Up and Down in the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘By bottling out, like Sidney would have done,’ murmured David.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Sidney. ‘By employing greater tact and diplomacy.’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted David.’ “Tact” and “diplomacy” are not words in your vocabulary.’

  ‘Had it been me,’ continued Sidney, ‘I would have told the headmaster, prior to the head of English arriving on the scene, that I had an urgent meeting after school so could not stay to discuss the day. I would have told him that I would be submitting a full and detailed written report of my visit and that I would make another appointment with the head of English, should he wish to discuss it. Of course, it would be very unlikely, given the circumstances, that this Mr Frobisher would wish to see me again. I should then have left the school before the arrival of the head of department. I really think it was neither the time nor place to give such critical feedback to the man, particularly in front of the headmaster.’

  ‘That’s only putting it off,’ I replied.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Sidney, ‘because, after sending the report, I would have placed the matter firmly in Harold’s in-tray. Firstly, he has vast experience in coping with awkward issues and secondly, as the Senior Inspector, he is paid to deal with such difficult situations. Harold would then go into the school and talk with the headmaster and the head of English and I should be free to get on with my other work.’

  ‘In other words,’ said David smugly, ‘you would bottle out and get somebody else to fire your bullets for you. That is so typical of you, Sidney!’

  ‘Well, come on then, fount of all wisdom, what would you have done?’ asked his colleague.

  ‘Well,’ said David, removing his spectacles, ‘I do think it was perhaps a little unfortunate, Gervase, that you criticised the head of department in front of the headmaster. You might have guessed, from seeing him teach and his manner, that he would be a prickly customer. Had it been me, I should have arranged to see the head of English privately next week and held off writing the report. I would have discussed the lesson with him in detail and given him the opportunity of responding. After all, it was just one lesson and it was with the older pupils who tend to be more difficult to handle. This lesson might not have been at all typical.’

  ‘Then what?’ I asked.

  ‘I would have written the report, shown it to Harold and sought his advice. I would then have returned to the school to discuss it with the headmaster, arranging further visits to observe a series of lessons and to offer advice and support.’

  ‘He wasn’t the sort of man to readily accept any advice and support,’ I said glumly. ‘Anyway, it’s easy with hindsight. It’s too late to do any of that now. I’ve already sent the report in.’

  ‘My goodness, how expeditious!’ exclaimed Sidney.

  ‘There are some people in life who like to get things done quickly,’ David told him, staring at the pile of papers on Sidney’s desk. ‘Of course, there are others who do not.’

  ‘I wanted it out of the way,’ I said. ‘I finished it last night and Julie typed it up and took it over to County Hall this morning.’

  ‘Have you got a copy to hand?’ asked David.

  I reached over to my out-tray and passed the document across the desk. David read it without comment then passed it to Sidney who huffed and puffed and grimaced his way through it.

  ‘You don’t mince your words,’ said Sidney. ‘Talk about “going for the juggler”, as Connie would say.’

  ‘Well, I was irritated by the man,’ I said defensively. ‘He was quite offhand with me and his lesson was unsatisfactory. Furthermore, one of the English staff told me he was a difficult man to work with and wasn’t good with the students.’

  ‘A bit unprofessional that, Gervase, if I may say so,’ said Sidney, ‘discussing the head of department with a colleague. He might have an axe to grind.’

  ‘It was a woman, actually, and I didn’t discuss him with her. The information was volunteered. And she didn’t have an axe to grind either. She was the supply teacher. I have strong reservations about Mr Frobisher and that is what I have put in my report.’

  ‘But it was only one lesson,’ said David quietly.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And you speak in all these glowing terms about his colleagues,’ said Sidney. ‘He stands out like the proverbial wicked fairy at the christening. I mean, to be told everyone in your department is brilliant and you are useless could finish the poor old bloke off.’

  ‘Sidney! How many more times! I did not say he was useless and if you had met him the last description you would use of the man is “poor old bloke”.’

  ‘Well, if I received a report like that,’ said Sidney, ‘I would contemplate throwing myself head first down a pothole in Grassington.’

  ‘Why a pothole in Grassington?’ asked David.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ replied Sidney. ‘A report like that one would make me feel positively suicidal.’

  I felt considerably worse now. Perhaps the report was, after all, too critical. ‘Does it sound that bad?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m afraid it does,’ said David. ‘But all is not lost. The county mail into schools doesn’t go out until next Tuesday afternoon. If you retrieve the report, moderate the tone a little, let Harold have a glance through it and get his advice on the matter, all is not lost. Of course, it will have to be Monday morning now. They will have all left by this time.’

  ‘An excellent idea,’ said Sidney, just as the clock on the County Hall clock struck six. ‘And that’s home-time, I think. Oh, and Julie said there was that loud man on the phone to speak to you again. I hope it isn’t another problem, old boy.’

  Christine had obviously taken considerable trouble to prepare a nice supper that evening but I just did not feel like eating. I poked the potatoes around the plate and made a half-hearted attempt to eat the meat.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ she asked. ‘I thought fillet steak with garlic butter was one of your favourites.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, ‘it’s just that I’m not that hungry.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, sliding a hand across the table and taking mine. ‘You were upset about something last night. What is it?’

