Greetings Noble Sir

by Nigel Flaxton

  The Doc was a far more likely target for silly behaviour and ours got worse in his lectures as the year progressed. He would walk into the room, write his topic on the board, turn to the lectern and begin speaking in his wee small voice. We would continue chattering amongst ourselves, ignoring him utterly for the first five minutes or so.

  ‘Good lord - look who’s here,’ a voice might then say from the back.

  ‘Come on, chaps, give the man a chance,’ another would say.

  ‘That’s right, let’s have quiet,’ from a third.

  ‘Quiet, quiet, quiet, quite, quiet......’ staccato commands would crack from all corners of the room in every tone from high pitched squeaks to basso profundo.

  ‘......and in children the rheumatism can be seen as nodules which may extend the full length of the legs....’ Doc would continue serenely in his world, whilst we gradually emerged condescendingly from ours.

  It is a fact that we were taught very little about maintaining discipline in the classroom and I remember that later this became a very sore point with us. In my experience the matter has been similarly sore with hundreds of students I have since seen in the course of my work. Given the amount of column inches on the matter I’ve seen in newspapers over the years I’m sure the public assume it is bound to a part of teacher training schemes. The reason it is not is because it is almost impossible for one person to show another how to maintain discipline amongst a group in their charge. The exception is in the formalised setting of the Armed Forces.

  In teaching it is achieved almost entirely through one’s personality. It is possible to learn a few tricks, but if strength of personality is lacking, the result usually is disastrous. Perhaps rather surprisingly, a forceful demeanour is by no means necessary. Although usually teachers who have no problems with control are those who are enthusiastic, energetic, with pleasant but firm voices and possess that highly desirable but indefinable quality called ‘presence’, nevertheless others can be just as successful. I taught in a city secondary modern with a colleague who freely admitted he was henpecked by his wife and living-in mother-in-law and who, in the classroom, spoke in a restrained and quiet manner, yet he had only to open his mouth and any class fell silent. His very rare punishments were of the order of a hundred lines. Others, however, had only to appear at the classroom door and their charges behaved as we did with Doc.

  Oddly, however, we in no way despised him. After every lecture he would walk between our seats, perch on a desk and we would surround him, asking all kinds of medical questions in perfectly reasonable and conversational tones. It was from him that I first learnt details of leukaemia, which I heard my former evacuee cousin had suddenly been diagnosed with in an RAF hospital in Egypt. Knowing nothing of it in those days our family, including his parents, thought at first it was rather like anaemia. He looked up sharply and asked why I wanted to know. When I told him he replied simply,

  ‘His number’s up.’

  Doc’s prognosis was correct. A very sympathetic Commanding Officer flew the lowly AC/2 back to Britain in his own plane because the Service wouldn’t do so. My cousin died some days later in the RAF hospital in Swindon with his parents at his bedside. There is no way they could have travelled to Egypt in the time.

  Spotting the potential ability to control children in another person is one of the great skills in selecting teachers for appointments. It might be thought that when interviewing an applicant for promotion the fact would be plain in his or her reference. That, too often, is a naïve assumption. If a reference hints at poor class control no Head is likely to offer the candidate an interview unless the need is desperate. Too often both the writer and reader of references take great care with that which is between the lines. Sensible managers advertising teaching posts in schools ask for specific questions to be answered, one of which is How successful is X in maintaining control of students at all times?

  Unfortunately hardly any such selection is attempted in choosing candidates for teacher training, especially in the young majority. How can such an ability be assessed in a Sixth Former? It’s possible to an extent if the school encourages some form of mentorship, or has a prefect system, and allows a degree of personal responsibility to the Sixth Former in handling younger students. The snag nowadays is that, in such circumstances, if an accident occurs all hell is let loose from all sides demanding to know why supervision by such inexperienced young people was permitted. Was it a device to cover shortage of teachers, or a means of reducing financial burdens, etc, etc? This is one of the rare occasions when I subscribe to the view that matters were better in the past. Then an accident was viewed as precisely that, devoid of the current avaricious blame culture. The upshot is that teacher training always produces a proportion of qualified teachers who can never keep adequate control. Their lot is indeed a heavy one, as it is for the schools unlucky enough to receive them for one reason or another.

  Where is the bolt hole for such teachers? Long term absence through illness, early retirement? Both figure to an extent. Others become very thick skinned and simply plough through the daily grind in the face of a barrage of noise. Years later I tried to help one such person whose Music lessons were anything but mellifluous. ‘I have no problems whatsoever,’ she averred archly. ‘I can quote an HMI on that.’ Either the Inspector was deaf, or came on a day when half the class were down with ‘flu.

  One escape route was very surprising, but enterprising. If sufficiently qualified, after one or two years in the classroom, appointment to the staffs of Colleges of Education was a possibility and taken by a few. There one’s ability to control children was never questioned - and normally never tested. But I can remember the abject horror which swept through one such establishment when a new Principal decreed that all his staff should refresh such skills with occasional months back in schools. Immediately there was a rush for the local school with the best reputation for the most amenable students in the most favourable neighbourhood. I can attest to this with accuracy because I received the applications.

