In England at that time, death was yet another thing you didn’t talk about in public, lest you reveal your weakness dealing with sadness and loss. Heaven forbid that anyone should see your real emotions and know how much you were suffering with grief.
With his mother gone and realizing what a bleak place Bristol had become to raise two young boys, my father decided that we should all move away to a smaller town with a healthier environment and cleaner air. I can only imagine the explanations and pleading that must have gone on between Dad and Mum to convince my mother to leave the city that she had so many roots in. But somehow he pulled it off and after one final Christmas in Bristol they packed everything up and we headed south one hundred miles to a coastal town called Torquay.
It was the first week of January 1959 when we arrived at 52 Davis Avenue in a downpour that would have had Noah rounding up the animals. Stephen’s cough had turned into influenza midway on our journey down the A38 and he had become so weak that my father had to pick him up in his arms out of the back seat and carry the trembling thirteen-year-old boy through the torrential rain into the dark, cold house. My mother was traumatized and refused to get out of the car. She sat there, rocking back and forth, crying hysterically.
“I want to go back. I want to go back, Reg, I don’t want to be here,” she wailed.
My father, always the rock, stood there in the driving rain taking the brunt of the storm and kept calm, speaking softly to Mum.
“It won’t stay like this much longer, Mary. We have to go in. Stephen needs us and we can’t leave little Rich sitting out here in the damp.”
The three of us sprinted through the deluge and spent our first few minutes in the town that’s famed to be one of England’s sunniest spots towel-drying each other and attempting to get warm.
TORQUAY
My father’s decision to move was absolutely right. Torquay was everything that Bristol was not. It had beautiful clean beaches, rolling hills, endless countryside and a quaint town center that bustled with tourists in the summer months.
I found myself at Sherwell Valley Junior School where I excelled in looking out of the window and imagining far-off places. Even in my pre-teen days I wanted to travel, to explore, to get out into the world and have adventures. I read incessantly; books such as Tarzan of the Apes, Around the World in Eighty Days, Huckleberry Finn, and Treasure Island, and longed to experience for myself the thrill of discovery and the unknown vistas that waited around the next bend, but until I was old enough to actually go out and do that then Torquay with its sea to swim in, its trees to climb and its fields to hike was more than enough to suffice.
At Sherwell Valley Junior School
My teachers would see me lost in thought and call me a dreamer. I didn’t mind the label. I was dreaming, dreaming of unfamiliar countries and distant shores. Of being the first to lay down my footprints on a sandy beach instead of gazing out of a grimy school window at threatening skies and inclement weather.
One of my favorite television shows when I was a young boy was Blue Peter. It was on every Monday, right after school and was made for kids. There was always a feature on science, a story about traveling, an animal segment, often with their resident dog, Petra, and a piece on how to be better at something, like how to keep fit, the best way not to get winded when running cross-country or how to dribble a soccer ball. I took their advice to heart and would inevitably attempt all the things they put before me.
I was ten when I watched Christopher Trace tell me that I should set goals in life and make a list of the ten things I wanted to do then check them off as I achieved them. He gave examples like make the bed every day, do your homework before going out to play and to one day get a respectable job. This seemed a good idea, but I didn’t like his examples. I already made my bed and mostly did my homework and as for a job, I had no idea what I wanted to do and respectable did sound a little boring; after all, not many explorers were “respectable.” So I decided to make a different kind of list of goals.
The wind was howling outside as I went up to my room and the rain crashed against the window with such force it seemed as if the glass would inevitably shatter under the onslaught. In that cold, hostile environment I found a pen and paper and started to write my list.
1.I want to live somewhere sunny
2.I want to swim with the fish in warm water like Jacques Cousteau
3.I want to travel the world
4.I want to be famous
5.I want to be on television like Blue Peter
6.I want to meet my favourite singers
7.I want a beautiful girlfriend
8.I want to be in a movie
9.I want to write a book
The first nine items came easily; they were all things that I dreamed about doing every day at school when I should have been studying essential subjects like algebra instead. But what should be number ten? Christopher Trace had said the list wouldn’t be complete unless it was ten things.
Outside the storm intensified as the wind turned to a roar and shadows flashed across the curtains as the branches of the trees flailed and whipped in the winter gale. To me those rapidly moving silhouettes became dinosaurs pacing back and forth outside my window, just waiting for me to fall asleep when they would smash through the glass and devour me.
I loved to read about dinosaurs and study them, and I would watch any movie that came on the telly that had a dinosaur in it, my favorites being King Kong and Dinosaurus! But at night, when the lights were out and the house creaked as it settled, that prehistoric love turned to fear as I felt that inevitable certainty that I was to be the next victim of a ravenous T. rex. Those horrific thoughts would drive me deep under the covers where I would remain, awake and unmoving, hoping against hope that those waiting monsters would think that my room was empty and there would be no delicious morsel for them that night.
