Read 04 Village Teacher Online
Authors: Jack Sheffield
04 Village Teacher
About the Book
It’s 1980: recession and unemployment have hit Britain, a royal wedding is on the way, and the whole country is wondering Who Shot JR?
As Jack returns for his fourth year at Ragley-on-the Forest School, there’s a definite chill in the air. Village schools are being closed down all over the place – will his be one of them?
As school life continues – Vera, the school secretary, has to grapple with a new-fangled electric typewriter, Ruby celebrates ten years as the school cleaner, and the village panto throws up some unusual problems – Jack wonders what the future holds…
Contents
2. The Brave New World of Vera Evans
5. The Ashes of Archibald Pike
6. Captain Kirk and the Flea Circus
7. Jilly Cooper and the Yorkshire Fairies
15. Agatha Christie and the Missing Vicar
In fond memory of Vera Jane
Acknowledgements
I am indeed fortunate to have the support of my superb editor, the ever-patient Linda Evans, and the wonderful team at Transworld Publishers, including Nick Robinson, Madeline Toy, Lynsey Dalladay, Sophie Holmes and fellow ‘Old Roundhegian’ Martin Myers.
Special thanks go to my industrious agent, Philip Patterson of Marjacq Scripts, for his encouragement and good humour, and for proving that, even at five-feet-seven-inches tall, you can be a giant among literary agents!
I am grateful to all those who assisted in the research for this novel – in particular: Sarah Barrett, school nurse, Hampshire; Jenny Barrett, former secretary and Selectric typewriter demonstrator, Hampshire; Ted Barrett, retired senior manager, IBM, Hampshire; Patrick Busby, pricing director, church organist and Harrogate Rugby Club supporter, Hampshire; Janina Bywater, nurse and lecturer in psychology, Cornwall; Nick Cragg, chairman, Stafforce and Rotherham Rugby Club supporter, South
Yorkshire
; Rob Cragg, ex-European director, Molex, Hampshire; The Revd Ben Flenley, Rector of Bentworth, Lasham, Medstead and Shalden, Hampshire; Kathryn Flenley, lay reader and schoolteacher, Hampshire; Clive Hutton, retired engineer and classic-car enthusiast, Hampshire; John Kirby, ex-policeman and Sunderland supporter, County Durham; Roy Linley, solutions analyst and Leeds United supporter, Unilever, Port Sunlight, Wirral; Sue Maddison, primary schoolteacher, Harrogate, North Yorkshire; Kerry Magennis-Prior, churchwarden, St Andrew’s Church, Medstead, Hampshire; Sue Matthews, primary schoolteacher, York; Phil Parker, ex-teacher and Manchester United supporter, York; John Roberts, retired railway civil engineer, York; Zoe Roberts, museum explainer, York; Maureen Shying, Burradoo, NSW, Australia; Caroline Stockdale, librarian, York Central Library; and all the wonderful staff at Waterstone’s, Alton, Hampshire.
Prologue
Love is a fickle companion.
Six weeks ago I had it all … love of life, love of my school and, best of all, love of a woman.
Warm late-summer sunshine shone through the high-arched Victorian window of my office but, suddenly, I felt cold. I stared once again at the official-looking letter and shivered. I had been headmaster of Ragley-on-the-Forest Church of England Primary School in North Yorkshire for three years but it seemed unlikely I would complete a fourth. My days of being a village teacher were numbered.
It was Monday, 1 September 1980, and the school summer holiday was almost at an end. It had begun with the buying of a ring and hopes for a bright future. It was ending with news of school closures and the dashing of dreams.
I had asked Beth Henderson to marry me and, in spite of my previous entanglement with her sister Laura, to my delight she had said yes. Like me, Beth was a headteacher
of
a small village school in North Yorkshire and, at the end of July, we had packed quickly, jumped into my Morris Minor Traveller and driven down to Cornwall, where we found a quaint little cottage in the village of Summercourt. After two weeks of rugged scenery and cream teas, we returned to Yorkshire to plan our future together.
Beth and I walked down Stonegate, one of York’s medieval streets, and stopped outside the bay window of Barbara Cattle’s jewellery shop. One particular ring with its cluster of rose diamonds sparkled in the early August sunshine. The neat writing on the tiny label simply read:
Once owned by a Victorian lady
.
‘It’s beautiful, Jack,’ said Beth quietly, ‘but it’s expensive – especially for a teacher.’
She was right. At £200 it represented a large slice of my monthly salary.
‘It looks perfect,’ I said quickly. Then I removed my Buddy Holly spectacles and began to polish them.
‘Your teachers at Ragley say that’s what you do when you’re dealing with difficult parents,’ said Beth, with a grin. ‘You do it to give yourself thinking time.’
