank you,’ we all said in unison, much relieved.

  Then, much to Dan’s surprise, the two fairies both stretched up and kissed him.

  We beat a hasty retreat and soon we were drinking William Younger’s best bitter.

  ‘I don’t know why women make a fuss about shopping,’ said John.

  We all nodded and supped contentedly.

  ‘It’s easy if you’re organized,’ said Colin, with a distinct lack of modesty.

  ‘It went like clockwork,’ said Dan.

  ‘And we’ve all got perfect gifts,’ I said.

  We all drained our glasses. ‘Another?’ I said. Everyone nodded, deep in his own thoughts.

  ‘There is one thing,’ said Dan. ‘I do my sergeant’s exams next year.’

  ‘So?’ I said.

  We all looked at Dan curiously.

  ‘Well … y’know … being kissed by fairies won’t go down well at the station.’

  We were still laughing when we got back on the train.

  On the journey home Colin and John were poring over an article on how to make perfect mitre joints in Colin’s DIY magazine and Dan was studying the football results in the late sports paper and wondering why Kevin Keegan wanted to play for Southampton.

  Meanwhile, I took the copy of Jilly Cooper’s Bella out of my pocket and started to read. After a few minutes I smiled and wondered what Beth might like to do after her Christmas shopping.

  Chapter Eight

  An Apple for Rudolph

  School closed today for the Christmas holidays with 87 children on roll. On Christmas Eve children from Class 1 and Class 2 will be taking part in the 2.30 p.m. Christmas Crib service at St Mary’s Church.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Friday, 19 December 1980

  ‘WOULD YOU LIKE some apples, Mr Sheffield?’ asked Prudence Golightly.

  It was Christmas Eve morning in Ragley village and I was in the General Stores & Newsagent. My shopping bag was weighed down with potatoes, parsnips, carrots, satsumas, dates and a box of Paxo stuffing … but there was room for a few shiny apples.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said.

  Miss Golightly put three in a brown paper bag on the ancient weighing scales; then, as an afterthought, she selected a huge bright-red apple. ‘And one for Rudolph,’ she said with a smile.

  On the high shelf behind her, Jeremy, her teddy bear and lifelong friend, was sitting next to a tin of loose-leaf Lyon’s tea and an old advertisement for Hudson’s soap and Carter’s Little Liver Pills. Prudence made all his clothes and, on this festive day, he wore a hand-knitted bobble hat and matching red scarf, with a white shirt, cream hand-knitted cardigan, cord trousers and mint-green wellington boots. ‘Good morning, Jeremy,’ I said, ‘and a happy Christmas, Miss Golightly.’ The doorbell jingled as I walked out into the High Street.

  On the other side of Ragley village, at 7 School View, eight-year-old Hazel Smith was looking out of her bedroom window and wondering where Santa’s sleigh was going to land.

  The narrow street on the council estate was crowded with old cars and vans. She stared up at the steep slope of the pantile roof and the tall brick chimney that leant perilously. Then she looked directly below her window and her gaze lingered on her father’s wooden outbuilding. Ronnie Smith was proud of his pigeon shed and guarded it fiercely behind a high fence of closely woven chicken-wire. Hazel stared at the large flat roof and smiled. It was perfect for a safe sleigh landing.

  Above her bed, Hazel’s latest painting was taped to the wall. During the last week of term in Jo Hunter’s class, in bright poster colours Hazel had painted Santa’s sleigh pulled by his reindeer. She pointed a small dumpy finger at each one in turn and recited slowly the names she had learnt so well: ‘Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen … and Rudolph.’ Hazel touched his red nose and then stared out of the window again. Finally, a smile lit up her face. She knew exactly where to put Rudolph’s carrot.

  In the High Street my breath steamed in front of me and I turned up the hood of my duffel coat and tightened my old college scarf. Cold as iron, still as stone, Ragley village was frozen in its cloak of fresh snow. Slanting grey wisps of wood smoke rose from the cottage chimneys and etched diagonal pathways across a steel-blue sky.

  Outside Piercy’s Butcher’s Shop, the local church choir had begun to gather round a flaming brazier of burning logs. It was traditional for them to sing carols in the village on Christmas Eve morning between ten and eleven o’clock. Any passing villagers were invited to join in and, with frequent breaks for complimentary mince pies and Old Tommy Piercy’s famous hot Yorkshire punch, it was always a welcome attraction. The punch was made from a recipe given to Old Tommy by his mother just after the Second World War. The addition of the remains of a bottle of Cointreau, along with liberal doses of brandy and dark rum, ensured the resulting potent concoction had a kick that could be measured on the Richter scale.

