04 Village Teacher (18 page)

I began in Sally’s classroom, except now a new label had been pinned on the door. It read: ‘Miss V. Flint’.

Valerie Flint was an imposing figure and renowned for her excellent classroom management and strict but fair discipline. We were clearly fortunate to get such a ‘safe pair of hands’ to take charge of Sally’s eight- and nine-year-olds. When I walked in, Valerie was setting up a fish tank on Sally’s nature table.

‘Oh, good morning, Jack,’ she said with a confident smile.

‘Hello, Valerie,’ I said. ‘Can I help?’

‘No, it’s fine, thanks. I’m just preparing a new home for Tarzan and Jane.’

‘Tarzan and Jane?’

‘My goldfish, Jack. I thought they would add some interest to my nature table.’

My
nature table … There had been a subtle shift of power.

To her credit, Sally, now eight months pregnant, had come in to help. ‘ ’Morning, Jack,’ she said cheerfully. She was at the sink, washing paint palettes and bristle-haired brushes. Her face was flushed with the effort.

‘Let me help,’ I said.

She grinned. ‘I’m not an invalid – just pregnant.’ She patted her tummy and Valerie Flint gave her a wistful glance. ‘I thought I’d help Valerie get off to a good start.’

‘Thanks, Sally,’ I said, ‘but do be careful.’

‘I keep telling her the same,’ said Valerie, looking concerned.

I decided to leave them to it. The classroom looked different already – tidy and well organized. ‘I’ll put the heater on in the staff-room,’ I said. ‘We could meet for coffee at half past ten.’

‘Vera will probably prepare it,’ said Valerie. ‘She phoned me this morning.’

I recalled that Vera and Valerie were both long-standing members of the Women’s Institute, so I presumed they knew each other well. I looked back at Valerie as she confidently introduced Tarzan and Jane to their new home.

At six feet tall, she had been an outstanding netball player in her younger days and, although now in her late fifties, she cut a slim, elegant figure in a beautifully tailored trouser suit, her favoured style of dress. While the traditional Vera still frowned at female staff wearing trousers, Miss Flint had become a firm ally on my first day at Ragley when I dismissed this particular outdated restriction on female clothing upheld by my predecessor.

Next door, Jo looked relaxed in her classroom and had just finished making an anemometer out of wooden off-cuts and four plastic beakers. ‘Hi, Jack. What do you think?’ she said, proudly spinning it round like a horizontal windmill.

‘Brilliant!’ I said and then looked around her classroom. It was like walking into the Science Museum. Jo’s displays were always full of interest with their magnets, prisms and pulley systems.

Then I wandered across the school hall and into Anne’s reception class. She was on her hands and knees in the Home Corner, trying to repair the mini-kitchen. The cooker door had fallen off. ‘Hello, Jack. I knew John’s
Christmas
present would come in handy,’ she said with a wry grin and a final twist of her ratchet screwdriver. ‘I’ve seen the letter from Miss High-and-Mighty from County Hall, by the way.’ She stood up and closed the classroom door. ‘Jack,’ she said quietly, ‘I read in the
Pioneer
that possibly four out of the seventeen village schools in this area could close.’ She looked around her bright and busy classroom, a world of sand trays, Plasticine and powder paint. ‘It would be sad to lose all this.’

I recalled Beth’s words, ‘You’re
vulnerable
.’

‘You know I’ll do everything I can,’ I said.

Anne nodded. ‘I know you will, Jack.’ She gathered her brown hair into a pony-tail at the nape of her neck and, with a practised twist, attached an elastic toggle. There were a few grey hairs I hadn’t noticed before.

At half past ten, like creatures of habit, we all gathered in the staff-room. The heater was on full-blast and Vera served mugs of piping-hot milky coffee and the remains of her Christmas cake. Everyone had read the latest ‘school closure’ letter on the noticeboard but we had all decided to press on regardless. I looked around the staff-room and realized how lucky I was to have such a dedicated team, none more so than the incomparable Vera, without whom I would be lost.

Anne and Vera were deep in conversation, checking a note to parents requesting that they write their child’s name clearly inside their wellington boots. Vera had also suggested we ask for any old wallpaper books, as our communal stock cupboard was now devoid of A3 sugar paper for the children’s painting lessons. Anne
had
reckoned that, following recent cuts in school expenditure, our capitation was now nine pence per child per day. However, she had chosen not to mention this to Vera, who was delighted that Mrs Thatcher was firmly in charge of the nation’s handbag.

I recalled that Jim Callaghan had used the word ‘accountability’ in relation to schools in a speech in 1976 but it was Mrs Thatcher who had reinforced the value-for-money theme.

