She gave me a look of flat finality. ‘I am sorry, Mr Phinn, but there is not the slightest possibility of my surrendering that report.’
I drew a deep and exasperated breath. ‘Is Dr Gore in?’ I asked.
‘I don’t see how pertinent that is,’ she said.
‘I would like to ask him if he would authorise the return of the report.’
‘Dr Gore is not available. He is extremely busy, particularly on Mondays, and without an appointment –’
‘Tomorrow morning?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Could I make an appointment to see him first thing tomorrow morning?’
Mrs Savage gave a slight smile and her eyes narrowed in triumph. ‘He is in London at a conference tomorrow morning.’
‘Mrs Savage,’ I said, gripping the edge of her desk, ‘are you going to let me have that report back?’
‘No, Mr Phinn,’ she said calmly. ‘I am not. Procedures must be followed and –’
Without waiting to hear her out, I jumped to my feet and strode for the door. I slammed it behind me, setting off all three little lights in the process. ‘Dreadful woman!’ I muttered to myself between gritted teeth, as I marched down the corridor. ‘Dreadful woman!’
Back in the inspectors’ office I immediately telephoned King Henry’s College. I had decided to have a word with Mr Frobisher prior to his reading the damning report and was planning to suggest that I call in at the school to discuss it with him later that week.
‘Good morning, King Henry’s College,’ came a formal voice down the line. ‘Mrs Winterton, school secretary speaking.’
‘Oh, good morning,’ I replied, with a sinking feeling in my stomach. ‘This is Gervase Phinn from the School Inspectors’ Division at County Hall.’
‘Mr Phinn?’ There was a sharp intake of breath.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘May I speak with Mr Frobisher, please?’
‘I am afraid not. Mr Frobisher is away today.’
‘Have you any idea when he will be back?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Is he ill?’
‘He would hardly be off school if he were not ill,’ came back the reply. ‘It’s the first occasion in my time at King Henry’s that he has had time off. I believe he felt unwell after your visit last Friday.’
‘Oh, I see.’ My heart sank down into my shoes. ‘Perhaps when he does return, you would ask him to contact me at the Education Office on extension 8989.’
‘Yes, I can do that, Mr Phinn. I shall pass on your message to Mr Frobisher when he returns to school.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, placing the telephone down on the receiver with a dull empty ache in the pit of my stomach. Now what was I going to do?
7
The week ahead was so busy I did not have time to dwell on the fate of Mr Frobisher. Tuesday found me bright and early for a short inspection of Butterthwaite, a small rural school set in the most magnificent countryside. The two-room schoolhouse, sheltered by sycamores and ancient oaks, stood square and solid at the head of the dale. From the classroom window pale green pastures, dotted with grazing sheep and criss-crossed by grey stone walls, rolled upwards to the great whaleback hills and gloomy grey clouds in the distance. The scene had a cold and eerie beauty about it.
The school had no major problems and I was able to give the headteacher a positive evaluation. It was at the end of the day when I joined a sturdy-looking little boy with a healthy complexion who was standing at the classroom window, hands deep in his pockets, surveying the vast panorama which stretched out before him. He was about six or seven years old.
‘Just waiting for mi mam to come,’ he told me. ‘She’s offen a bit late. She ‘as a lot to do on t’farm.’
‘Well, I’m sure she’ll not be long,’ I said.
‘Aye, well, I’m not goin’ anyweer.’
‘Beautiful view,’ I said.
‘It’s not bad, in’t?’ He dug his hands deeper into his pockets. ‘Autumn’s comin’ on,’ observed the child like a little old man. ‘Not be long afoor t’leaves start to fall and t’bracken turns gowld. Looks like it’s gunna be a bad winter an’ all. We ‘ad a lot o’snow last year. Mi dad can’t be doin’ wi’ snow.’
‘I’m not over keen,’ I said. ‘And what’s your name?’
‘Andrew.’
‘Well, it’s certainly a beautiful view, Andrew,’ I said. ‘You’re a lucky boy to live up here.’