I hastily put them back on. ‘You know me so well.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ she said. Her honey-blonde hair caressed her high cheekbones and her soft green eyes were full of mischief. She stretched up and kissed me on my cheek. ‘Come on, Mr Sheffield,’ she whispered in my ear, ‘let’s choose an engagement ring.’
* * *
As August drew to its close our attention turned back to our schools and to preparations for the new academic year. So it was on the first day of September I sifted through the holiday mail piled high on my desk. The letter from County Hall in Northallerton made it clear that some village schools were no longer economically viable and would have to close. We had fewer than ninety children on roll and I recalled that Beth had even fewer children in her school. Reluctantly, I pinned the letter on the office noticeboard and, with a sigh, unlocked the bottom drawer of my desk.
I took out the large, leather-bound school logbook and opened it to the next clean page. Then I filled my fountain pen with black Quink ink, wrote the date and stared at the empty page. The record of another school year was about to begin.
Three years ago, the retiring headmaster, John Pruett, had told me how to fill in the official school logbook. ‘Just keep it simple,’ he said. ‘Whatever you do, don’t say what really happens, because no one will believe you.’
So the real stories were written in my ‘Alternative School Logbook’. And this is it!
Chapter One
A Smile for Raymond
87 children were registered on roll on the first day of the school year. A maintenance team from County Hall visited school to free blocked pipework in the school kitchen. The school photographer took photographs of all children and classes
.
Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:
Thursday, 4 September 1980
‘IF IT’S LIKE
last year, Mr Sheffield, ah’ll want m’money back!’
Mrs Winifred Brown, our least favourite parent, had all the charm of a Rottweiler with attitude. I took a step back into the school office as she wedged her ample backside in the door frame.
‘Oh, I see,’ I said … but I didn’t.
‘An’ ah want my Damian t’be smiling this time, else ah’ll give that ’tographer what for.’
The penny dropped. At the end of last term, Vera
the
secretary had typed a letter to parents to let them know the school photographer would be in school on the first Friday afternoon of the new school year. He had explained that he wanted the children to look suntanned and healthy after their six-week summer holiday.
I looked down at six-year-old Damian, who was picking his nose. ‘I’m sure it will be fine, Mrs Brown,’ I said, a little lamely, glancing down at her son’s skinhead haircut and the remains of a KitKat bar smeared across his face.
‘It’d better be,’ she retorted as she stormed out into the entrance hall. ‘An’ ah’ll be picking ’im up t’morrow just afore three o’clock,’ she shouted as I closed the door. ‘Ah’ve got business in York!’
I sat down at my desk, took a deep breath, removed my Buddy Holly spectacles and gave them a polish with the end of my outdated flower-power tie. Then I glanced up at the clock with its faded Roman numerals. It was 8.30 a.m. on Thursday, 4 September 1980, the first day of the autumn term. My fourth year as headteacher of Ragley-on-the-Forest Church of England Primary School in North Yorkshire had begun.
Anne Grainger, the deputy headteacher, walked into the office and glanced back at Mrs Brown. ‘Happy days are here again,’ she said. Anne, a slim, attractive brunette who looked nothing like her forty-eight years, was a wonderful teacher of the reception class and a loyal supporter of Ragley School. She also had the priceless qualities of patience and a sense of humour.
‘Mrs Brown wants her Damian to be smiling on the class photograph tomorrow,’ I explained.
‘And pigs might fly,’ retorted Anne. She glanced down at my feet. ‘Like the new shoes, by the way,’ she added mischievously.
I looked self-consciously at my new, trendy Kickers shoes peering out beneath my flared polyester trousers. Changing fashion had gradually crept up on us in Ragley village but the image of the new-look Eighties-man was clearly a far-off dream for me. The frayed leather patches on the elbows of my blue-checked herringbone sports jacket were not exactly at the cutting edge of fashion.
‘Thanks, Anne,’ I replied sheepishly. I glanced out of the window at the playground, which was filling up with excited children and the mothers of the new starters. ‘I think I’ll get some fresh air,’ I said, ‘and, hopefully, see a few friendly faces.’ I unwound my gangling six-foot-one-inch frame from the wooden chair and attempted to flatten the palm-tree tuft of brown hair that refused to lie down on the crown of my head.
Anne grinned and glanced up at the clock. ‘Don’t be long, Jack. Vera will be giving out the new registers in a few minutes.’
The giant oak door creaked on its Victorian hinges and I hurried down the worn steps on to the tarmac playground surrounded by a waist-high wall of Yorkshire stone and topped with black metal railings. Mothers and children were walking up the cobbled school drive. I waved and they smiled in acknowledgement. They all looked relaxed with the exception of the furtive Mrs
Winifred
Brown, who, to my surprise, disappeared suddenly round the back of the cycle shed and I wondered why she was going in that direction.
At the school gate, under the canopy of magnificent horse-chestnut trees that bordered the front of our school, eight-year-old Heathcliffe Earnshaw and his seven-year-old brother Terry stood staring up into the branches.