The Complete Pratt

by David Nobbs

  Nobody would ever read the educational theories of Miss Florence Candy. Her wise saws would hang on no one’s bedroom wall. No international seminars of educationalists would ever hang breathless on her words. She looked ridiculous. She lived in a world which judges men partially and women almost entirely by appearance. The junior classroom at Rowth Bridge Village School was therefore her pinnacle. Her satisfaction was that she was achieving as much as could possibly be achieved by a woman of her appearance, in a classroom split up into five different groups of children who had not been to nursery schools, in a tiny village school with holes in the ground for lavatories, under a head teacher who disapproved of her, insisted that the children marched into school in lines, and would try to get rid of her as soon as the war was over.

  It is time to reveal another of Miss Candy’s secrets. She had always believed that one day one of the human seeds that she had helped to nurture would grow into a plant that would make her life worthwhile. One day she would have a pupil through whose reflected glory her work would live on.

  She had a hope, just a faint hope, that she had found that pupil at last.

  On Sunday mornings, as Henry got ready for church, cleaning shoes, brushing hair, he listened to the repeat of Tommy Handley in ‘It’s That Man Again’ on the kitchen wireless. He didn’t understand it very well but the grown-ups laughed a lot, and he was determined not to be left out.

  This Sunday he didn’t laugh. Henry Dinsdale, né Cyril Dinsdale, had not been to school for three days. Ezra Pratt, né Henry Pratt, remembered a prayer made in a utility room. Please, God, kill Henry Dinsdale, so I don’t have to be an Ezra.

  He was terrified that God had answered his prayer.

  When they all knelt, in the little, squat-towered church beside the Mither, he prayed fervently.

  Please, God, he prayed, it’s me again. Tha knows I axed thee to kill Henry Dinsdale. I didn’t really mean it. Bring him back to life, will tha, like tha did thy kid?

  He had the utmost difficulty in eating his dinner that day.

  After dinner, they listened to the gardening advice given by Roy Hay. Uncle Frank kept up a running commentary. ‘I disagree!…Not up here, tha won’t!…Never wi’ our soil!’

  The day dragged endlessly. Henry didn’t sleep that night.

  In the morning, Henry Dinsdale still wasn’t at school. God had failed him.

  He toyed listlessly with his plasticine.

  ‘What’s up, Ezra?’ Miss Candy asked.

  ‘Nowt, miss.’

  In the break he longed to ask Miss Candy about Henry Dinsdale but he didn’t dare. Patrick Eckington punched him in the tummy for no reason, and he didn’t care.

  His turn came to read out loud. Usually he liked that. Not today. The words danced in front of his eyes. ‘The young blind is not only hedgehog born, but deaf.’

  He didn’t even bother to scratch Pam Yardley’s hand when she put it on his knee under his desk.

  When dinner-time came, Miss Candy asked him to stay behind.

  ‘What’s wrong, Ezra?’ she said.

  ‘Nowt, miss.’

  ‘You must tell me, Ezra.’

  ‘I prayed to God to kill Henry Dinsdale, cos I didn’t like being called Ezra, and now he’s dead, miss.’

  ‘Henry Dinsdale has measles, Ezra,’ said Miss Candy.

  Henry Pratt’s measles came on the Wednesday. He lay, feverish and aching, in a darkened room, listening to the snow dripping off the roof. Outside, the country sounds were unusually sharp. Sam barking. A cow mooing. Billy the half-wit laughing. Jackie the land-girl sneezing. Henry pretended that Belinda Boyce-Uppingham was in the bed, having measles with him.

  As a treat, while he recuperated, they bought him the Beano and the Dandy. He couldn’t read them very well yet, especially the stories, but he managed to make sense of most of the cartoons. He liked Big Eggo, the ostrich, and Korky the Cat, and Freddy the Fearless Fly, but Keyhole Kate was horrid. He read out the words to himself with difficulty. Pansy Potter, the strong man’s something.

  Fiona came to visit, with her dull husband, and she came upstairs to see him. ‘It’s daughter,’ she explained. ‘“Pansy Potter, the strong man’s daughter. Pansy’s teeth are cracked and bent, eating a cake made from cement.”’

  ‘That’s Jane Lugg,’ said Henry. ‘And Pam Yardley’s Keyhole Kate.’

  ‘My husband’s Hungry Horace,’ said Fiona.

