The Opportunities of Youth

by Donald Phillips

Chapter Fourteen

  Once more to Wales, June 1983

  Two months had gone by. The move to the new premises was over and thankfully things were settling down. The Land Use and Construction teams were the same as ever, but everything else had changed. They still had two of the original placement staff operating for what were termed normal kids, but it was pretty obvious that Tony could no longer look after more than thirty of the old Special Unit kids and run the area. To make things even more difficult Angela had asked to transfer to the placement unit.

  They could hardly refuse. She had been sat at the receptionist position for over two years and deserved a chance to move on. As Roy Stone had not been seen at the office since Cheryl Baxter’s resignation this left Tony short of a Receptionist/Secretary and three placement Supervisors. They advertised the posts internally, at the local Employment Office and the local Drop In Centre. To his complete amazement they had over one hundred replies. He had rung John Jeffries and had been told to run some preliminary interview and cut them down to three possibles for each post, then John would come down, and together they would interview them and pick the best candidates. He also told Tony that he had an older guy from the Bath unit who might well make Tony a good assistant. He could run the office, give Tony a lot more time to liase with the referring agencies, and set up new placements. He could get Bill, Bill Morgan that is, to call in tomorrow. Tony said what about this afternoon? And John Jeffries said he would see if it could be arranged. John was as good as his word and ten minutes later the phone went. It was Bill Morgan. Tony arranged to meet him at the office at three o’clock. The rest of the morning was busy. He saw two new kids who had been referred by Social Services, arranged for a service on one of the Land Us, Ford Transits and then went to visit some of his kids. He had lunch in the pub and got back to the office at five minutes to three.

  Angela was still holding the reception fort until the new receptionist was chosen.

  “Hello Angela. Has a bloke called Bill Morgan put in an appearance?”

  “Hello Tony. Yes he is here. He is cleaning out the teapot at the moment.”

  “He is what?”

  “He’s cleaning out the tea pot. He said it was thick with tannin and you could never make a decent cup of tea with it in that condition. He went off to clean it up”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “About five minutes or so.”

  Tony was gob smacked. He wondered how seriously any private company would take somebody who came for what was to all intents an interview and decided the teapot was not clean enough to make his tea. A suspicion jumped to the front of his mind. Angelo saw it coming.

  “No Tony, He is not a bloody teacher. As far as I know he was an Administration Manager for British Telecom before we got him.”

  Tony realised his newly found prejudice against the teaching profession was probably becoming a little too well known, probably because of his reaction to the Jody Flood case.

  The first he had heard about Jody Flood was when the Careers teacher of one of the local comprehensives had phoned him. It seemed he had this girl who he just could not get anywhere with. She came from a broken home and he thought that their experience, ACYOP that was, with damaged children might mean that poor young Jody would have a better chance if they took her. Under careful questioning the Careers Master informed him that young Jody was of average intelligence, although her attention span was a bit short, was reasonable well mannered, but did not get on well with other girls of her age group probably because she was rather taller than the other girls, rather plain and did not go in for girly things like make up and pop stars and preferred outdoor activities. Tony asked how she got on with boys and was told Jody was the type of girl who would rather kick a football about than discuss fashion. He got Graham Good who ran one of the Land Use teams to interview her. Graham took her on and that seemed another problem solved.

  Three weeks later Graham came into his office in a sweat.

  “I just had to take one of my kids, Terry Ash, to the hospital. He has got a fractured arm and severe bruising.”

  Tony could see he was very upset and tried his best to calm him. Graham was unusual among the Land Use supervisors as he was not a macho man, but was quite sensitive and fairly gentle with his kids. He sat Graham down and asked Angela to bring him a cup of tea.

  “Relax Graham. Your gang works out in the wood and fields. Sometimes accidents are going to happen no matter how well you look after them, especially with teenagers. You know how they like to show off to each other. Now tell me what happened.”

  Graham shook his head.

  “It wasn’t an accident. Jody Flood did it to him.”

  Tony knew his mouth was falling open, but couldn’t help it.

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Jody and two other kids were painting a section of that new fence we are putting with some wood protector and I was with the other three drill out the next lot of post holes. You can’t leave them to use that machinery on their own. They could seriously injure themselves if you don’t watch over them.”