The winter storms with their wailing winds only served to make my night terrors worse and even at ten years old I knew in my heart that this fear was irrational but I still suffered through it every evening as I lay there alone in the dark. I needed this to end; I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. That’s when it came to me what number ten on my list should be. I picked up my pen and wrote,
10. I want to be brave
Just writing those words seemed to make the winds outside diminish and the dinosaurs scatter. Tonight, at least, I would be safe.
I read and re-read the list to make sure I was happy with it then folded it carefully and put it in the top drawer of my little dresser. My last thoughts as I fell into a blissful sleep were of wondering just how many of the ten items I would be able to check off one day.
In 1962 my school held a year-long fundraiser to build a swimming pool. For twelve months all of the children pestered our parents for tin cans and newspapers to recycle, to bake cookies and cakes for us to sell and to sponsor us in long-distance runs, anything to get the funds necessary for the pool. When the money was finally raised and the pool put in, swimming became my favorite competitive sport. To my delight my father had taught me to swim off the beach at Torre Abbey during our first summer in Torquay. Mum was worried sick as I bobbed around in the deep water but Dad wasn’t concerned, “He’s a little fish, Mary. And if there’s any trouble I’ll be in there in a flash.”
The next year I left junior school and it was time for blazers, badges and long pants as secondary school beckoned. Torquay Boys Grammar School was an institution with its origins in the Victorian days and many of the teachers acted as if Victoria Regina were still on the Empire’s throne.
“Neddy Kneebone,” who taught history, would ride to work on his gunmetal-grey moped, pedaling furiously to conquer the final steep hill that led to the school. Instead of a crash helmet he strapped on his World War I Brodie helmet as if to ward off shrapnel from the cars that sped past the struggling teacher, leaving him in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
Mr. Kneebone had been shipped off to Europe in 1917 and fought in the trenches during t
he apocalyptic battles in France and Belgium. Two decades later when WWII shook the planet he found himself too old to enlist so he volunteered to serve as an air-raid warden in the West Country. He loved to wear parts of his various uniforms to school. One day it would be his combat boots, the next his midnight-blue warden’s jacket and on rainy days he would retrieve his full-length wool trench coat from his closet and bundle up in that to fight his way through the downpour.
His favorite day of the year was November 11, Armistice Day. That’s when this seasoned veteran of two tragic global conflicts was allowed to come to school and teach in his full military uniform complete with medals and insignia. We were sure that should World War III break out he would be the first to report to the recruiting office before the missiles were launched.
All that service had definitely biased Neddy Kneebone’s version of history. His viewpoint was simple; Great Britain was always right.
“Of course we had to defeat the Zulu tribes. We knew best what was good for them.”
“And the Aborigine?” we would ask, knowing we were winding him up.
“Yes, them too. Wandering around in that hot Australian Outback under the blazing sun with no clothes and no shoes. Not right at all. They’re much happier now under British rule.”
“And the American Indians?”
“Don’t get me started on the Indians!” he would yell. “All that war paint and bows and arrows. Now they’ve got real houses to live in instead of bloody wigwams!”
That attitude ran through every subject taught at school. In Religious Knowledge I dared question “Bummer” Stokes, a teacher who acquired his nickname by boring every class half to death. He was rattling on during a comparative religions lesson whose sole purpose seemed to be to demean every belief that wasn’t strictly Church of England.
“All the other religions might be well-meaning but they have a lot of mumbo-jumbo nonsense in them; the Catholics mask everything with all that smoke and incense, Hindus have a god with so many arms he looks like an octopus and the Jews stand there and chant at a wall. We (Church of England) stick to the basics because that is our direct path to God.”
I raised my hand and asked a question that was innocent and simple,
“But wasn’t the Church of England started by Henry VIII so he could get a divorce?”
“Don’t be stupid, boy. Of course it wasn’t. It was inspired by divine guidance.”
“But I thought that the Pope wouldn’t let Henry divorce Catherine of Aragon and so the King forced England to split from the Catholic Church just so he could remarry?”
“And you were there to see that with your own eyes?” He turned mockingly to the class. “It seems that Sheppard either has his own personal time machine or is a lot older than he looks. How was it back in King Henry’s time? Did he tell you anything interesting, boy?”
I smiled, “As a matter of fact he did, sir. He said that once a king, always a king, but once a night’s enough.”
The class burst into laughter and the enraged Bummer Stokes spun around to the chalkboard, grabbed the wood-reinforced eraser and hurled it at me.
Unfortunately his aim was a lot better than his teaching ability and the eraser hit me squarely in my left eye.
“Now get out of my classroom and stand by the door, you idiot,” he screamed.
I obeyed and thirty minutes later when the class let out I had the most awesome shiner that looked like I’d stepped into the ring and gone two rounds with that new, young American fighter Cassius Clay.
My father was not amused and left that night to confront Mr. Stokes at his house. I’m not sure what happened between the malicious teacher and the furious deputy headmaster but it was the last time I ever had to step foot in that small-minded bigot’s class and yet I still received an A from him at the end of the year.
