‘I think your mother’s got a little chatterbox at home,’ I said.
‘Oh no,’ he cried, ‘my little brother’s got asthma, so we aren’t allowed to have pets.’
‘Would you take me to the Headteacher’s room, please,’ I said, smiling for the first time that day. ‘Mrs Sevens is expecting me.’ When we arrived at the room the Headteacher emerged to greet me.
‘Miss, I think your dad’s here.’ The little boy waved a grubby hand at me and departed to feed the frogs and toads.
That evening I was billed to speak to parents at a primary school where eighty per cent of the pupils were from ethnic minority homes. It was an inner-city school of red brick, sprawling, flat roofed and surrounded by busy roads, tower-blocks and row after row of long terraced housing. Inside, however, it was gleaming and welcoming, and the children’s backgrounds, religions and cultures were celebrated in the drawings and pictures, the colourful range of writing and the careful displays of artefacts.
All through my talk a most attentive young woman of Asian origin smiled from the front row and as I was packing up my books and papers she approached me.
‘Do you remember me, Mr Phinn?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid, I don’t,’ I replied. ‘I meet so many people and have such a poor memory for faces, I’m afraid.’
‘My name is Rahila Hussain. You used to teach me.’
There have been a number of occasions when young men or women have approached me in the street or in a school, a shop or a library with the words: ‘You used to teach me, Mr Phinn,’ and then they would reminisce about their times at school, recalling lessons and incidents I had long since forgotten.
‘I used to teach you, did I? You will have to jog this memory of mine. I am trying to place you.’
‘I came from Pakistan without a word of English when I was fifteen. You taught me English.’
‘Well, I think I did a pretty good job, Rahila, listening to you now.’
‘You did an excellent job and I shall always remember your lessons. I passed just one exam at the end of my schooldays and it was English. All those extra lessons of yours paid off.’
‘Well, that’s wonderful,’ I replied. ‘It’s lovely to see you, and thank you for coming to listen to me speak.’
‘You used to teach several pupils who couldn’t speak much English and those who needed extra help, every Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes, in the school library.’
‘I remember now,’ I said. ‘You were in the same group as Jamuna and Jason.’
‘That’s right.’
I had met Jamuna several years after she had left school when I had been a patient at the Royal Infirmary. I had been asked to take all my clothes off, was given a square of tissue paper for modesty’s sake and told to wait for the doctor in a small examination room. A smart, efficient-looking sister had entered to take my details and as our eyes met there was instant recognition.
‘Hello, Mr Phinn. Do you remember me? You were my teacher.’ It was Jamuna. She extended her hand for me to shake – but I declined, smiling weakly.
I had met Jason again just before moving to North Yorkshire. I was coming out of the post office in Doncaster town centre one cold, overcast Saturday morning when a tall, fair-haired young man as broad as a barn door, blocked my path. ‘Now then, Mester Phinn!’ he had shouted in a loud, friendly voice. ‘How tha’ doin’?’
‘I’m doing very well, thank you,’ I had replied.
‘Tha’ dun’t remember me, does tha’?’
‘I’m afraid not. I meet so many …’
‘Tha’ used to teach me.’ When he saw no recognition on my face he had continued, ‘I reckon thas’ll remember me when I tell thee my name. Once taught, never forgotten. Jason Batty, that’s me.’
‘Ah,’ I had said. ‘Yes, I do remember you, Jason.’
He had chuckled. ‘I thought tha’ would. I were a bit of a rogue, weren’t I?’
‘Well, yes, you were, but a likeable rogue. More of a rascal really, Jason.’