  Tony realised that Graham was justifying leaving Jody and the others on their own when justification was not really necessary. Painting a fence at ground level was not thought to be a particularly hazardous job as far as Land Use jobs went.

  “Where are the rest of your kids?”

  “Outside in the van except for Jody. She did a runner.”

  “Bring them in, then go back to the hospital, and see how the lad is.”

  Graham went out the door and two minutes later came back in with five trainees all dressed in the scheme uniform of donkey jacket and Toe protector boots. Tony led the way into the small office and sat down on the edge of his desk. The silence built for a few moments and Tony allowed it to.

  “Which of you two were with Jody and…?” He never knew the injured kid’s name.

  “Mickey. Well his name is Gerry really, but we call him Mickey because he has got these big ears.”

  The speaker stopped suddenly as he realised what he was saying, but Tony ignored it. If the kids themselves saw nothing wrong with the casual cruelty they inflicted on one another who was he to interfere. His job was just to make them employable, not angelic. He waved for the kid to continue.

  “What happened?”

  “Jody kicked him in the balls when he wasn’t expecting it and when he fell over she stamped on his arm. Vicious cow.”

  He had not met Tony’s eyes during any of the conversation and the others all cast their eyes towards the floor when he looked at them. Something was going on here that was for certain.

  “Why would Jody do that and why didn’t any of you big brave lads help Mickey, er, Gerry when Jody attacked him?”

  The kid looked shocked.

  “Take Jody on. She’s a bloody nutter. She does martial arts at evening classes. Take her on? No way.”

  The other kids all nodded their heads vigorously. Tony wondered what was happening here. This girl was not the product advertised by the school’s Careers Master when Tony had spoken to them.

  “Did you go to the same school as Jody?”

  Three of them nodded.

  “Was she like this at school?”

  They nodded again.

  “Did the staff know about it?”

  More nods and then one of the team who had not said a word until then spoke up.

  “They had to ban her from doing any sports because she kept hurting people. That’s why she was doing martial arts. They said it would,” he struggled to remember and Tony helped him out.

  “Channel her aggression?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  Tony took a deep breath. He had always wondered how setting aggressive kids to beat the crap out of each other could calm that aggression. He knew kids that had boxed when he was at school that would still punch your lights out now if you pissed them off enough. He asked them the question.

  “And did it?”

/>   They were looking straight at him now. The same kid, probably the accepted leader of their little band, answered him again.

  “No. That’s why they were going to expel her out because she beat up one the younger kids up pretty badly.”

  One of the other team members who had not said a word until then joined in.

  “Yeah, just because the poor little sod happened to walk into her shagging for fags behind the sports hall.”

  You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. The speaker knew he had crossed an invisible line and tried to become invisible him self while the rest of them shrank down into their Donkey Jackets. Tony suddenly understood what had been happening. What he now needed to know was why the sudden violence. He waited until one or two of them were prepared to look at him again. Then he stood up to take advantage of the fact they were all shorter than him.

  “OK. What really happened?”

  They looked at each other and nudged each other.

  “You tell him.”

  Finally their seeming leader gave a big sigh.

  “Well it’s like this. We was well pleased when Jody joined the group. She is a bit of a weirdo and a bit ugly, but we all knew she, you know, shags for some fags.” He shrugged. “Ten fags actually.” He looked at the others who nodded him on.

  “To be honest its been going quite well. Only two of us smoke, but we all buy twenty fags a week to give to Jody for, well, a bunk up. Two each a week.”

  Tony just stared at him. He was trying to come to terms with what persuaded a girl of only just sixteen years of age to have sex ten times a week for a total of one hundred cigarettes. It defied belief. He suddenly realised the team were all staring at him and he brought himself back to reality.

  “OK, what went wrong?”

  “Well Terry never went to our school, he comes down with Graham every day from Bristol. Last week he had Jody, but when he gave her the packet there were only eight fags in it.” He shrugged. She told him the next time there should be twelve fags in it or he wouldn’t be shagging anybody for a long, long time, if ever.”

  He looked around for support and the others nodded.

  “We told him to be careful because she could be a violent sod, but he never believed it. This morning he had her and when he gave her the packet it only had three fags in it.” He shook his head and shrugged. “It was his own bloody fault. We did warn him.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well the first thing we knew we heard her say to him about where were the other nine fags, I suppose she included the two that he owed her. The silly bugger just grinned at her. She threw the fag packet up in the air and while he was watching it she kicked him right in the bollocks.”