  Henry couldn’t imagine her dull husband eating a lot, but he made no comment.

  ‘Read me a story,’ he said.

  Fiona read a story about Derek, the wild boy of the woods, an outlaw branded as a traitor by Bagshot, Head of the Secret Service. Derek alone knew that Bagshot was a Nazi spy, and he foiled Bagshot with the aid of Kuru, his eagle pal. At the end of the story, the real British officer congratulated him. ‘“If it hadn’t been for you,” he grinned,’ read Fiona, ‘“this ‘U’ boat would have got away with the secret plans of our new battleships. We owe everything to you and the wonderful eagle you have trained so well.”’

  Henry sighed ecstatically. He would be the wild boy of the woods when he was better.

  ‘How did he grin all that?’ he asked.

  ‘“Grinned” means “said with a grin”,’ explained Fiona. ‘In comics you never say “said”. You say “suggested”, “grunted”, “snorted”, “breathed”, but not “said”.’

  ‘Why?’ queried Henry.

  ‘I don’t know,’ chuckled Fiona. ‘I suppose that’s their style, to make it more exciting.’

  ‘Read me another one,’ demanded Henry, the Boy with the Magic Measle, whose Every Wish was Granted.

  That afternoon made a great impression on Henry, with dark-haired, brown-eyed, flashing Fiona, who smelt so nice, reading stories in her sparkling voice, glad to be free of her evil, greedy husband, whose Artificial Leg Contained Secret Plans of British Battleships.

  When she had gone, Henry decided to learn to read better, to get better quickly, and to rescue Belinda Boyce-Uppingham from her Wicked Family, who were Nazi Spies.

  Pssst!!!! Someone was coming. Who would it be? The foul Bagshot? Pansy Potter, the strong man’s daughter? Or Keyhole Kate, eavesdropping again?

  It was another Kate. Auntie Kate.

  ‘Who’s a lucky boy, then?’ said Auntie Kate. ‘Who’s got pilchards for tea?’

  They gave Henry the option of not going to church on Sunday, as he’d been ill. To their surprise, he chose to attend.

  How he loved her! Who was the man sitting beside her in army uniform?

  ‘That’s Major Boyce-Uppingham, Belinda’s father,’ said Auntie Kate after the service.

  ‘And a Nazi Spy!’ breathed Henry to himself.

  People stood around and discussed the weather, the losses in the Atlantic, the rationing, and their arthritis, but not God. They’d done that part.

  Kit Orris, father of Cyril, approached.

  ‘Now then, Frank,’ he said.

  ‘Now then, Kit,’ said Uncle Frank. ‘It’s right thin and parky, i’n’t it?’

  ‘How’s young Ezra, then?’ said Kit Orris.

  ‘I’m Henry,’ said Henry. He wasn’t going to start being called Ezra out of school. He began to suspect that Kit Orris was Another Nazi Spy.

  ‘How’s t’ blackout, then, Kit?’ said Uncle Frank.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know,’ said Kit Orris, sheep-farmer, sheepishly.

  The story had swept the village. Jim Wallington, who was air-raid warden as well as bus driver, had called out, ‘Put out them lights.’ ‘Lights?’ Kit Orris had said. ‘All t’ lights at back of t’ house.’ ‘Oh. Does tha have to black out t’ back and all?’

  Very suspicious, thought our hero. It sounded to him like a Beacon for Messerschmitts.

  The Nazi Spy Boyce-Uppingham was approaching with his beautiful daughter. The Nazi Spy Kit Orris raised his eyes to heaven and hurried off as if he didn’t want to meet him. That ruse did not fool Henry!

  Major Andrew Boyce
-Uppingham, to do him justice, did not tap Henry as if he were a barometer. He prodded him as if he were a potato. But instead of saying, ‘Nearly done. Just needs another minute,’ he said, ‘A little bird tells me that somebody we know isn’t exactly short of grey matter. Well done!’

  Henry smiled at Belinda Boyce-Uppingham.

  She looked straight through him.

  ‘Play it that way if tha wants to. Keep us love secret,’ thought the Wild Boy of the Woods.

