06 Educating Jack

by Jack Sheffield

  Theresa Ackroyd was reading a Flamingo Land brochure to her friends. ‘It sez ’ere they’ve got African lions, camels, chimpanzees, a reptile ’ouse an’ a bird ’ouse.’

  ‘Ah’m not sure about reptiles,’ said Michelle Cathcart nervously.

  The Buttle twins were squashed on either side of her. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Rowena.

  ‘We’ll look after you,’ added Katrina.

  Undeterred, Theresa pressed on. ‘An’ giraffes, zebras, tigers, sea lions, parrots an’ peacocks.’

  ‘What about a ’ippopotamus?’ asked Dean Kershaw.

  Theresa scanned the list again. ‘Yes … a ’ippopotamus an’ all. They’ve got ev’rything, even pink flamingos.’

  Finally we pulled up in the car park. ‘’Ere we are, Mr Sheffield, safe an’ sound,’ said William.

  As a teacher I found over the years that there is usually something that children remember above everything else about a school educational visit, and it isn’t necessarily connected with the intention of the experience. After a trip to London to see the wonders of the Natural History Museum, a child will invariably get back to school and write about the escalators in the Underground. Likewise, a visit to the wonderful grounds of Fountains Abbey will be recalled by another as the day his best friend was sick on the coach. Our day in Flamingo Land was to prove such a day.

  It began with a startled cry. ‘Miss!’ shouted nine-year-old Molly Paxton. ‘Miss, come quick!’

  Sally turned on her heel and hurried back towards Margery Ackroyd’s group.

  ‘What is it, Molly?’ asked Sally.

  ‘It’s a funny zebra, miss,’ said Molly.

  ‘No, it’s a zebroid, girls,’ said Sally calmly. ‘You can tell by its faint stripes.’ She couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. ‘It’s half zebra and half donkey.’

  Mrs Ackroyd was looking perplexed and, surprisingly for Ragley’s most vociferous gossip, she appeared quite speechless.

  ‘But it’s got five legs,’ said Hazel Smith. Ruby’s daughter’s eyes were wide in amazement.

  Sally stepped closer to the fenced enclosure and looked down. Her cheeks reddened instantly. Sally had certainly witnessed some sights in her life – but nothing like this. The zebroid had the biggest erection she had ever seen. It was huge and, from a certain angle, it certainly looked like a fifth leg.

  Sally’s whispered explanation to me on the coach home of how she handled the ensuing questions was priceless.

  At the end of the school day we arrived back safely and forty-five tired children disembarked from the coach outside the school entrance. As they reminisced about their day at the zoo, Lillian Figgins had taken up her station by the side of her zebra crossing. Ruby was in the school office collecting litter from the wastepaper basket and Vera beckoned her over to the window. ‘Ruby, I need to organize a cleaner for the vicarage. What do you think of Miss Figgins?’

  ‘Lollipop Lil’,’ said Ruby, ‘she’s one o’ best cleaners i’ Yorkshire. She used t’do f’that Lady Blakelock in that big ’ouse at ’Igh Sutton. In fac’, she were jus’ like you wi’ a cloth on t’table even when y’not expectin’ company, an’ one o’ them fancy Prussian rugs in ’er ’allway.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, Ruby,’ said Vera … and she meant it.

  The zebra crossing was clearly a novelty for the children and they waited in small groups to cross the road safely to get to the shops on the other side of the High Street.

  Molly Paxton and Hazel Smith stood behind the kerb edge and looked up at Lillian. ‘Miss Figgins,’ shouted Molly, ‘is this your zebra crossin’?’

  Lillian smiled. ‘Well ah s’ppose so, ah’m in charge o’ it.’ She walked to the centre of the road and held up her sign like Boadicea going into battle.

  As they walked across, Molly Paxton said, ‘We saw a zebra t’day, Miss Figgins.’

  ‘Well that’s lovely,’ said Lillian.

  ‘An’ it ’ad five legs,’ said Hazel.

  Margery Ackroyd was next to cross with her daughters, Theresa and Charlotte.

  ‘Well ah’ve ’eard it all now,’ said Lillian, ‘them little uns ’ave jus’ said they saw a five-legged zebra t’day on t’school trip.’

  Margery Ackroyd whispered in her ear.