  He couldn’t resist laughing and the rest joined in. With some difficulty he pulled himself back.

  “By then he was on the floor holding himself.” He looked around for confirming nods to the rest of the team. “Then she stamped on his arm twice.” He voice got a little louder. “It was his own bloody fault. Now Jody’s gone and we are all in the shit.”

  Tony let it go quiet while he thought it through. Then he made his decision.

  “Do you all live in Weston?”

  There were a chorus of Yeahs.

  “Then bugger off home all of you. Today is Thursday and there will be no work tomorrow so you can have a long weekend. Graham will pick you up on Monday as usual and by then we will know what we are going to do with you.” He walked to the door and opened it.

  “Are we going to get sacked, Tony?”

  I don’t know. Probably not if your telling the truth. Now go home.”

  They filed out.

  The result of that interview was that Tony rang Social Services first to let them know what had happened. Then he visited the school after making an appointment with the Headmistress. At that meeting he explained to her what had happened and stressed the fact that as an organisation, ACYOP could not work with people who withheld vital information from them. The Headmistress replied that as professional educators the school could not give out specific information to any non-professional anybody who asked for it. This pleased Tony and he was then able to tell her that if that were the case in future they would only accept trainees from the school if Social Services were to recommend them. The tightened lips told him he had won this one. His absolute distrust of teachers was confirmed. Nobody should be allowed to teach until they had worked for at least two years in the real world.

  He came out of his reverie as a short man in his early fifties came into the room carrying a gleaming teapot. He ignored Tony and walked to the corner where they made tea. He put the teapot down and turned.

  “There you go. You willed be pleasantly surprised at the improvement in taste now all that old tannin has been removed.”

  He noticed Tony.

  “Are you Tony Filton? Bill Morgan.”

  He held out his hand and they shook.

  Bill Morgan was a bit different to anything Tony had seen at ACYOP. He was very laid back to the point it seemed that he couldn’t actually believe he was working there. Tony himself had often had that feeling during the Cheryl Baxter period, but he had only been here a under a year while Bill Morgan had got over two years in. They had a long conversation during which although he didn’t actually say it Tony got the feeling that Bill also could not believe some of the people that ACYOP actually employed. Bill had a lot of time for John Jeffries, but felt that as an outfit ACYOP were not always very professional. Tony listened and grinned inwardly while wondering how professional Bill Morgan was after two years in the Bath office. Tony had been there once and it had seemed absolute bedlam to him.

  “Why do you want to leave the Bath office Bill?”

  Bill looked at him as though he was mad.

  “Have you ever been to the Bath office?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well what did you think of it then?”

  Tony was a bit stumped. Did he tell the truth or prevaricate. He prevaricated.

  “Its your office, what do you think of it?”

  Bill looked stunned.

  “My office? I am there three weeks and it’s my office? I don’t think so.”

  Tony sighed. Not another cock up. He lifted his hand in supplication.

  “Lets start again. Give me a brief outline of your time with us to date.”

  “Nobody has told you?”

  Tony started to laugh. Bill looked surprised and then peeved and finally began to look angry. Tony waved his hand at the other to relax and finally got himself under control. He asked the question.

  “Bill, how much has anyone told you about me?” He continued, “Officially I mean. How much do you know about Weston and what has been going on the last few months?”

  “Well I know you got Cheryl Baxter sacked.”

  Tony sighed. It was just as he had thought. Bill knew nothing about him but gossip and rumour and he knew nothing about Bill at all.

  It turned out that Bill had spent nearly all of his time at ACYOP in the East Bristol office. There he had been doing the job that John Jeffries thought he could do here. Bill freely admitted that at fifty-eight he had no ambition to climb any further up the greasy pole as he could retire in eighteen months when his BT pension would be payable. He had left BT when they had offered him a redundancy package he could not refuse and taken the ACYOP job for a bit more money and so that he would not be stuck at home all day alone doing the housework, as his wife was still working as a canteen manager at Marks and Spencer in Bristol. He said he could run the office and see to all the details of the area such as vehicle maintenance and repair and acting as a go between with the agencies that the clients came from. He could not type and was not prepared to work the switchboard all day. He had spent three weeks in the Bath office because John Jeffries thought he could straighten their administration out. After three weeks of it he told them he would rather stay at home and do the ironing than go back to that. Tony told him a shortened versio
n of the Cheryl Baxter story during which after some of the weirder bits he looked at Angela who just nodded. They then agreed they would both give it a month and see how it went. Bill would start work in Weston on the following Monday. A good day as that was when JJ as he called John Jeffries was coming down to interview the prospective staff. Tony had an assistant.