  Spring came late and fragile to Upper Mitherdale, and ripened uncertainly into summer. ‘It’s That Man Again’ came from the seaside now, and was known briefly as ‘It’s That Sand Again’. Germany invaded Russia. In the Middle East, Wavell failed to dislodge Rommel. The losses in the Atlantic continued. The war was becoming long and grim, not exciting and heroic. The nation seemed to have survived so far through a chaotic mixture of luck and genius. Now luck had run out, and genius wouldn’t do on its own any longer. The war was being rationalised. The planners were coming into their own, thus ensuring, did Henry but know it, that the nation would win the war and lose the peace that followed.

  There was a heavily censored letter from Ezra, who was somewhere doing something, and was well. Clothes, jam and tinned food joined the list of rationed goods, and Henry enjoyed his first summer in the country.

  He enjoyed collecting the hens’ eggs with Billy, from the huts in the hen coop, which smelt of sweet, hot, healthy decay. He liked to go over to the new shippon, across the thick-mudded, glistening, treacly yard, to watch Jackie milking the red, white and roan cattle with her gnarled, agile fingers. The old shippon, built onto the house, was used for hay and crops now.

  On her evenings off, Jackie looked an awesome sight, striding off to the Three Horseshoes in her baggy corduroy riding breeches, in search of men. Now, at work, she was jolly and friendly. She explained that the cattle were shorthorns, dual-purpose cattle, bred for milk and beef. The future belonged with the specialists even among cows. Uncle Frank was a bit old-fashioned. He hankered after the olden days.

  Uncle Frank took him round in the cart, which was pulled by a Dales pony. A few of the better-off farmers had tractors, but most still used horses.

  The sheep were Swaledales, with black heads and small, curved horns. The little lambs looked as if they had black socks. They all talked in individual voices. Some sounded like human babies, some like gruff old men.

  War regulations had compelled Uncle Frank to put twenty-five per cent of his land under the plough. The land wasn’t suited, and his two small fields of oats were indifferent in quality and quantity.

  Henry’s reading and writing were improving apace. Miss Candy attributed it to her nurturing, but it was because he wanted to be able to read his comics.

  When he went out for walks with Simon Eckington, they were two shy lads who sat and chatted, threw stones into the Mither and discovered the quiet pleasures of friendship. They were also naturalists. Simon taught Henry to recognise dippers, and pied wagtails, and how to tell yellow and grey wagtails apart. Once, a kingfisher flashed turquoise along the river. They watched common and palmated newts in the farm pond. They kept tadpoles in jars, which got knocked over. Simon kept budgerigars, but Henry rarely went to Simon’s home, because Patrick was a rotter, who was not above tearing up a chap’s cigarette cards.

  They were also in part explorers, known as Sir Simon Eckington of that Ilkley, and Lord Pratt of Thurmarsh, surveying the millstone grit moorland around Mickleborough. High above the valley the two little boys trudged through the cotton-grass and heather in their Wellington boots and baggy shorts. Curlews were albatrosses. Buzzards were vultures. Redshank were Eckington’s Cranes, named after Sir Simon Eckington of that Ilkley, who first discovered them.

  They were also in part adventurers, the Wild Boy of the Woods and the Kid with the Magic Wellies. It couldn’t have been mere coincidence that only one Hun was seen in Upper Mitherdale throughout the whole of 1941.

  Some of the evacuees were fish out of water, tadpoles in knocked-over jars. Henry discovered that he was a country lad at heart. It was as if Paradise Lane, Thurmarsh, had never existed.

  On the Sunday before the hay harvest began, Henry was determined to speak to Belinda Boyce-Uppingham.

  They stood by the churchyard, after the service. Uncle Frank was talking to Kit Orris.

  ‘Now then, Frank.’

  ‘Now then, Kit. It’s a right dowly day.’

  There she was, with her mother and grandmother and older brother. Please look this way, Belinda.

  ‘How’s t’ oats?’

  ‘Rubbish. Regulations! Land’s not suited. Those Whitehall willies wouldn’t recognise a field of oats if they fell over it.’

  She was coming this way!

  ‘I’d like to see them come up here.’

  ‘So would I. I’d set t’ bull on ’em.’

  He walked up to her.

  ‘Belinda?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t talk to evacuees,’ she said, and walked on, her exquisite little nose pointing straight up to heaven.

  This time he couldn’t pretend that it was part of a game.

  The hay harvest was below average, but store lambs fetched good prices.

  One day, Jane Lugg followed Henry and Simon as they set off on one of their walks.

  ‘There’s a funny smell around here,’ said Simon. ‘Is it a dead hedgehog?’

  ‘No. It’s Jane Lugg,’ said Henry.