  ‘Really,’ said Lillian, ‘that long? By gum, that’s enough t’mek y’eyes water,’ and with a chuckle she realized she would definitely enjoy this job. In fact, she thought, you could write a book about it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Women’s Institute Potato Champion

  Mrs Grainger and Mrs Pringle collected a wide range of artwork from all classes to be displayed at the Ragley and Morton Agricultural Show on Saturday, 25 June. Class 1 had a teddy bears’ picnic on the school field.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Friday, 24 June 1983

  ‘WHAT DO YOU think, Ted?’ said Miss Amelia Duff, the Ragley postmistress.

  In the back yard of the post office Ted Postlethwaite, the Ragley postman, picked up an old watering can and gave Amelia’s potato plant a generous drink. Back in March, at the Women’s Institute, Mary Hardisty had given an even-sized tuber to all the members for their annual competition. The rules were simple: put it in a twelve-inch pot, add compost of your own choice and in June, at the Ragley and Morton Agricultural Show, the lady with the greatest weight of potatoes would be the champion.

  ‘Well, this looks a winner t’me, Amelia,’ said Ted with an encouraging smile. After he had finished his morning round he had called in for his usual cup of tea. He enjoyed doing extra little jobs for Amelia; it made him feel wanted. He could be close to the woman he loved … and he wondered if she knew. It was Friday, 24 June, a beautiful summer’s morning, and, across the High Street, the bell rang for the beginning of another school day.

  Immediately after registration, the fourteen school leavers in my class hurried down to the school gate. It was the day of their preliminary visit to Easington Comprehensive School and they climbed on to William Featherstone’s Reliance coach. Most of them had now passed their eleventh birthday and they were growing up fast. Predictably, many of the girls towered over the boys, whose growth spurt would come later. I stood in the playground with the remainder of my class, the third-year juniors, and we waved them off.

  ‘Our turn nex’ year, Mr Sheffield,’ said Hazel Smith as we walked back into our classroom and, once again, I reflected on the cycle of school life for a village teacher. The carousel of children simply went on while I got a year older and hopefully a little wiser. With such a small class it was a busy but quiet morning and, by breaktime, I was intrigued to see how new forceful characters had emerged now that their older classmates were absent.

  Meanwhile, across the hall, Anne was in conversation with Shirley the cook, who had volunteered to help after lunch with Class 1’s teddy bears’ picnic on the school field. For once their conversation was uninterrupted, as this was one of the few occasions in the school day when the infant children were silent. They were all drinking their milk, sucking furiously at their bent straws and watching the level of milk drop magically in the third-of-a-pint bottles.

  Jo had agreed that her children would help serve drinks and sandwiches at the picnic, which was a treat in store. However, in morning assembly they had just listened to Joseph’s story of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea and all had not gone smoothly. Ben Roberts had taken some time to settle and so, when the bell went for morning break, Joseph looked down benevolently at the little boy.

  ‘Ben,’ he said, ‘you were naughty this morning, but Mrs Hunter has told me you have worked hard so you can come to the picnic.’

  Ben looked unhappy. ‘Oh dear,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you would be pleased,’ said Joseph.

  ‘No, it’s too late now, Mr Evans,’ said Ben, clearly full of remorse.

  ‘Why is it too late?’ asked Joseph.

  ‘I’ve already prayed for rain,’ said Ben sadly, ‘an
d, like y’said, Mr Evans, God is always listening.’

  At morning break Vera was scanning the front page of her Daily Telegraph and frowning. ‘That dreadful young man John McEnroe has been misbehaving again at Wimbledon,’ she muttered, and then read the next article, ‘and the Commons are debating whether to bring back hanging.’

  ‘That should keep the umpires happy,’ said Sally, but Vera didn’t hear.

  Jo was standing by the open staff-room door. She didn’t look her usual relaxed and cheerful self. ‘Jack, can I have a word sometime?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘how about now?’

  Jo shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’m on duty.’

  ‘Well, I’ll come out to the yard with you,’ I said.

  We picked up our coffees and walked under the over-hanging branches of the giant horse-chestnut trees, heavy in leaf, and leant against the stone wall in the welcome shade.