  John Jeffries arrived on Time and had a woman with him He introduced her to Tony as Diana Blackwell. She was less than five feet tall had a short blonde cap of hair and was slim to the point of thinness. She also had incredibly brilliant green eyes. John gave her over to Angela to fill her in with what was happening in the Weston office while he and Tony went into the smaller office. Tony got straight to the point.

  “Who is the woman John?”

  “Her name is Diana Blackwell.”

  “I know that, John, but what is she doing here?”

  John put down his briefcase and took a seat. Tony remained standing.

  “She is a placement officer in Central Bristol, but she lives here in Weston. She heard about your vacancies and asked if she could transfer down here to be closer to home.”

  “Is she any good?”

  John looked hurt.

  “Of course she is.”

  “So if I phoned Anne Jones she would tell me the same story?”

  There was a silence. John finally broke it.

  “Well I don’t know. She hasn’t been with us as long as you have as she only joined us three months ago. As far as I know she is OK as I have never heard anything different.” He sighed. “Look Tony, this shake up we are doing means we have to lose some staff, a whole row of lower middle management in fact. The Union say, and this time I agreed with them, that where we can transfer people rather than sack them we ought to do it. The changes have worked well out for you so don’t you think we should help a few of our existing people instead of getting in all new staff?”

  Put like that Tony had no argument.

  “Ok John, I’ll give her a go. Where did she work before she came to us?”

  “Well she had been out of work for six months following a serious operation, full hysterectomy actually, but before that she was a teacher right here in Weston.”

  Tony closed his eves and slowly counted to ten. When he opened them John Jeffries was laughing at him.

  “Her husband still works there teaching higher mathematics to sixth formers so she knows all about your recent run in with their Careers Master.”

  He shrugged.

  “Diana doesn’t want to go back to teaching as it turns out. Don’t know if that is because after six months off she has realised that eighty percent of the kids have no interest in Geography and History or if its because she doesn’t want to work with her old man anymore?”

  Tony had one question.

  “If she doesn’t work out can I get shot of her?”

  Of course you can as long as you follow the disciplinary code to the letter.”

  Tony laughed.

  “Why don’t you just say no, John?”

  He went over to Angela and picked up the list of people they had short listed for interview. Nine for what were now only two Placement Officer vacancies and three for the Receptionist/Secretarial post. He and John were doing the first interviews, but Tony had decided that as the receptionist job would be reporting to Bill most of the time he and Angela could handle those. When he had informed Bill of this decision he had been surprised, but from the way he went into an immediate huddle with Angela, Tony could see he was also pleased. Tony also told him if he chose a wrong un’ he would be responsible for sorting it out.

  By lunchtime they had seen them all and chosen the two they considered be best suiting for the post and then repaired down to the pub for a ploughman’s lunch. Once they had been served they were eating and chatting away when John dropped the bombshell.

  “Did you sort out those kids to go on that adventure course like we asked you?”

  Tony with his mouth full of bread, cheese and pickled onion nodded.

  “Good. Who are you taking with you as the other Supervisor?”

  Tony managed to contain the explosion of half eaten food to the area of table in front of him and keep his suit clean.

  “Me? You never said anything about me going.”

  John shrugged.

  “Well I couldn’t, could I? We didn’t even know that you were going to be managing this area when Sue asked you to get a list of names, did we?”

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  “We have to have one senior person with every group, that’s what it has to do with it. In Weston that is now you and Bill and I don’t see Bill kayaking, caving and abseiling, do you?”

  Kayaking, caving and abseiling, Tony put his fork down and sighed. If there were three things in the world he had no urge to do it was that three. Christ Almighty, He had always thought you had to be mad to do any of that stuff. He sighed again.

  “Where are we going to do these wonderful things, John?”