‘Aye, as I said, it’s all reight. Better in t’summer than winter though, when tha can get out and about. Starts about this time o’ year, does winter, when it gets cowld and wet and windy.’
‘And what do you like best at school?’ I asked.
‘I likes to read and I likes number work. I’m good at sums.’
‘Are you?’ I thought I’d test him on his arithmetic. ‘How many sheep can you see in that field?’ I asked him.
‘Eh?’
‘Can you tell me how many sheep you can see in the field?’
‘Aye, I can.’
‘Well, how many can you see?’
‘I can see all on ‘em,’ he replied.
I chuckled. ‘No, I meant how many altogether. Could you count them for me.’
‘Aye, I suppose I could. I’m good at countin’.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to show me,’ I persisted.
‘Well, there’s five Swaledales and six Texels, three hybrids and four hoggits.’ He paused for a moment. ‘That makes eighteen in total, dunt it? And don’t ask me to count t’rabbits because they waint stay still long enough for me to tot ‘em up.’ A large and rusty old Land-Rover pulled up outside the school gate. ‘Hey up, mi mam’s ‘ere.’ With a wave he scurried off. ‘Tarra!’
I saw him clamber up beside his mother, a large and cheerful-looking woman with ruddy cheeks. She gave him a great hug, strapped him in his seat and drove off.
On the Wednesday I visited a very different kind of school. It has always amazed me how I can be in a small idyllic place like Butterthwaite, nestling in clean grassy fells, and an hour later be in the middle of urban Yorkshire, staring up at the forest of factory chimneys and breathing in the acrid smell of industry. Crompton Primary School was an enormous proliferating structure on three levels. The school had originally been built in the late nineteenth century as a Board school to meet the educational needs of children of all ages: infants on the ground floor, juniors on the second and seniors on the top. It now catered for a large population of primary-aged children who lived in the dark and brooding northern industrial town of Crompton. With its shiny brick walls, greasy grey slate roof, small square windows, towers and turrets and enveloping high black iron fence, it resembled more of a prison or a workhouse than a school. It was a depressing sight: this huge, ugly structure surrounded by row upon row of mean back-to-back terraced housing, featureless warehouses, rubbish-strewn wasteland and walls defaced with graffiti.
The teaching staff had endeavoured to make the interior of the monstrosity as colourful and friendly as possible and had decorated the walls in the gloomy entrance hall with pictures of dramatic seascapes and idyllic rural landscapes, vivid posters, well-mounted children’s poems and stories and vases of bright flowers but the place still felt unpleasantly cold and daunting. Perhaps it was the high, flaking ceilings, the hard shiny green tiles on the walls or the unpleasant smell of school dinners and cheap disinfectant. Whatever it was, the place felt unwelcoming.
Mrs Gardiner, the headteacher, was a stout woman in her late fifties with a large bust and remarkably narrow waist. She wore a long blue skirt and a plain white blouse buttoned up at the throat, and around her neck hung a pair of gold half-moon spectacles on a thin gold chain. She would not have appeared out of place in the school when it had been built for she looked for all the world like a Victorian schoolma’am.
After a tour of the building, I joined Mrs Gardiner in her room to discuss the day’s itinerary. I was there to watch a range of
lessons, assess the children on their reading, examine their writing and study the test scores. For the first hour, I sat in the staff room scrutinising the schemes of work, the teachers’ lesson plans and a sample of children’s work and after morning break re-joined the headteacher in her room. Our conversation about the deprivation and neglect endemic in Crompton was interrupted by the noise of excited chatter. That signalled the passing in the corridor of an infant class on its way to the hall for PE.
Mrs Gardiner rose from her chair in queenly fashion, popped her spectacles on the end of her nose, clasped her hands in front and stationed herself at the door. I joined her to watch the children’s progress.
‘Quietly and quickly, please, children,’ commanded the headteacher, peering severely over the top of her spectacles. ‘Less noise and more haste.’
One little straggler in grubby white shorts and vest limped into view. His head was held down so far his chin rested on his chest. I noticed the child’s skin looked unhealthily pale and his untidy, greasy hair was clearly unwashed.
‘In my room, please, Matty,’ ordered Mrs Gardiner.