  In the Doc’s case, all that was needed was a succinct dressing down to us at the beginning of a lecture, with a threat that anyone who interrupted would be ordered to the VP’s office. That would have stifled most of us, knowing the VP would certainly back up Doc with a suitable tongue lashing and probable withdrawal of a couple of weekend absits. Exactly that should occur in a school, but it should be followed by a determination on the part of the teacher to use more positive attempts to exert control by voice, clarity of instruction, enthusiasm and encouragement. But he, like others of his ilk, made no effort whatsoever. In his case he was in the College for only two hours a week, a minor addition to his work which then was an age away from the pressures of modern GPs. The National Health Service baby was on the point of delivery so hadn’t yet uttered its first squawk.

  Only once in his lectures can I remember a spark of enthusiasm. He was talking about diet and suddenly revealed he loved cooking. He went on to assert that he could cook a Christmas pudding that delivered four thousand calories per slice. Considering his pear shaped body we concluded that was no mean boast. But in his practice in the deprived area surrounding the College I wonder how he coped with the widespread malnourishment that was the lot of a great many children in the area. How could he look them in the eye at the season of goodwill to all men....and their wives and offspring?

  On the occasion of the Doc’s last lecture of our first year we decided to give him a pointer to a good lesson. They all had to begin with a lively introduction to engage attention, didn’t they? We decided upon a metaphorical demonstration. In the event I remember it was rather a last minute, scratch affair

  The usual group got together and pressed ganged one other because we needed seven for this piece of nonsense. We also raided a cleaner’s store.

  The Doc appeared walking across the quadrangle at precisely two o’clock, when the lecture was
due to begin. He walked into the room, closed the door behind him and continued down the left hand aisle towards the dais. He stepped up in his usual ponderous fashion, toyed with a piece of chalk, then wrote ‘Rickets’ on the board. He laid the chalk in the receptacle, turned, and began.

  ‘This condition used to be prevalent in the nineteenth century and the early part of this one. Due to our knowledge of vitamins......’

  We flung the door open with a commendable crash against a nearby cupboard. The students who were dozing duly woke up whilst those who were talking promptly shut up, so we achieved our intention of a both a moment’s silence and attention.

  ‘Hi hooooooooooo,’ rang out seven lusty voices.

  ‘Hi hooooooooooo,’ repeated, an octave lower.

  All eyes shot round in our direction. In filed six disreputable looking cleaners carrying buckets with long mops and brooms held rifle fashion over shoulders, a few corner knotted handkerchiefs on heads. To the accompaniment of a lively drum beat on the buckets, we sang

  ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go,

  We keep on singing all day long, hi ho, hi ho, hi ho,

  Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go,

  We keep on singing......’

  And we did, around the entire room. As we passed the dais, underneath Doc’s mournful gaze, we did a snappy eyes left and saluted with just about everything we had.

  As we filed up the opposite aisle towards the door again, the seventh dwarf, aka Archie Forton, swished in with a huge coat worn back to front. He flailed the long arms wildly across the cheering but ducking heads of nearby sitters. He also saluted, then caught us up as we made our exit, still singing. He banged the door shut.

  From inside we heard an enthusiastic ovation. We threw our equipment back into the store and slipped in as it was subsiding. It broke out again with renewed vigour. Then it concluded.

  ‘.....we can now eradicate it entirely. The appropriate one is vitamin D which can be obtained from the following sources.......’

  Doc hadn’t moved a muscle throughout the entire episode and continued precisely from where he had been forced to stop. I’m sure he would have continued to deliver his lecture to the empty room had we all walked out.

  The one time I remember Doc obliterating our childishness and achieving full attention at the beginning of a lecture was when he approached the board and for his topic wrote ‘HANGING’. Within seconds the room was hushed. Corporal punishment was widespread in schools as we knew from our own experience, but this seemed a new departure.

  He looked at us in his usual mournful way.

  ‘I picked up a book the other day entitled A Handbook on Hanging. I thought it was going to be juicy....’ For a moment there seemed to be a gleam behind the thick lenses. ‘But it wasn’t. It was full of medical facts. Nothing really interesting. All I learnt was the drop actually causes a piece of bone at the base of the neck to snap off and be shot with considerable force into the brain. That’s what actually kills ‘em. But the rest was awfully boring. Now let’s carry on with enteritis....’

  A year or so after we left College we heard that one day Doc didn’t appear for his lecture. Enquiries revealed he had suddenly left his practice, along with his much younger secretary. Obviously there was a side to his personality we never saw.

  Chapter 14

  The beginning of our second year at St Andrews marked a watershed in its life. From its beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century to its demise one hundred and thirty years later there is little doubt that the changes we witnessed shook it most. Although we were not aware of it at the time they foreshadowed the considerable ensuing changes in matters of authority, control and participation. These permeated society at large and schools inevitably experienced a reflection of them. So did the College.