  But she persisted. ‘Can I come too?’ she kept saying.

  The two six-year-old boys went into a huddle.

  ‘She’s a girl,’ pointed out Simon.

  ‘Aye, but be fair, she doesn’t look like a girl,’ said Henry.

  They decided to admit Jane Lugg to their friendship as an honorary boy. She proved all right, for a Lugg. Where other people grew marrow and cabbage, the Luggs put their garden down to prams and rusty bikes. In 1909, in a brawl after a dance at the Troutwick Jubilee Hall, five Luggs had fought six Pitheys from Troutwick, and a Pithey had died. The Luggs bred like rabbits, and kept rabbits, which bred like Luggs. But Jane Lugg proved a keen naturalist, a resourceful explorer, and a doughty fighter against the only Hun seen in Upper Mitherdale that year. The fiendish Hun had a Magic Body, and could Disguise Himself as Anybody. That day he was disguised as Pam Yardley. He ran away, but Jane Lugg, alias Pansy Potter, the strong man’s daughter, caught him and settled him. It was a long while before Pam Yardley dared go out on her own again.

  Both boys would have got a lathering if they dared go to the Lugg abode, and the Post Office and General Store was dangerous also on account of Patrick, so the three often congregated at Low Farm. Henry wasn’t banned from seeing Jane Lugg, but he was discouraged. Sometimes she would be sent home. Simon was sent home as well, to make it fair, but when Simon was there without Jane he was never sent home. Henry defended Jane stoutly, and vowed to marry her when he grew up. He wouldn’t have been heart-broken if news of his intention had reached the shapely little ears of Belinda Boyce-Uppingham.

  The brief Dales summer slipped all too quickly into autumn. It began to look as if the Russians might hold out against the Germans till the winter. In Upper Mitherdale, the sickly oats were stooked. School began again. Maria Montessori did not visit Miss Candy’s classroom, but the nit lady did. It was widely known that the evacuees were not clean, and it would be no surprise to find that they had nits.

  None of the evacuee children had nits. Jane Lugg did. Henry’s ardour cooled, and autumn slipped imperceptibly into winter. The oats were threshed communally, since there was only one machine.

  Belinda Boyce-Uppingham rode past Henry on her pony, and he decided that he must ride. One Satuday, in late October, his riding career began. Fifty-three seconds later, his riding career ended.

  It was the age of the wireless. It was on almost all day, in the dark, cosy kitchen of Low Farm. News bulletins were eagerly awaited, and a tense silence fell during them. Then the music began again. Charles Ernesco
and his Sextet. Falkman and his Apache Band. Troise and his Banjoliers. And always, wafting faintly over the darkening, misty dale, one Reginald or another at the theatre organ. There was ‘Music While You Work’ twice a day, and Ensa concerts with Richard Tauber. And comedy. Slowly Henry was beginning to grasp the concept of humour. Apart from ITMA, there was ‘Breakfast with the Murgatroyds’, ‘The Happidrome’, with stars like Izzy Bonn and Suzette Tarri, who sang ‘Red sails in the Sunset’, ‘Varie-tea’ at teatime, ‘Workers’ Playtime’ and ‘Works’ Wonders’, and it was all a wonder that it worked, that the bright, far-away world came flooding into the quiet, gas-lit farm kitchen beneath the stark, silent hills. For the children there was ‘Children’s Hour’. Henry liked the animal programmes, with David Seth-Smith, the Zoo Man, and ‘Out with Romany’, but ‘Children’s Hour’ was of an improving nature, on the whole, and Henry didn’t want to be improved, on the whole, and so, on the whole, he preferred the alternative programme, which was called ‘Ack-ack, beer-beer’ and came from the canteens of balloon barrage centres and anti-aircraft units.

  The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, and the United States entered the war. In the school nativity play, Henry played a passer-by. He had one line, ‘Look at them three funny men.’ He forgot it, but he did remember to pass by. Jane Lugg, shorn and humiliated, was given the part of an angel by Miss Candy, for psychological reasons, and much against the wishes of Miss Forrest. As Henry passed by, an angel belted him round the ear-hole.

  Christmas was quiet, but enjoyable. Henry’s presents included an apple, an orange, a Mars bar, two Dinky toys (a Packard and a Lagonda) and a kaleidoscope. ‘I’m right set up wi’ me prezzies,’ he said with satisfaction.