‘Aye, well, I reckon you and t’rest of t’staff ’ad yer ’ands full wi’ me and no mistake. I were a bit of a tearaway. You were all reight though, Mester Phinn. You were strict but fair and you were all reight. I never did get mi ’ead round old Shakespeare but I did enjoy them English lessons. It were that French teacher, Mrs Faraday, I had trouble wi’. “Batty by name and batty by nature,” she used to say. I din’t like that. She din’t have much time for us “thickies”. She used to say what were t’point of teaching French to groups like us. She used to say we wunt mek much of us lives. I don’t think she liked kids very much. She were allus shoutin’. She had this gret big bowl o’ plastic fruit on her desk. She’d hold up an apple and ask, “Que’est-ce que c’est?” and we were supposed to shout back, “C’est une pomme.” Then she’d pick up a pear and ask, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” and we’d shout back, “C’est une poire.” Once, she had this reight big plastic banana in her hand. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” she asked but caught sight o’ me talking at t’back o’ classroom. She let fly wi’ that plastic banana. It flew straight through t’air like a missile and ’it me straight between eyes, ricocheted off mi forehead and flew back to her like a boomerang. She put up her ’and and caught it. All t’class jumped to their feet and give her a standing ovation. She went ballistic! I din’t learn much wi’ that Mrs Faraday.’
‘Well, you seem to have remembered quite a bit of French, by the sound of it, Jason.’
‘Nay, Mester Phinn, I learnt a bit o’ French after I’d left school. I do a bit of importin’ and exportin’ – fruit and veg, you know. I go over to France quite a bit. I’ve picked up a bit o’ the lingo. I mean, you have to, don’t ya?’
‘So you’re a greengrocer then, Jason?’
‘Aye, in a manner o’ speakin’. I’ve six market stalls. “Batty’s High Class Fruit and Vegetables”. Started wi’ one stall in t’outdoor market and built up ovver t’last few years. I ’ave twenty folk workin’ for me now.’
‘You’ve done really well. I’m really pleased for you.’
At this point, drops of rain had begun to fall.
‘It’s goin’ to chuck it down in a minute, by the looks of it,’ Jason said staring at the grey sky. ‘Are you in yer car, Mester Phinn, or can I give you a lift?’
‘I did actually come into town on the bus and it’s very kind of you to offer me a lift but I live just outside the town on the Doncaster Road. I guess it’s too far out of your way.’
‘Nay, not a bit of it, Mester Phinn, I can go that way. You must come round one evening. I live in King’s Wooton. You can’t miss our house. It’s that big stone un. Used to be t’vicarage. Got a nice bit o’ land at back.’
I made my way to a small van parked nearby, but Jason called me back. ‘Nay, nay, Mester Phinn, I’m not in t’van.’ He had opened the door of a new, brilliant white, shining sports car with gleaming chrome, great fins on the back and tinted windows. My astonishment must have shown. ‘I can see that tha’ thinking, “What’s a gret big bloke like him doin’ driving a piddling little car like that?” Well, I’ll tell thee. Wife’s got t’big car today, so I’ve got ’ers. Come on, Mester Phinn, before tha’ gets soakin’ wet.’
I remembered Jason with affection – and admiration because he was obviously well-established on the fast track.
‘There were about ten or eleven of us,’ continued Rahila now. ‘Sadhu, Javaid, Popinder, Thomas, Jason, Balvinder, Jamuna, Larchvinder, Kim, Florence and myself.’
‘Yes, that’s right, I remember now.’
‘Once you were angry with us for not doing our homework. You asked how did we expect to learn English unless we were prepared to put some time and effort in and to practise using the language. It was at the end of the lesson I remember when Jamuna asked you to try writing a few words in Nepalese, and Sadhu showed you how a Sikh would write. Javaid wrote you a sentence in Urdu, and Kim in Cantonese. We then looked at some Arabic script – all very, ve
ry different from English.’
The memory of those lessons came back as she talked. I had been a young English teacher, in my very first year in the profession, with little understanding or appreciation of the linguistic skills of those multi-lingual pupils of mine, of how exceptionally difficult it must have been for them to grasp a writing system so very different from their own and how incredibly well they had managed, in such a short time, to cope with this tricky and troublesome English language I was trying to teach them. It had been a humbling and salutary experience to see the range of different languages before me that day.
‘It was the only time you shouted at us, Mr Phinn, so don’t look so glum. You didn’t make a habit of it. We all of us knew that you gave up a lot of your time to help us and we were very grateful. You were a really good teacher and we loved your lessons.’
‘Thank you very much, Rahila. What a nice thing to say. Comments like that make the job of teaching very worthwhile.’ I could feel a lump in my throat so changed the subject. ‘So you have children of your own now, and they attend this school?’