  Two events prepared St Andrews for projection into the second half of the twentieth century. The first was the retirement of the Principal. The Reverend D. W. Silton has not been particularly evident in these pages simply because I did not often cross his path. Although Major Darnley had an authoritarian personality and as Vice-Principal wielded considerable power, nevertheless he drew his strength from the attitude and regime of the Principal. There was no doubt to whom the iron fist belonged. But at this juncture it disappeared with its owner.

  The Reverend A. F. Pringley was appointed in his place. He returned to England to take up the post after many years in India. We, therefore, when we heard the news, envisaged a fiery, red faced Army padre with a curry temper. We were utterly wrong.

  He was mid-forties, fairly tall, with a scholarly face. The academic look was heightened by perfectly round spectacles beneath a high brow and receding, greying hair. He communicated well with all students and soon earned their genuine respect. He had a good sense of humour but was nobody’s fool.

  We first learnt something about the real man from Jon Kennton. Like the rest of us, JoFJonn was delighted at the relaxation of restrictions upon our evenings and weekends which had been the new Principal’s first pronouncement. The main door now was not closed until 11.00 pm on week-nights, and evening study became voluntary. This suited Jon admirably, because he could now visit his girlfriend at will, without either the fear of being missed from his study room or the dangers of his clandestine route into College.

  Then, one night, he dallied too long with his PT teacher and found the main doors closed. He regularly left a window unlatched for just such an emergency and so was not unduly worried. Quietly he walked round the outer wall, past the section where the Principal’s house stood, and on towards the open space at the rear of the site.

  Suddenly he stopped short. The Principal’s house! He would have to be ultra careful because the Reverend Pringley, being a family man, had taken possession of the house which formerly had been given over to students. The rear garden projected into the College grounds. In fact it was merely a rectangle surrounded by a beech hedge some four feet high, and everything in it was completely visible from the College field. Jon had to pass it en route for his window.

  But after due consideration, he relaxed. A couple of the Principal’s children were young and quite likely the whole family would be asleep long before this time, which was almost midnight. He would have to crawl near the hedge to avoid the possibility of being seen from the house, but even if by some mischance this occurred, he would hardly be recognised in the gloom at that distance.

  He climbed the wall without mishap and quickly dropped into the shadow beneath. He paused, and peered through the darkness at the outline of the house. The back, like the front which Jon had checked a few minutes earlier, showed no light. He breathed more easily, then set off carefully but quickly across the intervening space towards the hedge, crouching as he ran.

  His low viewpoint meant that when he did look up objects were silhouetted against the sky. That was how, just as he dived silently alongside the hedge, he spotted the Reverend Pringley! Lying full length on the ground, sweating profusely, he pondered what to do next. The pleasant aroma of tobacco smoke reached him. Cursing his luck he lay doggo hoping the Principal would soon finish his pipe and silent meditation and disappear indoors.

  Gradually Jon cooled off and then, because he had been sweating, began to feel cold. The autumn night was still and there was a distinct nip in the air. Damp was rising from the ground on which he was lying. He began to shiver a little. But the Principal showed no signs of being cold, nor of wanting his bed. He stood still for long periods, then walked rather diffidently in something of a circle. He could be seen through odd gaps in the lower stems of the hedge. As Jon said afterwards, he guessed Prinny was composing a sermon - he certainly wasn’t looking at the garden because there was nothing in it except the lawn and the hedge.

  Finally, Jon decided he had to move if he was not to catch cold or worse. He began wriggling on his elbows, dragging himse
lf along carefully and silently as though stalking a dangerous enemy. He successfully negotiated one corner of the hedge, then continued along the second side which pointed towards the end of the college building, and sanctuary.

  By the time he reached the second corner he was warm again, but very dishevelled, dragging himself along in soil because grass grew sparsely under the hedge. Nevertheless he felt it to be in a good cause because the Reverend Pringley was an unknown quantity in matters of individual discipline. His more humane regime concerned the College as a whole, but by no means did it follow that he would not react strictly to a student who broke his very reasonable rules - and worse, broke in at midnight.

  He paused. The final problem was how to cross the short remaining space between the corner of the garden and the corner of the college wing, beyond which was his window. He glanced through the hedge and descried the Principal’s back towards him. He decided upon a quick, crouching run. He couldn’t imagine the Principal vaulting the hedge and giving chase. Anyway, he’d be running away from the man so was sure he couldn’t be recognised in the gloom - after all the Principal was new and the College housed two hundred students. He couldn’t possibly know many yet by sight even in daylight. Jon thought upon Lady Macbeth’s advice, screwed his courage to the sticking place, half rose and bolted. He swore afterwards he didn’t make a sound.

  He had managed about six steps when the voice broke the silence. But it was calm and serene.

  ‘Good night, Mr Kennton,’ said the Principal.

  He made no further comment then or later.

  The second event was the impact felt by the College in the composition of its next intake of students. With very few exceptions they were ex-service men, some returning after as long as seven years with the Armed Forces. There were ex-officers, ex-NCOs, ex-privates, ratings and airmen. Some had been fighter and bomber pilots, and some had been prisoners of war. Some had been torpedoed, some had been tortured. Most were late twenties, but a few were already in their early thirties. The large majority had seen a great deal of combat Service life in wartime.