Head Over Heels in the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  Now, a couple of weeks later, I had been to a meeting in the Architects’ Department about a proposed new school library and was walking along the top corridor of County Hall. I was always pleased to get out of that dark and intimidating building and back to the inspectors’ cramped but friendly office. The interior of County Hall was like a museum – a silent, cool and shadowy place with long echoey corridors, high tall windows, ornate ceilings, marble figures on plinths and heavy oil paintings. Former mayors, high sheriffs, lord lieutenants, leaders of the council and dignitaries, all of them men and many of them bearded and robed, stared out of their gilt frames in solemn disapproval.

  ‘Hi, Gervase.’

  I turned and there was Kath – in her familiar garb. ‘Oh hello, Kath, how are you?’

  ‘Oh, underpaid and overworked. I hear congratulations are in order.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You kept that close to your chest, didn’t you? You never mentioned it when we were talking on the phone about Willingforth School.’

  ‘Didn’t want to mix business with pleasure.’

  ‘Indeed, and I’m really pleased for you although I can’t imagine what someone so beautiful, elegant and talented as Christine would see in you.’

  ‘What about looks, charm, charisma, intelligence and a vibrant personality for starters?’ I asked.

  ‘Or the fat bank account. That’s the reason why attractive young women go for the more mature man. Oh, and another bit of news I’ve just heard is that Harold Yeats is finishing.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I thought he had a good few years to go.’

  ‘He’s fifty-nine this year,’ I told her, ‘and can get his pension so he’s decided to retire, and who can blame him?’

  ‘Will you be putting in for the job, then?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Kath, I really don’t know.’

  ‘You ought to have a go. You can’t lose anything by applying and you might regret it in later years, particularly if they appoint someone nobody likes. The Chief Psychologist who was my boss before I came to Yorkshire was a megalomaniac. He was hell to work for.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. It’s a long way off yet. Harold doesn’t finish until next July. I’ll just have to see.’ My tone of voice must have signalled that I wanted an end to this line of discussion.

  ‘Anyhow, I’m really pleased to have bumped into you,’ she said. ‘Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I replied. I opened a door beside us and looked in. ‘Shall we pop into this empty committee room?’ We entered a large imposing-looking ante-chamber which was dominated by a huge rectangular mahogany table around which were twelve or so straight-backed chairs. On the walls were the familiar oil paintings of solemn old men with grave expressions.

  ‘It’s about Terry Mossup, the boy at Willingforth,’ explained Kath.

  ‘Oh yes, I’d be interested to know what’s happening. How’s he getting on?’

  ‘Well, there’s not been any massive transformation in his behaviour but I think the situation is improving slowly. These things, I’m afraid, take time. It would be wonderful if we could work the sort of overnight miracles we see on the American films where the little rednecks are miraculously changed into angels by the caring priest. I’m afraid real life is not like that. Anyhow, Terry is still a handful. He’s a very unpredictable and mixed-up little boy. His file would fill a whole shelf and be the stuff of psychological research. Poor kid, he’s been knocked from pillar to post by successive “uncles” who come and live with his mum for a while and then he never sees again. His elder brothers are into drugs and crime and he’s been caught on numerous occasions wandering the streets at night. Then there’s his vandalising and truanting. You name it.’

  ‘So how is Miss Pilkington coping?’

  ‘Well, she’s finding it really hard but she’s digging in her heels and trying her best. She was so grateful that you were able to find a classroom assistant – and this is the good news. He’s a young man who Terry has quite taken to. He’s a very keen footballer and by all accounts seems to have got the lad interested. Terry is a natural ball-player, I hear. Miss Bates, the other teacher, is back at work. For how long, I don’t know, because she looked as if she was teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown when I last saw her. Did you know that, after the decision to keep Terry on, one of the governors, a very aggressive, loud man –’

  ‘I’ve met him. Joseph Stalin.’

  ‘Well, he led a minor exodus. Five children left and it looks like more will follow.’