  ‘Sadly, it’s mixed news, Jack,’ she said, sipping her coffee hesitantly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Dan … he’s got his promotion to sergeant.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘We must celebrate.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the first thing he said on the phone,’ she said with a smile. Then she looked up at the belltower as if seeing it for the first time and sighed. ‘I’ve loved it here, Jack. I couldn’t have wished for a better start to my career.’ She sipped her coffee again. ‘Dan’s job will be in York at the main station and we’ve been offered a police house in the city.’

  ‘But that’s only ten miles away, Jo, and it’s a good road out past the hospital and the Rowntree’s factory.’

  ‘I know that, Jack, but I looked in the Times Educational Supplement and there’s a good job in York at Priory Gate Juniors to start next January, with a Scale Two responsibility post for girls’ games and science.’

  ‘Ah, I see … promotion,’ I said. ‘Well, you’ve got the experience, Jo. It would be perfect for you, and you know I would give you an excellent reference.’

  ‘Thanks, Jack. Perhaps we can meet up over the weekend and talk it through before I mention it to the others – especially Anne. She’s been like a big sister to me.’

  ‘I understand, Jo. Let’s do that. Now, how do you fancy winding a skipping rope?’

  Jo grinned. ‘Why not?’ she said. We gave our empty mugs to Louise Hartley, took over from the Buttle twins and the skipping commenced with Jo chanting out the rhyme

  ‘One two buckle my shoe,

  Three four knock at the door,

  Five six pick up sticks,

  Seven eight lay them straight,

  Nine ten big fat hen.’

  My presence clearly made a difference and a few boys joined in, but not, of course, Terry Earnshaw, who shook his head in disbelief. This boy of Barnsley was brought up to believe that only girls skipped; but then again, if he grew up to be a middleweight boxer, who knows? … and he wandered off to box his own shadow against the school wall.

  It was a relaxed day, one of those a teacher treasures and, after lunch, as I sat on the school field with Anne’s class, I was reminded how lucky I was to do a job I loved and in such a perfect setting. All the children had brought their much-loved and occasionally threadbare teddy bears and were sitting in a large circle, being served with honey sandwiches and orange juice. Behind me in the hedgerow the incessant murmur of insects in the tall grasses was the sound of summer and I leant back and soaked up the welcome sunshine.

  Before the end of the day, the school leavers returned full of excitement.

  ‘It was brilliant, Mr Sheffield,’ said Tracy Hartley. ‘They’ve got a new lady deputy ’eadteacher an’ she’s dead tall an’ slim an’ she gave us a talk. She told us about that first American woman in space.’

  I recalled that last week the NASA astronaut Sally Ride had blasted into orbit on board the space shuttle Challenger. ‘And what did she say, Tracy?’ I asked.

  ‘She said we should follow our dreams and take our opportunities … but, Mr Sheffield, ah think she was looking at us girls when she said it.’

  ‘Ah wunt mind bein’ an’ astronaut, Mr Sheffield,’ said Dean Kershaw, ‘or mebbe a footballer.’

  Elisabeth Amelia was standing to one side looking thoughtful. ‘And what did you think about the visit, Elisabeth?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Not sure, Mr Sheffield,’ she said. ‘The school looked lovely and has a super gymnasium and a great hockey team, but Mummy has got the prospectus for the Time School for Girls in York, so I’m probably going there and I’ll have to make new friends.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll do well wherever you go,’ I said and she gave me a gentle smile and continued to pack her schoolbag with the mathematics homework that her mother had requested.

  * * *

  It had been a good day and Heathcliffe and Terry Earnshaw arrived home in good spirits … that is, until Mrs Earnshaw asked the inevitable question: ‘And what did you learn at school today?’

  ‘Nowt,’ answered Heathcliffe and Terry in unison.

  ‘Well, y’must ’ave learned summat,’ insisted Mrs Earnshaw.

  Grudgingly Heathcliffe glanced at his brother and nodded. ‘Well ah went to t’big school for a visit, but our Terry were at school all day.’

  ‘So what did y’do, Terry?’

  ‘T’vicar told us about Moses,’ he said.

  ‘So what were it abart?’ she asked, refusing to serve the beans on toast until she received a satisfactory answer.

  ‘Well, God sent Moses to rescue them Israelites,’ said Terry, ‘an’ it were reight dangerous, Mam … be’ind enemy lines, so t’speak.’

  Mrs Earnshaw began to serve the food. ‘That’s int’resting.’