  ‘I think I really mishandled a situation in a school yesterday,’ I told her gloomily. ‘There was a head of department whom I criticised in front of the headmaster and he just stormed out of the room. I feel quite bad about it now.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re over-reacting,’ said Christine. ‘Did you have a word with Harold about it?’

  ‘No, I should have done,’ I replied. ‘I did tell David and Sidney today and asked what they thought.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Talk about Job’s comforters. They think I could have handled it better.’ I told her what they had said.

  ‘This head of department, is he any good?’

  ‘Well, the lesson I observed was certainly rather poor. It wasn’t disastrous. The pupils weren’t shouting and running about or anything like that, but he had quite an unpleasant manner with the students, the work in their books was narrow and he’d gone mad with the red pen. It looked as if someone had bled over the pages. And he was very brusque with me.’

  ‘Were the pupils making much progress in their work, do you think?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Do you think they were enjoying the subject?’

  ‘No, I don’t think that they were.’

  ‘How long has he been teaching, this head of department?’ asked Christine.

  ‘Nearly forty years.’

  ‘Forty years? And nobody’s ever said anything about him before?’

  ‘Well, they have as a matter of fact. I believe an HMI, a man called Ball, was critical of him and I dug out the report that my predecessor, Mrs Young, had written about him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She was not that impressed and tried to get him on some courses but it doesn’t seem to have done much good.’

  �
��Well, things don’t seem to have improved by the sound of it,’ said Christine, ‘and he’s gone on teaching class after class, year after year. It seems to me that the headmaster has a lot to answer for and, for that matter, the inspectors who have seen him teach and not really taken any action.’

  ‘It’s not quite as easy as that, Christine,’ I told her. ‘As the headmaster was at pains to point out, and he’s right, it’s really hard to dismiss a teacher unless he steals the dinner money or runs off with a sixth-form girl. This man’s lessons are not so bad as to lead to his being sacked. I mean, the students don’t riot, he sets homework and marks their books.’

  ‘Look, Gervase, you are always going on about children deserving the best that teachers can give, how they only have the one chance at education, that they need to be taught by enthusiastic, committed, good-humoured and hard-working people.’

  Christine was throwing my own words back in my face. ‘Yes, I know,’ I said.

  ‘Be honest, would you want this man teaching our child?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Was he enthusiastic, committed, good-humoured and hardworking?’ she asked.

  ‘Not when I saw him, he wasn’t.’

  ‘Then you had to say so. Your job is not going round schools telling poor teachers that they are fine, that everything in the garden is rosy. If there were a member of my staff who was not up to scratch, they would be told and I would help them to improve. If they didn’t improve then they would have to go. It’s as simple as that. Isn’t your job to tell the truth as you see it, which sometimes means being critical? Of course, you have to celebrate what is good in a school, tell teachers who are doing a good job that they are doing a good job and tell those who aren’t, that they need to improve.’

  ‘Yes, I know you’re right,’ I said. ‘It’s just that it was pretty unpleasant and for some reason I feel very down about the whole situation. Anyway, once I’ve got the report back and made it less trenchant, I’m sure I’ll feel better.’

  ‘You’re changing the report?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Changing the report just because Sidney and David said you were too hard on this teacher. I think you have to stick to what you believe, grasp the nettle and face the consequences.’

  ‘Christine!’ I snapped irritably. ‘I wish I had never brought the wretched matter up. I’m feeling even worse about it now.’

  ‘OK! OK! You do what you think best,’ she said, beginning to clear the plates away.

  I lapsed into a moody silence. When Christine began washing the dishes, I crept up behind her and put my arms around her waist. ‘I’m sorry I was sharp with you,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I was really looking forward to a break from work. This thing is like a black cloud. But you’re probably right. I do need to grasp this particular nettle. Anyway, I’m not going to think about it any more. Let’s just enjoy the weekend.’

  Christine turned and kissed me on the cheek. ‘It will be a taboo subject,’ she said. ‘Oh, and speaking of nettles, tomorrow you promised to sort out the garden. Half the village seems to be out in their gardens, and there are bonfires everywhere.’

  On the following Monday morning I made my way along the neat gravel footpath bordering the well-tended lawns in front of County Hall to retrieve the report on King Henry’s College. Despite my promise, I had thought about it a great deal over the weekend and had decided to take David’s advice and make the commentary on Mr Frobisher’s lesson less forthright and critical. I did not tell Christine.

  Each time I took this route across the formal gardens to the front of County Hall, I recalled the first occasion, over three years earlier, when I had arrived for interview for the post of Inspector for English and Drama. The huge, grey-stone edifice had overawed me then, as it did now. The interior of the building was also daunting: endless cold, echoey corridors, high ornate ceilings, polished wooden floors, huge marble statues, endless rows of oil paintings of stern-looking dignitaries and sepia photographs of former mayors and aldermen. It was like a mausoleum.