‘Oh no, I’m not married,’ she replied. ‘Believe it or not, I’m a teacher in charge of English.’
As I drove home later that evening, the week had ceased to be so dreadful after all and the problems and pressure which had risen their ugly heads one after the other, were forgotten as I remembered those pupils I had taught so many years ago. The memories had reminded me why I had come into education and why those who teach the young take on the most satisfying, challenging, and perhaps the most important role in society.
23
‘Lord Marrick is keen to have a county inspector along with him on this visit, Gervase,’ explained Dr Gore over the telephone. ‘He takes his responsibility as Vice-Chairman of the Education Committee very seriously.’
‘It will be a pleasure to accompany him, Dr Gore,’ I replied.
‘Good, good. You should be very flattered. He asked particularly for you. You must have made quite an impression.’
I collected Lord Marrick from the Small Committee Room at County Hall as arranged. We left the bustle of the market town, the crowded streets, the grumbling noise of the traffic, and headed for the open country. We were soon in the awesome world of the Dales, and the dusty acrid smells of the town were replaced by the sharp freshness of spring. I drove along the twisting empty road, past grey farmhouses and cottages, trees displaying their bright new leaves, long hedgerows of twisted hawthorn, the May blossom not yet out, and fields dotted with sheep and their new-born lambs.
Lord Marrick took a long contemplative breath. ‘The best place in the world, Mr Phinn. The best place in the world. “Oh to be in England now that spring is here,” ’ he slightly misquoted, and then looked at me sideways. ‘I can be quite poetic when I want to be, you know. I’m not the blunt old buffer many people take me to be.’
‘I am sure you’re not, Lord Marrick,’ I replied.
We had an appointment at Pope Pius X Roman Catholic Primary School in the small market town of Ribsdyke, deep in the heart of the Dales. Lord Marrick, apart from being Vice-Chairman of the Education Committee, had recently been appointed an LEA representative governor. He explained that he had asked particularly for a paired visit with an inspector ‘to compare notes’ while he learned something about the life and work of the small school. He had visited the school once before but, despite his short acquaintance with the place, he was fiercely defensive of it and made his views known before we clambered from the car.
‘I think this is a cracking good school, Mr Phinn. But I look forward to having your opinions. Your school inspector’s eyes may see it in an entirely different light.’
Pope Pius X Roman Catholic Primary School was a long, sombre, featureless edifice, built just after the last war and resembling an army barracks. The walls were dark pebbledash, the windows small, the roof was flat. It looked such an uninspiring, utilitarian sort of building, so unlike the small, solid, stone-built Victorian village schools of the Dales with their high windows and patterned slated roofs or the high and imposing polished red-brick schools in the larger towns.
Had the architect who had designed this construction ever considered the needs of children? I thought to myself. Did he not realize how an attractive, spacious and bright building can make such a difference in their education? Obviously not. Perhaps the stumbling block had been money. Many a post-war Catholic school had been built on a shoestring, as a result of the efforts of the parish priest and the small Catholic community who saved long and hard for a school of their own.
The Headteacher and her staff had tried valiantly to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere in the entrance hall. There were colourful books displayed and photographs of the smiling children, there were paintings and poems, arrangements of bright flowers and a parents’ notice board but the plain dark doors, cold stone steps with tubular metal banisters, pale yellow walls and the faint but distinctive smell of disinfectant and floor polish reminded me of a hospital rather than a school.
Mrs Callaghan, the Headteacher, was a handsome woman with bright eyes and light sandy hair tied back to reveal a finely-structured face. As she watched us approach the school entrance, her expression took on the look of an explorer who has just caught sight of the ocean after weeks in the desert. Her smile was wide and welcoming.
‘It’s so nice to see you both,’ she said in a friendly voice. ‘We are all expecting you.’
We were taken on a tour of the school. Mrs Callaghan stopped at each classroom to tell us about the ‘dedicated teachers’ and the ‘lovely children’ within, before ushering us inside and introducing us. The children were busy, interested and clearly enjoyed the various activities. I heard them read, looked in their books, tested them on their number work and asked many questions while Lord Marrick discussed the school budget with the Headteacher. I liked the atmosphere of the school.