Meanwhile, Jo was admiring Sally’s new Sony Walkman. Two million had been sold in the previous year and Sally was now playing classical music via her headphones to her unborn child. Valerie was peering with gimlet eyes over her half-moon spectacles at the list of after-school clubs for the new term. With great deliberation she added her name and slowly I was coming to realize that, while losing Sally was a blow, Valerie was bringing a new impetus to our work that I hadn’t anticipated. The list read:

Country Dancing, Choir (AG)

Netball, Science (JH)

Football, Chess (JS)

Recorder, Pottery (VF)

‘I’m afraid I can’t do Sally’s guitar club, Jack,’ said Valerie, ‘so I thought Pottery might be interesting and I can get the children’s claywork fired in the kiln at the comprehensive school.’

‘Thanks, Valerie,’ I said. I was impressed – and even more so with Valerie’s next offer.

She came to sit beside me and put a few photographs on the coffee-table. ‘Have a look at these, everybody. I know of an excellent place in the Yorkshire Dales to take a party of children,’ she said, and we all gathered round.

‘It’s that lovely village they use in the television series
All Creatures Great and Small
,’ said Anne in surprise.

‘Darrowby?’ said Jo quizzically.

‘Yes, but it’s really Askrigg,’ said Sally. ‘It’s a lovely place. Colin and I drove through it on our way to Aysgarth Falls last summer.’

‘That’s right,’ said Valerie, pointing to a photograph of a large building, ‘and this is a mill conversion called Askrigg Low Mill Residential Youth Centre. I went there when I did supply teaching at Easington Primary. I could write to them for details, if you like.’

‘Thanks, Valerie,’ I said. ‘A wonderful idea. Please do.’

When everyone returned to their classrooms, Vera collected the mugs and cake plates and smiled up at me. ‘New brooms, Mr Sheffield … new brooms.’

I stayed late at school and gusting snow smoothed the cobbles of the school drive when I eventually clambered into my frozen car. The welcoming bright-orange lights of The Royal Oak together with the promise of warm food on such a bitterly cold night made an attractive proposition.

For once, the conversation in the taproom wasn’t about football, sex or beer. In the news that morning, Sweden had become the first country to legislate against aerosol sprays on the grounds that they harm the atmosphere.

Stevie ‘Supersub’ Coleclough raised the topic. ‘They’re banning aerosol sprays in Sweden,’ he said.

The rest of the football team were perplexed.

‘What’s that in aid of?’ asked Big Dave. ‘Meks no sense.’

‘No sense at all,’ agreed Little Malcolm.

Don the barman stopped wiping glasses and put down his York City tea towel. ‘So ’ow do women stop sweating?’ he asked.

‘We don’t sweat, we
perspire
,’ retorted Sheila tartly, hitching up her sparkly boob tube and folding her arms, with difficulty, in annoyance.

‘It’s ’cause o’ that ozone layer,’ said Stevie, not to be deflected.

‘That’s reight,’ said Kojak. ‘Ah ’eard it on t’news.’

‘What ozone layer?’ asked Big Dave.

‘It’s up in t’sky,’ said Kojak.

Everyone looked out of the window at the vast black sky. Dark clouds scudded across the moon.

‘Mebbe it’s too dark t’see it,’ said Shane.

‘Well, what’s it look like?’ asked Clint.

‘Y’can’t see it … It’s just there,’ said Stevie.

‘Well ’ow d’you know it’s there?’ asked Big Dave.

‘ ’Cause o’ that feller on telly,’ said Stevie.

There was a prolonged silence while they all supped on their Tetley’s bitter. Finally normal service was resumed when Clint spoke up.

‘Ah went out wi’ a Swedish girl once.’

‘Did she smell nice?’ said Shane.

‘Yeah, but she were from Pontefract.’

‘There y’are, then,’ said Big Dave. ‘She prob’ly used an aerosol.’

As this weighty environmental issue had reached its inevitable conclusion, Sheila opened up a new topic of conversation. She surveyed Clint Ramsbottom from his baggy white shirt with lace cuffs to his tight stone-washed jeans and Doc Marten boots. ‘What y’dressed like that for, Clint?’ she asked.

‘Ah’m a New Romantic,’ said Clint proudly.

‘Well, y’certainly don’t look romantic t’me,’ said Big Dave.

‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ said Shane. ‘ ’E looks like a big jessie.’

Clint’s face flushed and this did little to enhance the subtle bronze and crimson highlights in his David Bowie feather cut. Wisely he said nothing.

‘It’s futurism,’ said Stevie ‘Supersub’ Coleclough. ‘Ah read it in a magazine in t’doctor’s.’ Stevie always liked to sound superior to his less qualified friends.

