Star Teacher

by Jack Sheffield

  Vera smiled at Mrs Parrish, then studied her anxious husband for a brief moment. ‘We’re very proud of Ragley School,’ she said, ‘and we shall make Katie welcome in her new class.’

  ‘We have an exciting day in store,’ I said, ‘with a carol service this morning and a party this afternoon.’

  Mrs Parrish looked relieved and I followed her out. They had arrived in separate cars and her husband had already lit a cigarette and roared off towards York. We stood together for a moment and she gave me a tired smile. She was a beautiful woman with porcelain skin, but the lines around her eyes hinted at stressful times. We shook hands and then she was gone.

  I decided to stand by the school gate and welcome the parents who were coming in to support the preparations for the Nativity. Traditionally the youngest children in Ragley School took part in Sunday’s Crib Service at St Mary’s Church and Anne was keen to have a brief rehearsal immediately after registration. Parents were coming in carrying rolled-up curtains, paper crowns, spare tea towels and sandals. The costumes for our Nativity were arriving in abundance and I smiled at their enthusiasm.

  It was Christmas, the time of goodwill to all men, but in Ragley village there were exceptions. A car horn shattered the peace. Lollipop Lil was preventing Stan Coe’s mud-splattered Land Rover from continuing up the High Street by standing on her zebra crossing and making him wait a little longer.

  ‘’Urry up, y’useless woman,’ yelled Stan.

  ‘Stop y’grizzling, Stan Coe,’ shouted Lil.

  Some things didn’t change.

  As I walked back into school, blue tits were pecking at the foil tops of the milk bottles in the crate outside the front entrance and Anne’s classroom was a hive of activity.

  Morning assembly was earlier than usual, as the children in my class had to prepare the ‘stage’ for our eleven o’clock carol service. This comprised a few stage blocks on which the children in Sally’s orchestra and choir would gather.

  Joseph had called in to take the assembly and, after telling the wonderful story of the Nativity, he tried to recap. ‘So, think back to the story. Why did Joseph and Mary take Jesus to Bethlehem?’

  Several hands shot into the air. Unfortunately he chose Billy Ricketts.

  ‘Because they couldn’t get a babysitter,’ said Billy.

  Joseph sighed deeply as the bell rang for morning playtime.

  In the staff-room Vera was standing by the window watching the children at play. ‘The new girl looks happy,’ she said.

  In Class 3 Sally had given Katie Parrish a seat next to Mandy Sedgewick and they had struck up a friendship. The two girls took off suddenly to make first footprints on the snowy playing field. Katie ran with the confidence of youth and moved with the grace of a deer in the forest. On this day life stretched out before her and, like the other eight-year-olds in Sally’s class, she thought she would live for ever … but changes were coming. A Christmas she would remember always was just around the corner and, in the years to come, she would recall it with sadness. The safe cocoon of her world was about to change. However, on this winter morning all was well and a day of carols and party games awaited this gentle and innocent girl.

  The carol service was a success, with parents and grandparents filling the hall. We sang traditional carols and Sally’s choir and orchestra performed well. However, the highlight was undoubtedly the reprise of ‘Silent Night’ by nine-year-old Rosie Appleby, accompanied by Elisabeth Amelia Dudley-Palmer on her violin. It was an experience I shall always remember – the pure voice of the little girl and the haunting sound of the teenager’s violin. It was a special moment in the service and I turned to look towards Mrs Dudley-Palmer and smiled in acknowledgement. She was sitting with tears in her eyes next to her younger daughter, Victoria Alice. Maggie Appleby sat on the front row, smiling at her precious daughter.

  The final school lunch of the autumn term was always the highlight of the year for our school cook and her intrepid assistant. Shirley and Doreen had arrived early and worked hard with limited resources to ensure all the children had an excellent Christmas dinner. Ruby and her daughter Natasha had volunteered to help and between them they had worked wonders. Sally wheeled in our Music Centre – namely a record player on a trolley with two huge speakers on the bottom shelf – and played a compilation of Christmas carols.

  Soon it was time to clear the hall for our Christmas party. While my class set out the chairs and games and decorated the windows with balloons and paper chains made from loops of multicoloured gum strip, the younger children sat in their classrooms crayoning their Christmas cards. It was a party that was enjoyed by all. We played lots of games, including Statues, The Farmer’s In His Den and Musical Chairs. Remarkably, midway through the afternoon, Shirley appeared from the kitchen with an additional surprise. Doreen was holding a huge tray of bright-green jelly, topped with a scattering of meringue.