‘What, miss?’ asked the child, looking up and producing an exaggeratedly innocent expression.
‘You know what.’
The boy puffed out his cheeks and exhaled noisily. ‘I don’t, miss.’
‘Yes, you do, and less of the sound effects,’ said the headteacher, standing back so he could enter her room. When he was standing there and staring up at her with large sad eyes, she held out the flat of her hand. ‘Now come along, Matty, give it to me.’
‘What, miss?’
‘You know very well what. In your plimsoll.’
‘There’s nothing in my plimsoll,’ the boy told her and looked down sheepishly.
‘Matthew Dickinson,’ sighed the headteacher, ‘remove your plimsoll now. Come along. I haven’t got all day.’ The child thought for a moment and then reluctantly took off his shoe to reveal a pound coin sandwiched between his big toe and the next. His feet could have done with a good scrub. ‘Give it to me, please,’ the headteacher said. The boy plucked the coin from his toes and passed it up gingerly to Mrs Gardiner who scowled and tut-tutted. ‘So you had it after all? Do you know, Mr Phinn,’ she said, turning in my direction, ‘we have been searching everywhere this morning for this pound coin.’
‘I didn’t mean to take it, miss,’ moaned the child, his eyes brimming with tears and his bottom lip beginning to tremble.
‘Of course you meant to take it!’ exclaimed Mrs Gardiner. ‘It didn’t fly into your plimsoll by magic, did it?’
‘I didn’t mean to take it,’ persisted the child. ‘I didn’t mean to take it.’
‘Matty, how many times have I heard that phrase: “I didn’t mean to”? I didn’t mean to hit him, I didn’t mean to break it, I didn’t mean to call her those names, I didn’t mean to use those naughty words. You never mean to, but you always seem to do it, don’t you?’
‘I won’t do it again, miss.’
‘And how many times have I heard that phrase as well?’ asked the headteacher. The boy, his head down again, began to sob pathetically, his little shoulders heaving. He looked a pitiable sight. ‘What do we call somebody who takes something that does not belong to him?’
‘A mugger, miss,’ moaned the child.
‘And?’
‘A burglar, miss.’
‘And?’
‘A robber, miss.’
Mrs Gardiner shot me a knowing glance which said: ‘He knows all the words.’ The headteacher fixed him with a stony look. ‘I was thinking of the word “thief”. That’s what somebody is called who takes something that does not belong to him. A thief!’
‘I’m not a thief, miss,’ wailed the child. ‘Don’t call me a thief, please –’
‘I’m afraid that is what you are, Matty, a thief. You cannot keep your hands off other people’s property. You are always taking things which aren’t yours. All morning we’ve been looking for that coin and all the time it was tucked away in your shoe.’ The child sniffed dramatically. ‘And you see this gentleman here?’ continued Mrs Gardiner, turning again in my direction. The boy looked up, wiped away his tears with a grubby fist, sniffed again noisily and stared like a frightened animal in the headlight’s glare. ‘This is Mr Phinn and he is a very, very important person. Mr Phinn is an inspector.’
The boy howled pathetically. ‘I won’t do it again, miss, I won’t. I promise I won’t do it again.’
‘Fortunately for you,’ said Mrs Gardiner, ‘Mr Phinn is not a police inspector. He’s a school inspector. And when Mr Phinn came into our school this morning, he said what a lovely school it was – cushions in the Reading Corner and pictures, double mounted, on the walls. I wonder what Mr Phinn is thinking now.’
‘I don’t know,’ wailed the child.
‘No, neither do I,’ said the headteacher.
Mr Phinn was in actual fact thinking: I do hope this interrogation will stop otherwise Mr Phinn will be in floods of tears along with little Matty.
‘And what have you got to say to Mr Phinn?’ said the headteacher, looking down severely on the little figure before her. ‘What have you to say to him?’
The child looked me straight in the eyes before replying: ‘Tough shit!’