‘That’s reight,’ agreed Clint, pleased that someone was on the same wavelength. He had also been in the doctor’s surgery and read the same article. ‘It’s an antidote t’punk,’ he recited.

Shane looked puzzled. He couldn’t recall having an Auntie Dot.

‘Well, ah don’t get it,’ said Big Dave. ‘What’s wrong wi’ jus’ looking … y’know, normal?’

As they nodded in agreement and returned to their beer, little did they know it but new brooms were sweeping out the old. The year 1981 had a few surprises in store for the Ragley Rovers football team. A world of frilly shirts, pixie boots, fingerless gloves and black eyeliner was just around the corner.

Meanwhile, Sheila served me with a giant Yorkshire pudding. It was perfect: slightly crisp at the edges, filled with mince and onions and smothered in delicious gravy – a feast on a freezing Yorkshire night.

On the other side of the lounge bar, Geoffrey Dudley-Palmer was sitting at a table in the bay window. He had just ordered Sheila’s special ‘belly buster’ mixed grill and he sat back, puffed on his Tipalet cigar and stared out of the window at his new Volvo. For the huge sum of £8,501 he had purchased an exclusive THOR, one of a limited edition of only 450 in the UK. It sported automatic transmission, tinted glass, black cloth upholstery, alloy wheels, a spoiler, rear seat head restraints, a sunroof and a gleaming black finish. Geoffrey was content – well, almost. He was hungry. In fact he was ravenous.

Two weeks ago, a Breville sandwich toaster had seemed an ideal Christmas gift for his wife. While he could never imagine using it, he knew Petula would love this addition to her state-of-the-art kitchen. The young salesman at Lewis’s department store in Leeds had informed him that the unique action cut sandwiches in half and then sealed the edges.

However, since then, every meal for Geoffrey Dudley-Palmer was wedged between two slices of bread, sealed round the edges and heated to one thousand degrees centigrade. He was unimpressed that this labour-saving phenomenon was popular with teenagers who created sandwiches named ‘Nuclear Afterblast’ and ‘Biochemical Warfare’. He was also thoroughly sick of cheese-and-tomato sandwiches and having to scrape the charred
remains
from the ‘non-stick’ hotplates. It was time for a clear-out and the sandwich toaster was about to join the waffle iron and soda stream in the garage.

So, when his ‘belly buster’ special turned up he picked up his knife and fork like a man who hadn’t eaten a decent meal for a week – which, of course, he hadn’t.

When I left, Ronnie Smith, the team manager, was talking tactics with Big Dave and Little Malcolm. As usual he was using a tomato-ketchup bottle and a salt cellar to represent the team’s two great stalwarts. Sadly, the diminutive Malcolm was fed up. Every time Ronnie demonstrated tactics, he was always the short, stumpy salt cellar.

Even so, he kept his misgivings to himself as Big Dave still hadn’t forgiven him for going with Dorothy to the Refuse Collectors’ Annual Fancy Dress Ball in York. They had dressed up as Sonny and Cher, while Big Dave, in protest, had simply put on his wellies and gone as Alan Titchmarsh.

On Tuesday morning, outside the frosted window panes of Bilbo Cottage, a robin, its red breast stark against the snow, perched on the handle of my garden spade. Its bright eyes stared forlornly at a white world devoid of life. Then it sang a wistful, melancholic song that matched my mood.

My thoughts were elsewhere. Beth’s wise words were like the flurries of snowflakes – briefly touching my consciousness and then gusting away into the dark recesses of my mind.
You’re vulnerable
, she had said, and I knew it was so.

However, it was business as usual when I turned into the school gates and pale sunlight shone weakly on the frosty car park. Ruby, in a headscarf and old overcoat, had brushed away the snow from the entrance steps and was sprinkling them with salt.

‘ ’Urry up, Mr Sheffield. Y’ll catch y’death o’ cold out there,’ she shouted. ‘An’ a ’appy new year,’ she added as an afterthought.

At exactly nine o’clock Cathy Cathcart pulled on the school bell rope and announced the beginning of the spring term 1981. With a self-satisfied glance at her wristwatch, she attached the rope to the cast-iron cleat on the wall and walked into my classroom. Another year had begun.

Cathy, a keen little girl, was soon hard at work in her English exercise book. I was pleased she was using her dictionary but, sadly, it was not always to good effect. In answer to the instruction ‘Use the word
judicious
in a sentence’, Cathy, presumably with the Fairy Liquid commercial in mind, had written: ‘Hands that judicious can be soft as your face.’ Also, when asked to describe the meaning of a ‘turbine’ she had written: ‘What an Arab wears on his head.’ Not for the first time it occurred to me that you needed a sense of humour to survive as a teacher.