  ‘Well, they won’t find it easy to get as good a teacher as Miss Pilkington elsewhere and that’s for sure,’ I said, recalling the excellent lessons I had observed in the past.

  ‘But the Chairman of Governors is not the push-over some of the other governors thought he would be,’ continued Kath, fingering the pearls. ‘He looks such a jolly, inoffensive little man but he’s got this sort of missionary zeal and is as tenacious as Miss Pilkington. I have been really impressed by Canon Shepherd. In fact, I must tell you what happened when I was last there. Canon Shepherd goes up to Terry who was busy feeding the hamster. “Nowthen, Terry,” he says, “how are things going?” “Bugger off, granddad!” Terry replied. Well, I had to turn away to hide my laughter. Anyway, I’m doing what I can. The thing is, Gervase, that this boy is really very bright. I gave him a non-verbal reasoning test and he scored high marks. On the mental mathematics test he also did very well. He’s got a sharp little mind and a wide, if sometimes rather colourful, command of the language. Of course, his reading and written work are below average but I think the long school absences account for that. Let’s just hope all this perseverance and patience pays off.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said doubtfully, ‘let’s hope.’

  When I got back to the office I decided to give Miss Pilkington a call. She was pleased to hear from me but sounded weary and low. After I put the phone down I thought it would not be much longer before Terry was in some special unit.

  I was just about to leave the office one cold morning three or four weeks later when the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello, Gervase Phinn here.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr Phinn, it’s Miss Pilkinton here, from Willingforth School.’ I swallowed thickly and waited for the inevitable news. ‘Could you come out when you have a free moment or are passing?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ I took a breath.

  ‘It’s not urgent but we’ve been doing some poetry work and the children have produced some delightful riddles. I know that you often collect poems for the county anthology and I am sure some of the ones they have written would be ideal. Anyway, if you are in the area, you know you are always welcome.’

  ‘How’s Terry?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, why don’t you come out and see for yourself?’ she said.

  She certainly sounded a whole lot like her old self; in fact she sounded as if she was pretty pleased with life. I immediately telephoned the school I was intending to visit that morning and put back my appointment. I was due to arrange the shortlisting of candidates for the vacant deputy headteacher post but that could wait. I just had to see what the situation was like at Willingforth.

  Later that morning I entered the large bright classroom to find a positively beaming Miss Pilkington. She nodded her head in the direction of a boy in the corner scratching away on a large piece of paper with a fair-haired, athletic-looking young man sitting alongside him. It was Terry and the classroom assistant.

  ‘Children,’ the headteacher said, ‘could we all say “Good morning” to Mr Phinn?’ There was an enthusiastic chorus of’Good morning’. ‘And may I introduce you to Mr White, our new teacher-assistant.’ I learned later that Roland White was having a gap year before university and teacher-training. The young man smiled in my direction.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said.

  ‘Now, children,’ continued Miss Pilkington, ‘Mr Phinn has called in to look at the lovely poetr
y work you have been doing.’

  Terry looked up from his work and nodded. ‘All right?’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes, fine. Are you?’ I called back. ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ he replied.

  What was it that Kath had said, I thought to myself, about the fanciful American movies where the little rednecks were changed into model members of society by a caring priest? ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ Terry had said. This was one of Yorkshire’s most prized phrases. When asked how any Yorkshireman or woman is feeling, the speaker – whether it is in Selby or Sheffield, Doncaster or Darfield, Halifax or Huddersfield, Rotherham or Royston – is likely to reply with this time-honoured expression, ‘Oh, mustn’t grumble’ before launching into a diatribe about the ills of the world. Connie used the phrase to maximum effect, as did Julie. Things were clearly rubbing off on the boy.

  I decided to spend a little time with the rest of the children prior to approaching Terry.

  ‘Riddles are sort of word puzzles,’ explained a fresh-faced boy of about eleven, pointing to his work. ‘Some are of one line, others are long and some are over nine hundred years old. We’ve been writing riddles of our own.’ He then read out his very inventive verse:

  I’m a real square!