  ‘It’s our special treat, Mr Sheffield,’ said Shirley proudly.

  ‘We call it Mushrooms in a Field,’ announced Doreen.

  The children soon devoured this extra treat, after which Sally took out her guitar and we finished with a rendition of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’.

  The sun was setting as parents came in to collect their children, and each child took home a balloon and a packet of sweets along with miscellaneous decorations and Christmas cards.

  Mrs Jackson approached me with her twin daughters.

  ‘Thank you for a wonderful party, Mr Sheffield,’ she said. ‘My daughters have had a marvellous time.’

  The two girls were looking out of the window as stars began to twinkle in the vast black sky.

  ‘Look at the stars, Mummy,’ said Hermione.

  ‘Jesus probably saw the same stars,’ reflected Honeysuckle.

  ‘I expect he did,’ said Mrs Jackson. She gave me a smile. ‘Special times, Mr Sheffield. Best wishes to you and Mrs Sheffield … and I hope Santa visits your little boy.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ I said.

  Frankie Spraggon and his sister Hayley came up to me to give me a home-made Christmas card.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘and a happy Christmas.’

  ‘Ah think ah’m gettin’ a Cabbage Patch doll, Mr Sheffield,’ confided Hayley.

  Frankie gave her a stern look. ‘’Ave you been looking in t’cupboard under t’stairs?’ he said. ‘Mam won’t be ’appy.’

  ‘Well, ah only looked a little bit,’ pleaded Hayley, ‘because my eyes are small.’

  Children’s logic, I thought as they ran off.

  Mrs Parrish was waiting in the entrance hall.

  ‘Just wanted to say thank you, Mr Sheffield,’ she said. ‘Katie has already made a good friend in Mandy Sedgewick and I’ve just met her mother at the school gate.’ She sounded relieved. ‘Today has proved to be a really helpful experience.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ I said. ‘Best wishes for Christmas.’

  She smiled as she helped her daughter collect her coat and scarf.

  After saying goodnight to all the staff I locked up the school and eased my Morris Minor Traveller out of the car park. The sight outside the school gate was one to gladden the heart.

  Each year Major Forbes-Kitchener donated a giant Christmas tree to the village and this was one of the best. It stood in the centre of the village green, festooned with bright coloured lights. Around the trunk a circle of straw bales marked its perimeter. Snow was falling and the pantile roof of The Royal Oak was covered in wavy patterns.

  All the shops had been decorated and Timothy Pratt’s Hardware Emporium stood out with a perfectly horizontal line of illuminated reindeer attached to the canopy above the shop window. Only Old Tommy hadn’t excelled. In the butcher’s shop a few desultory sprigs of holly on a tray of pigs’ trotters was his token gesture towards the festive season.

  As I drove home, beyond the frozen hedgerows the skeletal boughs of elm and sycamore hung heavy under their winter burden of newly fallen snow, and I began
to feel the freedom that comes with a holiday.

  Back at Bilbo Cottage, the kitchen table was covered in presents and cards. Beth looked tearful as she opened each one. ‘The end of my first headship,’ she said. ‘I’ve made so many good friends … but it’s time to move on.’ That steely determination I knew so well had reappeared.

  We prepared our evening meal together, each of us deep in private thought and enjoying the solace of silence.

  Silence was not on offer on Ragley High Street. Heathcliffe Earnshaw and his brother Terry were trying to earn some Christmas pocket money by going from house to house singing carols. Sadly, neither of these intrepid sons of Yorkshire had been blessed with anything resembling a singing voice.

  Maurice Tupham hurried to his front door before they had finished the first verse of ‘We Three Kings’ and thrust a ten-pence piece into Heathcliffe’s grubby hand. ‘An’ ’ere’s another ten pence if y’promise not t’come back,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Cross my ’eart an’ ’ope t’die,’ replied Heathcliffe as he pocketed the shining coins. Then, slightly puzzled by this reaction but nevertheless delighted with the reward, the two boys moved on to the Post Office and their next unsuspecting victim.

  Unfortunately the postmistress, Amelia Duff, and Ragley’s favourite postman, Ted Postlethwaite, were making passionate love on the hearthrug in the back room in front of a roaring log fire. In consequence they could not appreciate the brothers’ off-key rendition of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, as Amelia was in a state of ecstasy while the heat from the flames was burning Ted’s bare backside.