  Old Tommy staggered out with another steaming pan.

  ‘How are you, Mr Piercy?’ I asked.

  ‘Fair t’middlin’, young Mr Sheffield,’ said Old Tommy.

  ‘That smells good,’ I said, sniffing the air appreciatively.

  ‘Then you must ’ave some,’ he said, scooping up a generous cupful. ‘Y’need t’keep warm.’ He nodded towards the frost-covered hedgerows. ‘Look at t’berries – it’s a sign of ’ard winter t’come.’

  I sipped Old Tommy’s concoction and, as a fireball hit my stomach, a familiar voice chirped up beside me.

  ‘Hello, Mithter Theffield,’ lisped Jimmy Poole, his ginger curls sticking out of his hand-knitted balaclava. ‘Thanta’s coming to our houthe tonight.’

  ‘And we’re going to give ’im some supper,’ added his little sister, Jemima.

  ‘Yeth,’ agreed Jimmy; ‘a minth pie an’ a glath of therry, but …’ he looked anxiously at his mother, ‘what about Rudolph?’

  I rummaged in my bag and pulled out the large red apple. ‘How about giving him this?’

  Mrs Poole gave me a knowing smile. ‘That’s very kind,’ she said. ‘Say thank you, Jimmy.’

  ‘Thank you, Mither Theffield,’ said Jimmy.

  Suddenly, Jemima tugged her mother’s sleeve. ‘Mummy, my teeth are coughing.’

  ‘That’s a new one,’ I said.

  ‘She means she’s got hiccups,’ said Mrs Poole with a smile.

  ‘An’ I’ve got a thiny apple,’ said Jimmy as they wandered off up the High Street.

  ‘Good morning, Jack.’ The Revd Joseph Evans, resplendent in an incongruous bright-red bobble hat, white clerical collar and black duffel coat, waved a greeting. He was encouraging passers-by to pick up a carol sheet and sing with the choir. In the butcher’s shop, villagers were queuing for their Christmas turkeys, joints of ham, sausages and streaky bacon. Joseph popped his head round the open doorway. ‘Any requests?’ he asked.

  ‘A small piece of gammon, please,’ croaked ninety-four-year-old Ada Cade, Ragley’s oldest inhabitant, fiddling with her hearing aid.

  Her daughter Emily gave Joseph a nervous smile. ‘Perhaps “Hark the Herald”, vicar,’ she said.

  ‘Our pleasure,’ said Joseph and rejoined the hardy band of members warming themselves round the crackling logs while supping vast quantities of Old Tommy’s punch and becoming more inebriated by the minute.

  The exception was Joseph’s teetotal sister. ‘Won’t you join us, Mr Sheffield?’ said the elegant Vera, handing me a carol sheet. As always she looked immaculate in a stylish checked tweed overcoat from Schofield’s in Leeds, with a matching navy-blue knitted scarf and hat and warm leather boots, lined with lambswool.

  ‘Thanks, Vera,’ I said. ‘I’d love to but I’m not sure I’ll add much to your bass section.’

  ‘I rather think they’re past caring, Mr Sheffield,’ said Vera.

  We launched into ‘Hark the Herald’, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and ‘We Three Kings’. Villagers paused to throw thei
r spare change into the red plastic bucket that was trimmed in tinsel and propped against the trestle table on which a tray of piping-hot sausage rolls had been placed by Young Tommy Piercy, Old Tommy’s strapping nineteen-year-old grandson. Finally, I picked up my shopping and said farewell to the red-nosed choir. ‘See you at the crib service,’ shouted Joseph. Some of our youngest children from Ragley School were appearing in the nativity play and I had promised I would be there.

  My car was in the school car park so I walked up the High Street and round the village green. Every fleur-delis on the railings on top of the Yorkshire stone walls that surrounded our playground was rimed with diamond-white crystal and the arched Victorian windows were dusted with frost patterns. In the low morning sunshine, Ragley-on the-Forest Church of England Primary School looked like a Christmas card.

  I walked up the cobbled school drive, breathed on my car key to warm it and unlocked my Morris Minor Traveller. After putting my shopping in the back, just for the fun of it I walked across the playground and felt that familiar thrill at making the first footprints in the crisp white snow.

