[OLD STEVE] [WORLD OF THE CONTENT] [THE RE-WRITTEN LIST] [LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS] [THE THREE LEVELS]
CHAPTER 11.
Detention.
MY BIOGRAPHY.
1. Detention was always a bind and caused me no end of trouble, not getting into it, which was easy for everyone and especially free loaders, who were always fair game and always needing special discipline or the various other doubtful excuses concocted by the shits freely handing it out. No, detention meant staying back after school and writing out hundreds of stupid lines, like 'I must not get detention again,' or in the case of 'Haighy', 'Mr Haigh is a wonderful, kind, caring and thoughtful teacher who's efforts are not appreciated.' You will note the length of the sentence when the usual punishment was to let you leave as soon as you had completed the requisite number of lines. But he was not on his own, there were others who could think up equally long sentences or increase the number of lines required and I never knew which was worse, one hundred with 'Haighy' or one hundred and fifty or two hundred of, 'I must not misbehave.' But whatever the punishment handed out, it didn't end there for me. I lived about six to seven miles away and if not on the official school bus had to take three separate others to get home and after four thirty in the afternoon a Bus Pass was not valid and I never had any money, so if I got detention that day it was a long walk home and a row at the other end for being late. When late out of school or from wherever, one stunt, which I used to pull and I am sure many others did also, was to wait and get on a bus and then when the conductor came round show my pass, then state I had no money and be ejected, hopefully, by that time, several bus stops further along the route. Sometimes it worked and the conductor would let you stay on. Other times a sympathetic passenger would pay your fare. But anything was better than walking, especially in the snow or if it was raining. It was on one such occasion that my father hit me, not for being in detention but for walking home and arriving quite late after staying behind and playing with some mates. He flicked a wet towel at me and split my cheek. The second time he hit me I was a bit older. Looking back now I don't think I was exactly fair with my parents when I was at grammar school because I would be absent from home as much as I dared and would make no end of excuses for doing so. I much preferred to go home with friends and wait outside their houses while they went in for tea and then play out with them later, than go to my own home. All there ever seemed to be at home, in those days, was homework and either to sit quiet or go to bed.
2. As with many other things, the enthusiasm I might have had for certain interests, I had knocked out of me at Grammar School. I had always liked plays, Radio plays, Sunday school shows and Scout gang shows etc and for some reason, exactly what, I can't remember, I got at cross purposes with an English teacher and she gave me an ultimatum, either detention or a very small part in a Shakespeare play that would require me to forfeit some spare time. The idea appealed and so I took it. When the time came I put on the tights and said my line, 'Wilt thou go hunt my lord?' and trotted off home with my souvenir photograph. My mother was pleased because we now had a classical actor in the family but my father laughed for a week and the piss taking that followed, immediately put an end to all my aspirations for any further involvement in the thespian world. Years later he would boast that somewhere there was a photograph of his, so called, son dressed as a fairy in a play.