  Terry was rising to the occasion. ‘So ’e got ’em t’build a bridge to get ’em across t’Red Sea sharpish-like.’

  ‘A bridge?’ said Mrs Earnshaw, ‘ah don’t recall Charlton ’Eston building no bridge.’

  Terry was becoming animated as the story grew in the telling. ‘So they all got across and then ’e radioed ’eadquarters for t’bombers t’come.’

  ‘Bombers?’ asked the bemused Mrs Earnshaw.

  ‘Yes, bombers, Mam,’ said Terry, ‘to blow t’bridge up.’

  ‘An’ that’s ’ow they were saved,’ said Heathcliffe.

  ‘An’ is that what t’vicar said?’

  ‘Well not ’xactly, Mam, ’cause if y’d ’eard ’is story y’d never ’ave believed it. Isn’t that reight ’Eath?’

  ‘’E’s reight, Mam,’ said Heathcliffe. ‘We did Moses last year.’

  ‘Well, at least y’learnin’ summat useful,’ said Mrs Earnshaw and gave them both an extra spoonful of beans.

  That evening Vera sat on a Victorian chaise longue in one of the expansive bay windows at Morton Manor and looked out on to the magnificent lawns and neat flower-beds. The stripes on the lawns were ruler-straight and not a weed was in sight. It was perfect … perhaps too perfect, thought Vera. Suddenly a peacock strutted across the path, tail feathers erect. It was a show of fierce pride, or perhaps mere vanity, and she smiled at the brave show of confidence.

  Life was different now, mused Vera. She missed her garden. The hedgerow would be a harmony of honeysuckle and hawthorn and in her kitchen garden she could have cut a cabbage or picked raspberries. She also wondered how Joseph was coping.

  In the distance Rupert was hard at work organizing the erection of the giant marquees for tomorrow’s Ragley and Morton Agricultural Show. It was one of the highlights of the year and the largest annual gathering of the two villages. Vera smiled when she saw the guy ropes being tightened on the Women’s Institute tent. This was where the fiercest battles would be played out, in a world of sweet peas, Victoria sponges, fragrant roses, paintings and poetry, and she smiled in anticipation.

  * * *

  Saturday was a perfect midsummer morning and I was up early in order to clean my pride and joy, namely my Morris Minor Traveller, which, as each year went by,
was creating more interest at the annual show. The yellow-and-chrome AA badge on the grille gleamed in the sunshine and Beth and I set off for the spacious grounds of Morton Manor. We wound down the windows and enjoyed the fresh breeze as we drove along the narrow back road to Ragley and, with cow parsley swaying in the tall grasses and Red Admiral butterflies chasing through the lush green nettles, it was a pleasure to be alive on this special day.

  We called in at Victor Pratt’s garage and he emerged to serve me from the single pump on his forecourt. I noticed he was limping badly and decided, with some trepidation, to ask the inevitable question. ‘How are you, Victor?’ Victor’s ailments over the years would have filled a good-sized medical journal.

  ‘Ah’m in agony,’ he said as he unscrewed my filler cap.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘and why is that?’

  ‘It’s me leg, Mr Sheffield,’ he said, gently tapping his right leg with his free hand. ‘It’s gone t’sleep. Ah’ve no feeling.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Victor,’ I said with sympathy.

  ‘An’ it’s worse at neight,’ he added, with the look of a martyr in torment.

  ‘Is it?’ I replied. ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Well that’s when it wakes up, jus’ when t’rest o’ me wants t’go t’sleep. Ah don’t know if ah’m coming or going. An’ ah’ve started t’get that room-tism in me elbow,’ he added, rubbing his arm sorrowfully.

  ‘Perhaps it’s tennis elbow,’ I said.

  ‘Nah, that’s jus’ f’posh folks, not likes o’ me,’ said Victor. ‘An’ talkin’ abart posh folks, Mr an’ Mrs Sheffield, t’major ’as done a reight good job on t’show field. It looks a picture.’

  We parked in one of the huge fields close to the tractors and horseboxes and alongside a Mini Clubman Estate. We stood and peered through the window at the state-of-the-art instrument panel behind the steering wheel instead of in the middle of the dashboard. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer one of these, Jack?’ said Beth, more in hope than expectation. ‘It would bring you into the Eighties.’ As usual I affected a determined insouciance. After all, love for a woman is one thing, but love for a car is quite another.