My favorite teacher was Mr. Roper, “String.” From his Adolph Hitler mustache to his affinity for wearing corduroy hunting jackets with leather patches on the sleeves and elbows, he was unique. He taught art and was great at what he did, not only in his instruction but also as an artist and painter in his own right. He encouraged the students and made us want to learn and improve.
My one problem was that even though I was decent at drawing, painting and design, I wasn’t my brother.
Stephen was a prodigy when it came to art. He could do it all—watercolor, oils, scraperboard—if it was in the curriculum he would not only master it but improve upon the course. He was so exceptional that at the age of seventeen the town held a painting exhibition to showcase his works at Torre Abbey and a year later he won a full scholarship to Dartington College of Arts. Stephen was a hard act to follow.
Mr. Roper was proud of my brother and understandably so; the more acclaim Stephen received for his work the more it correctly reflected on his school and his mentor, String. He liked me but I was no Stephen.
String had many endearing qualities and two terrifying ones—the twist and the strap! If he caught you talking in class he would sneak up behind you, grab a handful of hair from the base of your skull and lean in and say in a loud stage whisper, “Talking, boy?”
“No, sir!” would immediately be the reply.
“Oh, then I must be hearing things, is that what you’re saying?”
“No, sir, I didn’t mean that.”
String was now readying his piece de resistance, “So you are or you’re not saying that? Make up your mind; it sounds like you are getting . . . TWISTED!”
And with that high-pitched cry he would pull and twist your hair and yank you up onto your toes.
“That’s the twist, boy!”
We all felt the pain of the twist but we welcomed that agony compared to what was feared most; the strap.
String had a series of sayings that he would recite like poetry. Every year winter rolled around and the cold season that bore down on the students turned Torquay Boys Grammar School into a petri dish. If you dared sniffle or cough in String’s class he would instantly stop what he was doing and serenade us in his sing-along voice:
“Coughs and sneezes spread diseases,
If you fail to use your hankie, you will surely get a spanky!”
When he returned to the blackboard and had his back to us we would chant:
“If your hanky you forget to bring,
You will get the strap from String.”
He would whirl around, pretending to be annoyed. “Who said that?” We would shake our heads. We didn’t know.
The strap was the nuclear option for String and a real threat that he used at least once or twice a month. One lunch time I returned to the art room to finish an architectural project I was working on. This was common practice, but officially you had to ask permission every single time before you came inside and started. However few pupils ever did that and most teachers were flattered that their students were putting in the extra work. But not that day.
I was working on a detailed scale line drawing of the incredible dome that Sir Christopher Wren had designed and built for St Paul’s Cathedral in the late 1600s, when String walked into the classroom and saw me there.
“Just what do you think you are doing, Sheppard?”
“I’m working on our architecture project for the class, sir.”
“And who said you could be in here now?”
“No one, sir, I just thought—”
“No you didn’t!” he cut me off. “You didn’t think. That’s your problem, boy.” He drew himself up to his full five foot eight inches. “There will be a reckoning for you during our lesson this afternoon.”
Two hours later I found myself called out to the front of the class. String had me push forward a sketching desk then retrieve the strap from his drawer. I had to hand it to him, then in front of the class, bend over the desk, pull down my trousers and underpants and take “six of the best” from String.
His strap was made of leather, twenty-four-inches long and had a flex on it like a whip. It was the kind of str
ap that’s found in an old-time barber shop. But this strap’s purpose was not for polishing straight-edged razors but for punishing wayward students.
String’s technique for corporal punishment was simple and devastating. The first four swings would land on your naked butt. Just as you fought through the pain and hoped you could handle the final two blows he would lower the strap and whip it across the top of your thighs right below your ass cheeks. These were the two killers. The impact from the burning leather lashing your exposed legs would race through every atom of your body causing you to jerk upright and gasp out loud in pain.
It was a lesson for the observers too; they could see welts instantly appear where the strap had landed and they turned a nasty purple highlighted by flecks of red from broken blood vessels trying to push through your skin. But you couldn’t cry, not if you wanted to keep the respect of your friends. String would then step away.
“Put your trousers back on, Sheppard. We don’t need to see any more of that.”
He then finished the ritual in his usual way by making you push the desk back into its place, handing you the strap to return to the drawer you’d taken it from and then having you stand in front of him and say the magic words, “Thank you, sir. I won’t do that again.”
“Okay, class,” said String, “Now we have that unfortunate incident out of the way let’s get back to work.” He turned to me and said, with a sympathetic smile, “You can do this standing if it’s more comfortable for you, Sheppard.”
In January 1964 we moved about a mile across Torquay to the house that I will always consider my home, 22 Drake Avenue. Do you have a place that is close to your heart, which always says “home” to you? That was number 22 for me. It was never just a house; it was always the Sheppard’s home.
It was in a brand-new development that Mum and Dad had learned about before anybody else from a friend at their school. They went up to the fields where the new homes were to be built and had the first choice of all the lots there. They picked out their favorite. It sat on the crest of the hill and had a view that encompassed Torquay’s Victorian harbor and from there out across Torbay.
World in My Eyes: The Autobiography Page 2