‘Matty, Matty, Matty,’ sighed Mrs Gardiner later. ‘Whatever am I going to do with him? He spends more time with Miss Percival, the social worker, and Ms Kinvara, the educational psychologist, than he does with his mother. He’s such a sad little boy. Can you imagine a child of his age having to get himself up in the morning, come to school without any breakfast, unwashed, in the same coat he has had for two years and which is now far too small for him. A child so smelly that none of the other children will sit near him or play with him, a child who watches all the other mummies collect their children from school but who has to walk his lonely way home alone to a cold, empty house. Poor child hasn’t a chance, has he? Is it any wonder he steals and spits and gets into fights. He’s never been shown any different. You know, Mr Phinn, some children come from homes where there is acceptable behaviour, positive attitudes to others, where there’s laughter and love and lots of books. And then there are some children, like Matty, who get nothing. Of course, it’s the same old story: teenage unmarried mum, poverty, inadequate parenting, absentee father, string of stepfathers. There are drugs, of course, and, I suspect, violence.’
As she spoke, I thought of the words of Mrs Todd and her four boys, about how some children have every advantage in life and others none at all, and I thought of Andrew’s mum, rosy-cheeked and smiling, greeting him after school with a hug. ‘Whatever does one do about the Mattys of this world?’ asked the headteacher, sighing.
‘If I had a magic wand, I’d wave it, Mrs Gardiner,’ I told her, ‘but I haven’t. I suppose you just have to keep on trying.’
The headteacher smiled and shook her head. ‘Do you know, on his first day here, when he was not much more than five years old, I found Matty outside my door with his pants around his ankles. He was just standing there as bold as brass. “Who wipes the arses around here?” he asked me.’
‘Oh, dear,’ I said, attempting to suppress a smile.
‘In assembly one day, a child dropped a coin which rolled down to the front of the hall and spun round and round. Matty shot out like a chased rabbit and stamped on it. “Foot off!” I shouted. “I saw it first!” he shouted back, snatching it up and popping it in his pocket. I dare not think what he imagined I said to him.’ I was unable to prevent myself from chuckling out loud. ‘Then there was the time a squirrel appeared in the tree outside his classroom window. Mrs Prentice, his teacher, was near enough to hear the conversation he had with another child. “Oh look,” said the other child to Matty, “there’s a squirrel up that tree. Let’s tell Mrs Prentice.” “Shut yer gob,” Matty had replied, “she’ll make us write about the bugger!” You know, Mr Phinn,’ continued Mrs Gardiner, ‘if you didn’t laugh, you’d weep. One da
y he climbed on top of the bus shelter and would not come down. When the school crossing patrol warden attempted to get him down he urinated on him. I mean, he’s a full-time job. I’ve had to suspend him from school three times now. I hated having to do it, but I had no choice. The last time was when Mrs Prentice brought a snail in from her garden. She was getting the children to think of words beginning with the letters “squ” so they could write a little poem together. The children suggested “squishy” and “squelchy”, “squiggly” and “squirmy”. Matty comes out to the front of the classroom and brings the flat of his hand down on the poor creature. “Squashy,” he announces. Whatever will become of him?’
Well, I thought to myself, there’s little chance of his becoming a doctor, an architect, a linguist or a fine artist like Mrs Todd’s talented sons. Poor Matty will probably end up in prison. ‘I expect you’ve tried to get through to his mother?’ I said.
‘Oh yes, of course. She’s a sad case, too. She’s a simple soul and can’t cope. I suppose she tries her limited best but she seems to attract the worst sort of man, that’s why Matty reacts to men as he does, in that aggressive, suspicious way. He’s had some very rough treatment at the hands of his mother’s boyfriends, I can tell you. And, of course, all the bad language he’s heard comes from them. I remember when I helped his mother fill in the details on the form when Matty started school. She’s illiterate, you see. When we got to the section which asked about the child’s parents, she told me, “Father not yet known”.’
‘Social services?’
‘Miss Percival, the social worker, tries her best, of course, but she’s over-stretched and, believe it or not, there are children worse off than Matty. Anyway, we persevere, Mr Phinn, we try our best and we can’t do more than that, can we?’
‘No,’ I replied feebly, ‘you can’t.’
Up and Down in the Dales Page 10