When we arrived at the small library I spotted a girl, about nine or ten years of age, tapping away industriously at the computer. Lord Marrick and the Headteacher were busy in discussion about problems with the fabric of the building and examining some hairline cracks on the yellow walls, so I approached the child.
‘Hello,’ I said brightly.
The little girl looked up and beamed. Her hair was raven-black and she had the bluest eyes I had ever seen – large, open, honest eyes, with long, dark lashes.
‘How you doin’?’ she asked in the lightest of Irish lilts.
‘I’m doing all right,’ I replied. ‘And how about you?’
‘I’m doin’ fine. I’m composing a poem about horses. Do you want to see it?’
Lord Marrick’s ears pricked up like those of one of his hunters when he heard the word ‘horses’, and he joined us.
‘Horses, eh?’ He peered at the computer screen. ‘That’s very good, very good indeed. When you’ve finished composing your poem, young lady, perhaps you’d write it out neatly and let me have a copy. I’ll pop it on the wall in my study.’
‘If you wait one moment, I’ll give you a print out,’ she replied with a tilt of the head and a disarming smile.
We were moving away when the small girl took Mrs Callaghan’s hand and whispered, ‘It’s still there, Miss – in the girls’ toilets.’
‘Is it, Bernadette?’ replied the Headteacher calmly.
‘It is so and it’s got bigger.’
‘Well, I shouldn’t worry about it too much. It won’t hurt you.’
‘But it’s got great curved claws and gigantic jagged jaws and it’s turned a mouldy green.’
Mrs Callaghan smiled. ‘It can’t harm you, Bernadette.’
‘But, Miss, it puts the very fear of God into me every time I looks at it.’
‘Well don’t look at it then.’
‘Sure aren’t your eyes just drawn to it?’
I could not restrain myself. ‘What is it?’ I asked, fascinated by this exchange.
‘Sure isn’t it a monster, a great,
dark, green, frightening monster with popping eyes and sharp teeth,’ said the girl without seeming to draw breath.
‘A monster!’ I exclaimed.
‘In the girls’ toilets,’ she added.
‘A monster in the toilets?’ I repeated.
She patted my arm. ‘Sure it’s not a real monster,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s a great dark stain from water leaking through the roof but it gives me the shivers right enough just to look at it.’
The Headteacher explained that the flat roof always leaked after heavy rain and that the water had left a ugly stain on the walls of the girls’ toilets. It had grown in size.
‘Is it a very bad leak?’ asked Lord Marrick.
Before Mrs Callaghan could respond, the small girl piped up: ‘A bad leak? Sure it’d baptize you!’
Bernadette was from a travellers’ family. She had moved around in the white caravan for most of her young life, attended a range of different schools and this had developed in her a great confidence and an outgoing and lively personality. She was a clever child with an astute grasp of life, a vivid imagination and a great gift for conversation.
‘She must have kissed the Blarney Stone a good few times,’ confided Mrs Callaghan. ‘Bernadette could talk the hind legs off a donkey.’
The tour ended with a scrutiny of the dark stain in the girls’ toilet.
‘I must admit,’ I said, staring at the dark outline, ‘it does look rather like a monster.’
‘It may look like a monster, Mr Phinn,’ spluttered Lord Marrick, ‘but it can’t be doing the kiddies any good, can it? These flat roofs are the very devil.’
‘They are indeed,’ agreed Mrs Callaghan. ‘One section is repaired after one dousing of heavy rain and then the leaks appear in another part of the roof the next downpour. It’s one repair after another.’
‘I must check to see what the Education Department is doing about it,’ said Lord Marrick briskly. ‘The governors, from what I have read of the minutes of their meetings, have brought the poor state of the fabric to the attention of the Premises and Maintenance Department on a number of occasions, and still the school has leaks and cracks and I don’t know what! Children cannot be expected to work in a damp, unattractive environment. Don’t you agree, Mr Phinn?’ Before I could reply, he continued. ‘Well, I am determined to get things done.’ He fixed me with a stern eye. ‘I mean, Mr Phinn, aren’t you inspectors supposed to comment on the poor state of buildings and the effects upon the children’s education?’
The Other Side of the Dale Page 22