  Suddenly, to my surprise, Ruby the caretaker appeared from the entrance porch holding up a broom handle, attached to which was a curved steel blade. She looked like Britannia in a headscarf.

  ‘Morning, Mr Sheffield. Ah’ve jus’ called in for m’snowshifter,’ she said. ‘Our front path’s like the Harctic.’

  ‘Can’t your Ronnie do that, Ruby?’

  ‘Y’know what Ronnie’s like on Christmas Eve,’ she said. ‘ ’E spends all day in T’Royal Oak.’

  ‘Oh well, good luck, Ruby,’ I said.

  She walked off down the drive and, as an afterthought, called out, ‘Anyway, our ’Azel’s real excited, Mr Sheffield. She can’t wait f ’Santa an’ Rudolph t’come.’

  As I drove home to Kirkby Steepleton I peered towards the distant Hambleton Hills. More snow was coming. The landscape was fading now, sky and hills blurred like a child’s pastel drawing. A mist, like a cotton-wool shroud, covered the distant fields. Only a tall elm tree pierced the low cloud and, from the perch of its highest branches, a parliament of rooks surveyed their ghostly dominion with unforgiving, beady eyes.

  Bilbo Cottage looked welcoming with its holly wreath hanging on the front door. When I walked in, wintry sunshine gleamed on the leaded panes and lit up the hallway in a blaze of light. Beth was spending Christmas with her parents in Hampshire, while I remained in Yorkshire with my regular Christmas visitors: my little Scottish mother, Margaret, and her sister, May.

  Aunt May had just finished making her annual cannonade of stuffing balls. ‘Ah dinna want t’blow my own crumpet, Margaret,’ she said, looking at them in admiration, ‘but these are wee beauties.’ There was no denying my aunt had her own version of the English language, but it was perfectly understandable.

  ‘Y’nae canna have too much of a good thing,’ said my mother.

  Where Aunt May’s cooking was concerned, she was nothing if not loyal. I looked at the platter of stuffing balls in dismay.

  ‘But they’re nae like that Gordon Blue cookery,’ said Aunt May modestly.

  She was right. It was possible to play two rounds of golf with one of these spherical offerings without ever damaging its rock-like surface.

  Suddenly, there was a loud knocking at the front door and Margaret and May scurried from the kitchen to be the first to open it.

  ‘Ah’ve a Christmas pheasant f ’Mr Sheffield.’

  I recognized the voice as I walked into the hallway. It was Deke Ramsbottom’s. His council snow plough was parked outside.

  ‘Come in out of the cold, Deke,’ I said. ‘What’s this about a Christmas present?’ I asked, thinking I had misheard.

  To everyone’s surprise he held up a huge pheasant by its neck. ‘It flew into m’snow plough jus’ outside Kirkby an’ died,’ said Deke by way of explanation. ‘It needs plucking,’ he added as he passed it to Margaret.

  ‘Ye have come to the right place, laddie,’ said my mother gratefully.

  ‘Och aye,’ said May. ‘Me and Margaret are the queen’s knees at plucking pheasants.’

  After a lunch of carrot and parsnip soup followed by a slice of Christmas cake with a generous wedge of crumbly Wensleydale cheese, we set off for the Christmas crib service at St Mary’s Church. On the way into Ragley I drove into the forecourt of Victor Pratt’s garage to fill up with petrol from his single pump.

  While it was the season of goodwill, Victor adhered to a different calendar. He never smiled as he plodded his weary way through life.

  ‘M’pipes are playing up again,’ he said mournfully. For a brief moment I wondered if Victor meant his cast-iron heating system in his dilapidated garage or something more personal. ‘An’ ah think ah’ve got agoraphobia,’ said Victor. ‘Ah read abart it in t’News o’ t’World.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Victor.’

  As we drove away, May looked back at the huge, oil-smeared garage mechanic and shook her head sadly. ‘Y’would nae think a great lump of a Sassenach would be frightened o’ wee spiders,’ she said.

  On the Morton Road a crowd of parents and grandparents were making their way towards St Mary’s Church with an assorted collection of tiny shepherds, angels and Roman soldiers. The Christmas Eve crib service was one of the most popular events in the festive calendar and, in the crisp layer of snow, a crushed ribbon of scumbled footsteps wound its way from the church gates to the haven of the entrance porch. The church was filling up quickly.