  Dry as dust,

  Grey as a stone,

  Paper thin and perforated.

  I may be square and full of holes,

  But in hot water my flavour bursts,

  For I am the quencher of thirsts.

  What am I?

  ‘A teabag!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s brilliant.’

  The next pupil was busy embellishing her poem with intricate pencil drawings as I approached. I read:

  I’m an icy blossom,

  A tiny piece of frozen paper,

  A cold white petal,

  A winter pattern.

  ‘It’s a snowflake,’ she told me with a broad if rather nervous smile.

  ‘Excellent,’ I said.

  Eventually I found my way to Terry’s desk. ‘And have you done a riddle, Terry?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  I was waiting for him to tell me it was ‘crap’ but he looked in his folder and produced a sheet of crumpled paper covered in the same spidery writing I had seen on my last visit. I took it from him, straightened it out and read:

  They walk all over me,

  They beat me,

  They wipe their feet on me,

  They nail me to the floor,

  They wear me out,

  They leave me to fade in the sunlight.

  I was lost for words. I looked at the sharp-faced boy with wavy red hair and a tight little mouth which curved downwards. Was this about him, I thought, the neglected, mistreated child, whom adults had treated as a doormat, who had been walked over all his young life?

  ‘Have you guessed what it is then?’ he asked. He had that same defiant look in his eye.

  ‘A carpet,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s very good.’

  Miss Pilkington appeared at my side. ‘Would you like to tell Mr Phinn where you went last week, Terry?’

  ‘I had a trial game for the Fettlesham Juniors, second team. Football, you know. Don’t s’pose I’ll get in, but it were worth ‘aving a go.’

  ‘Go on with you, Terry,’ said the young man, Roland White, who had been observing me like a school inspector himself. ‘You’ll be playing for one of the big clubs one day.’

  The face brightened up but he tried to appear casual. ‘Yeah, I bet.’

  ‘And we’ve been to a farm since your last visit,’ said Miss Pilkington. ‘Tell Mr Phinn what you saw, Terry.’

  ‘Pigs, we saw some pigs, big pink buggers they were – sorry, miss,’ he clapped his hand over his mouth. ‘I keep forgetting. Right big pigs they were with piglets which hung on to her – you know whats.’ He grinned impishly. ‘And we saw some sheep.’

  ‘And can you guess, Mr Phinn, who the farmer picked to help him get the sheep into the fold?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said conspiratorially.

  ‘It was Terry.’

  ‘Was it?’ I said, sounding very impressed.

  ‘Aye, it were,’ said the boy.

  ‘Mr Clough, the farmer, said he’d not had such a good little helper ever before. Do you know, Mr Phinn, Terry can be a really naughty boy at times but last week on our trip to the farm he was really good.’

  ‘Mr Clough has a sheepdog called Meg,’ said the boy. ‘She were great. She wouldn’t leave me alone, miss, would she? Kept jumping up and following me.’

  ‘Animals really know when you like them,’ I observed.

  Miss Pilkington smiled. I knew what she was thinking. ‘So do children.’

  ‘And there were hens and I helped look for the eggs,’ said Terry. ‘And I never broke one.’

  ‘Terry had never been to a farm before,’ explained Miss Pilkington. ‘He had never seen such animals close up, had you?’

  ‘No, miss, and I want to work on a farm when I leave school.’

  I thought back to my first visit and remembered what he had answered when I had asked him what he wanted to do when he left school. There had certainly been some remarkable changes since then.

  ‘And what else did you see?’ I asked.

  ‘I saw some bulls and some ‘osses and some goats and some ducks and some fuckers.’

  It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over Miss Pilkington, the classroom assistant and me. We all three shot upright, spluttering audibly.

  ‘No! No!’ snapped the headteacher. ‘You definitely did not see any of those, Terry Mossup!’

  ‘I did, miss.’

  ‘No, no, you did not! You certainly did not see any of those.’

  The boy thought for a moment before replying. ‘Well, Mr Clough called ‘em “eff-ers” but I knew what he really meant.’