3. I have just remembered another idiot teacher. He taught, or tried to teach, physics. His name was Inca-Icky and he got that because the poor sod could hardly talk. Good for a teacher that, don't you think? But his impediment was so bad that to get anything out he had to say, Inca (Eye-nn-sa) nearly every other word. For example he would say, 'Today, Inca, we will, Inca, be looking, Inca, at, Inca, this, Inca,' and so on. It was sad but he was pathetic and over compensated for it by having an evil streak that made all the kids, that I knew, hate him as well as fear him. In fact there was only one other person that I hated more than him and that was the 'Boss'. The Headmaster. Everyone, including staff was scared of him and I think everyone loathed him. I know I did and when he retired, a year before I left, the main hall reverberated from the cheering at the end of his last assembly. He stood and wiped away a tear and thanked the school for all their love and affection and said he hadn't realised how fond they were of him and that it had all made his long career worthwhile. Daft bastard, I reckon that to a pupil, they cheered because he was at long last going and who ever replaced him could not be any worse. In-fact the guy who did replace him and the one before Priscilla, was an outsider and apart from morning assembly the school saw very little of him. I never spoke to him and he made no attempt to say 'goodbye' to us when we left. But back to the 'Boss.' There are hardly enough words to describe the overweight, stooped article, who smelt of BO, had a bluish face and purple nose, rushed round everywhere, with a gown flowing out behind him and knew only one thing, as far as I was concerned, and that was how to cane all and sundry. He could not cane the girls, didn't like them because he could remember when it was a good school with only boys and before they shut and amalgamated the girls school and spoilt everything, and so he left them to a sadistic headmistress who was an equal waste of space. She taught French and years later I would realise she knew sod all. Then there was 'Ma Goodby', who taught Geography and who's favourite trick was to snap a question at you and then before you could answer force you to your feet, to be humiliated, by pressing a forefinger, with a long sharp finger nail, up under your chin. She got me many times and I was perpetually scared of her both in and out of the classroom and its amazing I ever learnt anything about geography, although when I recall one incident I am not too sure that I did in fact learn anything of any value from her. On this particular occasion the question was, name the four weather sections of the globe and say which way the winds blew? Because I either didn't know or couldn't answer because of the speed of the finger, she made me write it out several hundred times in order to get it fixed in my mind and I can still see that diagram, in my mind's eye, to this day and do you know, the dozy cow was wrong. I learnt, years later, that she had no idea about the direction of wind and many other things; she was full of shit and covered in chalk dust and that was a grammar school education. I got my education long after I left school. But I am neglecting my favourite, our lovely headmaster (note the shall h, he didn't deserve the capital that the position should command). He lived in an office with a secretary, equally well established in an outer office, who insisted you called her Madam, and was, like many of the others, a waste of space and as far as I could tell, never seemed to do much but bawl and shout and push you around. It was a real pain to have to go see her for anything, especially if it was important or complicated. He probably didn't do much either and on the odd occasions he came out to teach it was a shambles and at least half a dozen would end up in line for caning. If sent to him for punishment or to pass a message the routine was always the same, knock on the door, hear his voice shout 'wait' and then wait for anything up to an hour before his ugly blue tinted mug would peer round the door and the thick rubbery lips demand who had sent you. If you were quick enough you could tell him and pass the message before you were dragged into his office and the cane began cutting the air in anticipation. If it was punishment and there was no message then you simply said who had sent you and that was it. In, arm out parallel, six on one hand followed by six on the other and then pushed in the middle of the back with the cane and told to get out. He always struck from behind; he hadn't the guts to look you in the face while practicing the only thing he excelled at. There was never any enquiry as to why you were there and the punishment never varied. The sadistic bastard fed constantly and regularly by a sadistic staff with an unlimited supply of victims. If ever a man should rot in hell it should be him. He liked Head Boys, he elected them, rich parents who patronized him and detested free loaders (and if you have forgotten who they were, they were the ones who worked for and earned a free place at his bloody school and didn't pay for the privilege.) The feeling, from one free loader, sadly, was one of perpetual fear and an indescribable loathing.
4. A near neighbour, of a similar age to myself, had a place 'bought' for him at Bradford Grammar School and he was a shit. I ran into him, years later, when I rescued him from his yacht and he was still a shit and when he recognised me, reminded me that he went to Bradford while I only went to Bingley and that was after I and others, on the Lifeboat and the Coastguard, had just saved his life and that of his crew.
5. During Grammar School years there was still a shortage of food in the U/K and so every summer we were sent down into Lincolnshire, near Spalding, to help on the land. That wasn't bad because it got me away from home during the long boring summer holidays, but the masters that accompanied us didn't help and could have made it better if they had not openly condoned the bullying and plundered our earnings. But then leopards don't change their spots, do they? You see we got paid for the work but after deductions for food and lodgings, which were probably free, there wasn't much left but what little there was I made sure none of it reached home.