  The Revd Joseph Evans was standing next to the empty straw-covered crib and looking forlornly at a shoebox full of tiny hand-painted clay figures. After being passed from house to house during recent weeks, as was the tradition, Mary and Joseph had arrived back much the worse for wear. Gradually a hush descended as the organist, Elsie Crapper, who had obviously taken her tablets, sat at the organ and played a Valium-sedated and calming version of ‘White Christmas’. Next to her a string of coloured lights stretched over the crib and above the nave. Joseph ascended the three steps into the pulpit and pointed a long bony finger at the deserted crib.

  ‘Joseph and Mary have not arrived yet,’ he said with an all-knowing look and a beatific smile.

  ‘Why?’ shouted Jemima Poole.

  ‘Shush!’ whispered Mrs Poole.

  ‘Thuth,’ echoed Jimmy. ‘You’re thupothed to lithen.’

  ‘Why?’ repeated Jemima fiercely.

  Joseph battled on regardless while, at the foot of the choir stalls, three small and very lively Roman soldiers, all between five and six years old and in full plastic armour, were given a sword in one hand and a large sign on a stick in the other. The signs read ANGELS PLEASE, SHEPHERDS PLEASE and KINGS PLEASE and their job was to walk up the aisle and inform the relevant cast members when it was their turn for stardom.

  After a shortened version of ‘Little Donkey’, two five-year-olds stepped on to the stage block at the front of the nave. Sonia Tricklebank looked the part as a demure Mary and spoke her lines beautifully, while Barry Ollerenshaw, as a reluctant Joseph, had clearly no intention of holding hands with a girl.

  ‘They’re bonny wee bairns, May,’ whispered Margaret.

  ‘Och aye, Margaret,’ said May, nodding in agreement.

  ‘An’ the wee lassie, Mary, speaks well.’

  ‘Och aye, Margaret. She must have had electrocution lessons.’

  They both sat back wiping tears from their eyes until Angel Gabriel arrived to announce the birth of baby Jesus. No one commented on the fact that, although she looked beautiful in her coat-hanger halo and white fairy wings, her big rubber wellington boots did rather lessen the overall angelic appearance. After all, outside on the Morton Road, it had begun to snow again.

  Then, while we sang the first six verses of ‘While Shepherds Watched’, seven-year-old Terry Earnshaw, as an unlikely shepherd in a dressing gown and York City football socks, pointed urgently at the tinsel star on top of the Christmas tree and then gave his br
other, Heathcliffe, and little sister, Dallas Sue-Ellen, a thumbs-up.

  All seemed to be going relatively smoothly until six-year-old Benjamin Roberts announced, ‘We bring you gold, Frankenstein and myrrh!’ and a bemused Elsie Crapper launched into the first five verses of ‘We Three Kings’.

  Suddenly, there was confusion at the back of the church. Mrs Buttle had left the kings’ presents in her car. Fortunately, Mrs Ackroyd, on the back pew, rummaged in her shopping bag and came up with an instant solution. She thrust three items into the hands of the anxious kings.

  So it was that on that snowy Christmas Eve in St Mary’s Church, the packed congregation watched the Three Kings present baby Jesus with a jar of pickled gherkins, a tin of Heinz baked beans followed by, appropriately, a box of Setlers indigestion tablets.

  We finished with Anne Grainger leading all the little ones in a rendition of ‘Silent Night’ and then the vicar invited parents and grandparents to take photos.

  After the blessing, a closing prayer and a brief hiatus when the three Roman soldiers began an impromptu sword fight over who should get the blame for opening the final window of the brownies’ advent calendar, we all filed into the church hall for mince pies and mulled wine.

  ‘Ah think Jesus were lucky, Mr Sheffield,’ said Heathcliffe Earnshaw thoughtfully. ‘ ’Is dad being a carpenter an’ all. ’E could knock up a decent cot an’ a playpen an’ a few shelves in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  There was no doubt that the Christmas story had made an impact on the ever-practical Heathcliffe.

  It was dark when we came out of church and snow had begun to fall.

  Jimmy Poole was standing beside me and pointing upwards. ‘Look, Mr Theffield, look!’ he exclaimed.

  Moving steadily across the vast black sky was a winking red light. ‘I can see it, Jimmy,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that in the sky?’ said Jemima.

  ‘It’th Thanta’th thleigh,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘But what’s that red light?’ said Jemima.