A spot of corporal.

School days can be heaven or hell, depending on your outlook and the people whose charge you were in from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. We used to have an hour and a half for dinner in those days, more than enough time to fart about on the old army camp next to the school, or find out if the rumours about Miriam Hardcore were true.

I was a bit of a rebel, not a troublemaker, I had respect for teachers, but I did like to question them given the opportunity. When I was at school your future was very much in the hands of the teachers; they could make or break you. I don’t doubt that the majority of them became teachers because they wanted to influence and guide young minds and equip them with the basic tools to forge a good and happy life for themselves. The reality though was that too many of them had these good intentions worn out of them over time and the burning need to impart knowledge to inquisitive minds was replaced by the overwhelming desire to strangle the little bastards.

I found very early on that the more cynical teachers made snap judgements about the kind of kid you were simply by looking at you. Mrs Greenhalsh the English teacher for instance took one look at my half-mast pants, unpolished shoes and unruly hair and decided I was an imbecile with no worth. On our first meeting she decided that I was unteachable and therefor I was to be tolerated and no more. It took only a few lessons with this woman for me to realise that I had a better command of the English language than she did, her grammar was atrocious and her spelling was at best suspicious.

Things came to a head one-day during a lesson in pronunciation, despite hailing from Bolton she would insist on speaking with a very bad BBC announcer’s voice. She would often break of from whatever subject she was teaching to applaud the way people spoke down south. One young chap who had stood up to recite his essay to the class was viciously berated by this harridan for pronouncing the word “Bath” hard. “Down south we say Baaaarth, not bath you cretin. The chaps eyes grew smaller, his head dropped and he stood there beaten.

I knew I was going to get into trouble, but I couldn’t help myself. I stood up and said “I’m sorry Mrs Greenhalsh but if you ever do go down South, you will find that the word is pronounced Baaaaarf”, I sat back down to stunned silence, everyone looked at me. Some of the kids started to giggle, but they stopped when a red faced and fuming Mrs Greenhalsh pushed her way through the desks to get at me.
I found myself being dragged by my ear to the classroom door and shoved outside, most of what she said to me was unintelligible, the only thing I took away from that exchange was a great deal of spit and a date with the headmaster after the lesson.

The headmaster was a man you either hated or loved; he could be calm and pleasant or volatile and nasty depending on what your business with him entailed. He had an air about him of a man constantly under pressure trying desperately to maintain his cool. He called the girls ladies and the boys gentlemen, in private he called us the little bastards The fact that he resembled Hitler put a lot of people of him, but he and I got on quite well despite the odd occasion when he administered corporal to me. He would stride around the school, hands behind his back inspecting everything and everyone he passed. Often he would snap out general knowledge questions to keep you on your toes, and would be visible disappointed if they were answered correctly. I remember having to make one last visit to the school after I had left for good to return some library books and to pick up my leaving certificate.

He invited me into his office for a chat and we spent a good half-hour discussing my future and sucking Bon Bons. He informed me that as far as he could remember I was the only pupil who had answered all his questions correctly, and that it had become something of a challenge to him to catch me out. He shook my hand warmly and wished me luck in the future, as I was about to close the door he fired one last question at me. “Oh by the way can you tell me who wrote Black Beauty” I made a pretence of thinking very hard, scratched my chin and said “Anna Sewell Sir” He shook his head and smiled.

Break time found me on the carpet in front of the headmaster’s desk listening to Mrs Greenhalsh telling him what a hateful and disrespectful boy I was. She embellished her tale of the incident with lies, and threw in some unnecessary insults for good measure. While she ranted the headmaster looked at me with an expression that said “Are you sure you have the right boy?” Her assault went on and on until eventually the head put his hand up and told her that he would deal with me and she should retire to the staff room for a cup of tea.

She glared at me with hate in her eyes, turned to the headmaster and said, “The strap will knock that chip of his shoulder”. Again I couldn’t help myself, looking straight ahead I replied “There may be gravy down the front of my shirt, but my uniform is otherwise bereft of foodstuffs”. Up until that point I may well have got away with it, or at least just have to suffer a couple of hundred lines. But my calm and dignified response to this woman’s venom was proof positive that I had indeed transgressed earlier and my fate was cast.

I had given the head no alternative but to administer corporal punishment, six of the best on the hands and my solemn promise that I would in future keep my smart arse remarks to myself. I didn’t of course there were other episodes when I crossed teachers and was made to pay for it. The good teachers, (and there were many) made up for the ones who for one reason or another failed to engage children in a way that encouraged the learning process. I take my hat of to Teachers likes Mr Walmsley (Chemistry and Physics) Mrs Sidebottom (Biology) Mr Hanley (Arts and craft) and others who enjoyed imparting their knowledge to us over the years.

For those that are interested, the rumours about Miriam Hardcore were true.