  Mrs Savage’s office was in the Annexe, a bright, modern block which clung to the older darker building like some pale brown parasite. On her door, emblazoned in large black letters, it stated ‘MRS BRENDA SAVAGE, Personal Assistant to the Chief Education Officer’. Since my last visit, at the end of the previous term, there had been an addition. A small box had been fastened to the frame of the door encasing what appeared to be a set of miniature traffic lights – three circles in red, amber and green. Above were the instructions to press the buzzer beneath and then wait. Julie had warned me about this contraption which I had, in fact, already seen in operation at one of the schools I had visited the previous year. The idea behind the ingenious device was for the visitor to press the buzzer to gain the attention of the person inside the office. The headmaster, or whoever was within the office, then had three options from which to choose. He would press a button and one of the options would light up. It was only when the circles were illuminated that the instructions could be seen: ‘Engaged’, ‘Please Wait’ or ‘Please Enter’.

  All very clever, but I had to smile. In the school where I had seen this before, it had worked well for the first few weeks, but then the headteacher became concerned that so few people sought to see him. The reason soon became clear when the caretaker, wishing to see the headteacher one day, duly pressed the buzzer and a few seconds later one of the circles had lit up. The caretaker, being a forthright fellow, thought he should draw the headmaster’s attention to the message. It turned out that one rather inventive pupil, who had been sent to the headmaster for misbehaviour just after the installation of the device, had waited outside the room. Having nothing better to occupy his time, the miscreant had, with a penknife, carefully erased the black lettering which stated ‘Please Wait’ and substituted a phrase of his own by writing on the plastic with a black felt-tip pen, his alternative only being seen when the panel lit up. Visitors arriving at the headteacher’s door, duly pressed the buzzer and the little circle lit up with the instruction to ‘Piss Off!’ What had amazed the headmaster was that not one pupil, parent or member of staff had seen fit to inform him prior to the caretaker’s fortuitous arrival.

  I pressed the buzzer on Mrs Savage’s door and, much to my amusement, every light lit up. I knocked and entered. Mrs Savage stood beside her desk, a clutch of papers in her hand. She was, as usual, immaculately dressed. That morning she wore a calf-length pleated blue suit with diamanté buttons, cashmere jumper and smart, impressively pointed black shoes. Her long nails were painted a pale pink and her face was heavily made up. There was the fragrance of expensive perfume in the air. One had to admit it, the woman looked stylish.

  She glanced at me imperiously as I entered. ‘I did ask you to wait, Mr Phinn,’ she said irritably. ‘I’ve not quite finished reading though this “Health and Safety” document for Dr Gore yet. He is in urgent need of it this morning before his meeting.’

  ‘All your lights lit up, Mrs Savage,’ I told her.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she asked witheringly.

  ‘On your door. All your little lights, they lit up at the same time.’

  ‘Well, that is most strange,’ she said. She looked down at her desk and scrutinised a small box-like affair with buttons on the top.

  ‘Not to say very confusing,’ I added.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘All your little lights, illuminating together.’

  ‘I hope you were not heavy-handed with my buzzer,’ she said. When I just smiled, she sat down and continued. ‘I shall ask the janitor to take a look at it. Now then, Mr Phinn, as I said, you will have to wait a moment while I finish reading this report. You may sit there,’ she said, indicating the chair which was placed strategically in front of her desk.

  I did as I was bid, and gazed around me. Her office was plush, warm, fully carpeted and equipped with
comfortable state-of-the-art furniture. Through the windows was a fine view of Fettlesham and beyond to the moors and distant purple peaks.

  Mrs Savage put aside the report, and said briskly, ‘Now, Mr Phinn, is there something you want?’

  What a stupid question to ask, I thought. Would I be there in front of her if I didn’t want anything? ‘Yes, there is something I want,’ I replied. The chair on which I was sitting was lower than her huge swivel chair, so I found myself staring up into her eyes. ‘I would like to have back a report which I sent over on Friday, please.’

  ‘Like it back!’ she exclaimed, as if I had made some sort of improper suggestion. ‘That is out of the question.’

  I don’t see why,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t been sent out to the school yet, has it?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, it hasn’t,’ she replied curtly. ‘County mail, as I am sure you are well aware, is despatched to schools on Tuesday afternoons.’

  ‘So there should be no problem in my having back the report then,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, but there is, Mr Phinn,’ she said, carefully folding her hands before her on the desk and presenting me with the all-too-familiar unpleasant smile. ‘Once I have received the reports they cannot be returned.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they can’t!’ she snapped, a defensive defiance blazing in her eyes.

  ‘But I can’t see why there should be a problem in my asking for my report back. I need to amend it and make certain important additions.’

  ‘Mr Phinn,’ she said in an exaggeratedly patient tone of voice, ‘once a report is received in this office, it is duplicated. One copy goes in Dr Gore’s in-tray and then placed on file and the top copy is despatched to the relevant school. There is no procedure for the return of reports. If inspectors started demanding their reports back as soon as they had completed them, we would descend into chaos and confusion in no time. So, it is quite out of the question for me to return your report.’

  ‘In the three years I have been working as an inspector, Mrs Savage,’ I told her, trying to keep calm, ‘I have never requested the return of a single report and I very much doubt whether there will be another occasion for a very long time. However, it is extremely important that I get this particular one back.’