  John looked surprised.

  “I thought you knew. It’s the Brecon Beacons. Its only about three hours from here by coach and we get a discount because of the kids.” He laughed at Tony’s expression. “Cheer up Tony, you will probably love it.”

  “Who else is going?”

  “Well this is a joint thing with Eat Bristol Area. At the moment we have Keith Derrick and Mae West, don’t laugh Tony, that is her name, and you and whoever else from this area wants to go. I think Diana Blackwell is keen.”

  “How many kids are we taking?”

  John thought for a moment and then said we can go to eight for each supervisor.”

  Tony thought for a moment.

  “ Is Keith an a real outdoor type?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Don’t piss about John, he drives like a lunatic so I assume that risking his life jumping off mountains and going down caves is what he likes best.”

  John shrugged and nodded his head. Tony sighed.

  “Is he shagging Mae West?”

  John choked on his shandy and pumped his chest with his fist.

  “Right,” said Tony, “Just as long as he doesn’t want us to make up a foursome. If I have to work with an ex-teacher then I will, but I am not bloody sleeping with one.”

  John put his empty glass down and looked at his watch.

  “I have to get back to Bristol, Tony. I will leave you to break the good news to Diana and will send you down the details and dates on Monday with Keith Derrick. You can get to know each other before you go off together. He rose and picked up his briefcase. Then as an afterthought he reached into his pocket and gave Tony a sealed envelope.

  “Oh I nearly forgot to give you this.” He took a thick envelope out of his inside pocket. “Bloody rules and regulations for adventure supervisors.” Thought Tony and put it into his inside pocket.

  Tas was hysterical. The tears were running down her face and she was unable move. Tony sat there if not exactly glaring then definitely not amused. “Its not funny, Tas.” Tas broke into a fresh peal of laughter. “Yes it is. Its hilarious.” She snorted. “A hole week of caving, canoeing and what was the other one called.” “Abseiling.” Tas slid even lower in her chair. “That’s where you jump off a cliff and hope the rope doesn’t break isn’t it?” “Ha bloody ha,” said Tony. Tas continued to snort into her tissue. “And in Wales,” she shrieked. “The Brecon Beacons. Your favourite place on the whole planet and doing everything you never wanted to do” Tony began to fear she might choke and went over to pat her back. Tas nodded her thanks and began to recover. Then she took a look at his face and went off again into helpless laughter. Tony sighed. “I am going down the bloody pub.” He left the room and took his coat of the hall peg. He closed the front door behind him and as he walked away up the drive he could hear Tas still laughing. He decided the would stay in the pub until closing time and hope Tas has laughed herself into an exhausted sleep long before he got back.

>   Then he heard the front door open and shut behind him, turned, and waited. Tas came trotting up the drive putting her coat on. She was still wearing a broad smile, but it was under control. They walked along in silence for a bit until they reached the pub. They ordered drinks and found a quiet corner. Tony was still in his suit and as he sat down he felt the envelope that John Jeffries has given him at lunchtime press against his ribs.

  “Might as well get it all over in one go,” he thought, as he knew Tas would get a fair amount of amusement at whatever the envelope contained if it was regarding the Adventure Week. He took it out of his pocket and opened it, pulling out the contents. The top of the pile was a leaflet obviously selling the adventure course. The rest seemed to be various photo copied papers on what ACYOP required of its supervisors during one of these course. He was reading through one of them when he realised Tas was holding a slim sealed envelope to him. He read what was typed on the front.

  Tony Filton, Private and Confidential.

  He opened it and read it expecting it to be some agreement he had to sign to say he understood and agreed to all the rules and regulations he had received in the well-stuffed envelope. He read it twice with Tas trying hard to crane her neck enough to see what it said. It was a sheet of A4 and obviously a copy of an in-house notice.

  This is to confirm that Tony Filton has been accepted as the Area Manager of the South Avon section of the Avon County Youth Opportunities Scheme, reporting directly to John Jeffries. We wish him success.

  Signed: John Jeffries

  He handed it to Tas. She read and turned to him. “Well done Tony, Congratulations and if I may say its well deserved. I’ll get some more drinks in to celebrate.” She stooped and a slow grin spread over her face. “ I expect this means that you can now look forward to these adventure weekends on at least a yearly basis.

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