  5

  One Friday afternoon in early October, I arrived at I, Prince Regent Row in Fettlesham. The building was a tall imposing Georgian white-fronted villa enveloped with Virginia creeper, the leaves of which were magnificently crimson. There was an impressive porch with stone pillars and a heavy oak, ornately-carved door. I was here to be inspected by Mrs Cleaver-Canning – correction: the Honourable Mrs Cleaver-Canning.

  Earlier that week, after a long and tiring day, I had just been finishing off in the office when Julie had popped her head around the door.

  ‘There’s someone who sounds like Mrs Savage’s sister on my phone wanting to speak to you. Loud and pushy and with a plum-in-the-gob accent. Shall I tell her you’ve gone?’

  ‘No, I’d better take it, Julie,’ I had sighed, hoping it would not be another disgruntled parent or complaining governor. I had had several heated discussions already that day. ‘Would you put it through, please?’

  A few moments later a very upper-crust voice had come down the line. ‘Is that Mr Gervase Phinn?’

  ‘Speaking,’ I had replied charily.

  ‘My name is Cleaver-Canning, the Honourable Mrs Cleaver-Canning. I hear that you do talks.’

  ‘Talks?’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes, after-dinner talks. Mrs Daphne Patterson, who is in the same Townswomen’s Guild as I, attended some sort of charity event recently and said she very much enjoyed what you had to say.’

  I had relaxed and leaned back in the chair. ‘Oh, that’s very kind of her.’

  ‘And I’m minded to ask you to speak at my golf club, a sort of after-dinner address at our Christmas Ladies’ Night function. It is short notice, I realise, but I have been let down. The Christmas evening is one of our most important and I booked – er, well, perhaps I shouldn’t mention who – over a year ago and now he’s gorn and let me down. Got a lucrative television offer, I believe, and filming starts next month. I end my term of office as lady captain of the Totterdale and Clearwell Golf Club this December and this dinner is very important, my swan song, you know.’ After a slight pause, the Hon Mrs Cleaver-Canning had continued, ‘
We would, of course, be prepared to make a donation to the charity you support. So, how do you feel? Can you help me out of a hole?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think in principle I could, Mrs Cleaver-Canning, but it really depends on the date. I already have a number of evening engagements in December which is always a particularly busy time for me but if I am free, I should be delighted to join you.’

  ‘December 16th is the date for the dinner. Do say you are free!’

  I had flicked forward through my diary. ‘Yes, it so happens that I am. I would be delighted to speak at your dinner.’

  ‘Prior to making a definite booking, Mr Phinn,’ the speaker had then pronounced loftily, ‘I think we should meet, so I can learn something about you. I am sure you will appreciate that I am relying on the recommendation of a colleague. Daphne Patterson is rarely wrong about people but one does have to be sure. I am certain you will understand that I do need to meet you before making a firm commitment. Have a little conversazione, you know.’

  I had had to smile. The woman wanted to vet me. ‘I’m not a polished after-dinner speaker, by any means, Mrs Cleaver-Canning,’ I had explained. ‘I don’t tell jokes or anything like that. I just talk about children and schools and some of the amusing things that have happened to me.’

  ‘Good gracious, Mr Phinn, we don’t want a comedian! This is the Totterdale and Clearwell Golf Club, not the Crompton Working Men’s Club. It is a very prestigious golf club. Daphne Patterson said you were very entertaining without being vulgar and tasteless and you didn’t go on for too long. That is exactly what I want. Someone who is wholesome, amusing, yes, but not long winded. We can’t be doing with rambling and risqué speakers. The audience will be entirely ladies, some of whom are getting on in years, and it really would not be appropriate for the Totterdale and Clearwell to have anything ribald. The speaker last year was some sort of television personality, though I have to admit I had never heard of the man – from a soap programme, I believe – and I most certainly do not wish to renew my acquaintance with him, either. He had far too much to drink and became quite offensive. He upset a number of our ladies and he didn’t know when to sit down.’