  Meanwhile, up the Morton Road, a barn owl, like a ghost in the night, circled the tall elms in the grounds of the vicarage. Behind the closed curtains Joseph Evans was wrapping presents as he sipped a goblet of mulled wine. He was pleased with his choice of gifts for Vera. There was an LP of Kiri Te Kanawa singing ten arias by Verdi and Puccini, plus a cassette for her car, Voices from the Holy Land. It featured a compilation of choral favourites by Aled Jones.

  As he wrote the words ‘For my dear sister’ on the Christmas tag there were tears in his eyes. He missed Vera more than ever at this time of the year, but it was a secret he kept to himself.

  On Saturday morning, as I looked through the frosted panes of Bilbo Cottage, bright winter sunshine lit up the distant land. The sharp clean air of the high moors had scoured the countryside and all was still after a new fall of snow.

  Following a breakfast of hot porridge, Beth had dressed John in his warmest clothes and set off for some last-minute Christmas shopping in York, while I drove to Ragley to collect our turkey from Old Tommy Piercy’s shop.

  Ragley High Street was full of Christmas shoppers as I pulled up opposite the village hall and crossed the road. A breathless, red-cheeked Ruby was hurrying out of the butcher’s.

  ‘Hello, Ruby,’ I said.

  ‘Ah can’t stop now, Mr Sheffield,’ she said, ‘ah’m off to t’Christmas market in Easington wi’ our Duggie an’ ’Azel. Y’can get some real bargains.’

  ‘I might see you there later,’ I said.

  After collecting a turkey from Old Tommy and a bag of sprouts from the General Stores I decided to call into Nora’s Coffee Shop for a welcome hot drink.

  When I walked in Whitney Houston was singing ‘Saving All My Love For You’ on the juke-box and Dorothy was standing behind the counter fiddling with her plastic Christmas-tree earrings.

  ‘What’s it t’be, Mr Sheffield?’

  ‘Just a coffee please, Dorothy.’ I stared dubiously at the huge plateful of mince pies.

  ‘’Ow about one of Nora’s mince pies?’

  ‘What are they like?’ I asked.

  ‘Well my Malcolm’s eaten two, but ’e’s got teeth like Red Rum so it’s ’ard t’judge.’

  ‘Hard’ was probably the operative word. ‘I’ll try one,’ I said. At least the sprinkling of icing sugar gave them a festive look.

  At a corner table Claire Bradshaw and Anita Cuthbertson, two nineteen-year-olds who had been in my class when I first arrived in Ragley, were sipping frothy coffee and studying the current pop scene.

  ‘Hello, sir,’ they said in unison. They gave me a cheery wave and returned to their reading. Claire had spent forty-three pence at the General Stores on the latest Smash Hits magazine, which featured Bob Geldof and John Taylor on the front cover. However, they had flicked past the pictures of the Pet Shop Boys, U2, Bronski Beat and Level 42 and were swooning over a picture of Bryan Ferry.

  ‘Now, ’e’s jus’ perfect,’ said Anita.

  ‘Ah like ’em more rugged,’ said Claire.

  ‘So y’don’t fancy ’im in Duran Duran?’ asked Anita. ‘Cos ’e’s perfect as well.’

  Duran Duran had edged out U2 and Wham! for yet another year as the top group and their record ‘A View to a Kill’ had been voted best single of the year.

  ‘No,’ said Claire, ‘ah like muscles.’

  Madonna’s Like a Virgin had won the best LP category and Anita paused briefly to study the pop icon’s latest outfit before moving on to the best films page. ‘Y’mean like Rambo?’

  ‘No, not big muscles. More like ’im in Mad Max – good lookin’ wi’ jus’ a few muscles.’

  Dorothy wandered over to their table with a damp dishcloth and wiped a few crumbs off the surface. ‘Ah’m sick o’ bloody Shakespeare,’ she complained. ‘Nora’s practisin’ in t’back room an’ ah don’t know why ah said ah’d ’elp out.’

  ‘Why aren’t we ’avin’ a panto like we usually do?’ asked Claire.

  ‘Summat t’do wi’ culture,’ said Dorothy dismissively.

  ‘So y’doin’ a Shakespeare play on New Year’s Eve?’ asked Anita.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dorothy. ‘It’s s’pposed t’be a comedy.’

  ‘So there’ll be a few laughs then,’ said Claire.

  Dorothy lowered her voice. ‘My Malcolm’s in it an ’e’s got a big part, but if y’don’t laugh in t’right places ’e gets upset. Ah’ve been ’elpin’ ’im wi’ ’is lines.’

  ‘Oh well, good luck,’ said Claire.

  ‘You’ve gorra customer,’ said Anita, nodding towards the counter.

  ‘By the way, Claire,’ said Dorothy, ‘a word in your ear. It’s all round t’village about you bein’ on t’pill and ’avin’ “conjugals” wi’ Kenny. If y’mother finds out she’ll give you what for.’

  ‘Oh ’eck,’ said Claire.

  The spacious cobbled square in Easington was the perfect place for a market and snow was falling again as I parked on one of the narrow side roads. The stalls around the perimeter of the square were ablaze with coloured lights and the Town Crier in his three-cornered hat and ceremonial frockcoat was ringing his bell and chanting ‘O yea, O yea, O yea’ – though no one seemed to notice because the Christmas number one, Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’, was booming out from huge speakers and the shoppers were singing along.

  At Shady Stevo’s stall I bought two cassette tapes for Beth – Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits – plus one for myself, Heartbeats by my personal favourite, Barbara Dickson.

  ‘I’ve jus’ seen Santa, Mr Sheffield,’ shouted six-year-old Julie Tricklebank, ‘an’ ’is fairy gave me this.’ She held up a stick of barley sugar.

  Mrs Tricklebank smiled. ‘Happy Christmas,’ she said, nodding towards a little wooden hut covered in polystyrene snow. Outside was a big sign that read: SANTA’S GROTTO – admission 10p – Ragley & District Rotary Club.

  Gabriel Book made an adjustment to his white beard, wriggled his toes in his warm socks and checked the time on his Mickey Mouse watch. In his mid-sixties, Gabriel was always the Rotary Club’s first-choice Father Christmas. This year he had two new sixteen-year-old assistants, Sharon and Tracy, who for £20 had agreed to give up a free afternoon. Their tacky outfits sported the labels ‘Good Fairy’ and ‘Busy Elf’. Unfortunately for Gabriel, Good Fairy would have made a perfect Wicked Witch of the West and Busy Elf
was anything but industrious.

  ‘Just another few minutes,’ he said, ‘and then we can pack up.’

  Good Fairy stubbed out a cigarette, cleared some of the spray-on snow from the window and stared forlornly at the last group of children. ‘Ah’m sick o’ these kids.’

  Busy Elf was lounging on a folding picnic chair in the corner by the electric heater. ‘Ah’m bloody freezin’ in this outfit.’

  Finally Good Fairy got up and opened the wooden door. ‘Next one f’Santa,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  In walked Mrs Ricketts with Billy and Suzi-Quatro.

  ‘Hello and a ho-ho-ho,’ Gabriel greeted them cheerily.

  ‘’Ello, Santa,’ said Billy.

  ‘And have you been a good boy this year?’

  ‘Yes, ’e ’as,’ said Mrs Ricketts in a voice that brooked no argument.

  Gabriel looked up at the fierce Yorkshirewoman. ‘Er, yes, of course you have.’

  ‘Ah wanna Optimus Prime,’ stated Billy bluntly.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Gabriel.

  ‘It’s a Transformer, Santa,’ said Mrs Ricketts. ‘It’s all t’rage.’

  ‘Is it?’ asked Gabriel, none the wiser.

  ‘It changes from a robot to a truck or mebbe an animal,’ explained Billy.

  ‘So it’s versatile,’ ventured Gabriel, trying to share in the enthusiasm.

  ‘No, it’s a Transformer,’ said Mrs Ricketts.

  ‘Well, I’ll look in my toy cupboard at the North Pole and see if I’ve got one,’ promised Gabriel.

  ‘You’ll definitely ’ave one,’ said Mrs Ricketts with a knowing look.

  ‘An’ if you ’aven’t, Santa, jus’ look in m’mam’s catalogue,’ suggested Billy helpfully.

  Perplexed at this turn of events, Gabriel simply nodded.

  ‘An’ ah wanna Godzilla,’ added Billy confidently.

  ‘Godzilla?’

  ‘Yes, ’e’s twelve inches tall an’ made o’ plastic.’

  ‘An’ there’s definitely one up at t’North Pole,’ said Mrs Ricketts with a firm stare.