Rough

A random conversation yesterday prompted an unexpectedly fond memory of something I haven't thought about in decades: my school rough book.

Ooh, I loved the rough book!  It was special because it was deeply personal: the one place the teachers could not go (and presumably still can't?)  At my school the standard rough book was really thick, far fatter than all the formal exercise books and unlike them it was bursting with promise; it felt nicer and I'm sure its paper even smelt nicer. Its pale blue cover was there to be adorned, uncensored... an exciting blank canvas waiting to be transformed into a work of art.  Like everyone else, on this I could make my declarations, for boys and for bands, carefully drawn in decorative lettering, bold characters with fancy serifs and blocked in shadows, or logos copied off record sleeves. Doodles of stars... eyes with exaggerated lashes... spider webs in corners... speech balloons...The Clash... hearts and arrows and safety-pins... secret initials... objects of love (and sometimes of hate)...

Inside were those jotted notes, not just from lessons but to friends, clandestine messages - 'I'm so bored!' - and in-jokes, games of noughts and crosses, scribbled alongside the algebra and French verbs. It was the place to explore different hand-writing, as if trying on clothes – does it look better leaning to the left or the right, with closed or open loops?  So uninhibited and unchecked.  No teacher would read it, mark it or judge it, and that gave it power. It went with me everywhere like a faithful friend; a reference book, diary and sketch pad all in one. Maybe I should start one up now and I could use it to jot down ideas for future blog posts and recommended music to investigate (plus it would help to practise the hand-writing, which I'm convinced is getting more difficult than typing).

I also wish I'd kept just a few rough books from schooldays, out of curiosity. I'm sure they'd trigger further long-buried memories. Like, who the hell was JD? And why did I hate Mrs Benson so much?! And what exactly is Igneous Rock? Answers on a crib-sheet, please.

Not a Latin lover

Mrs Bacciarelli had an imposing presence: robust in physique with leathery skin and hair still black in spite of her advancing years, she spoke with an Eastern European accent and rarely smiled. My French teacher was young and benign in comparison, but Mrs Bacciarelli's subject was Latin. It seemed appropriate that she should be as formidable as the language she taught.

Latin seemed to be all about endings. What little I can remember about it now was that just about every word had to change its ending according to its place in a sentence. As far as I can recall these were known as declensions – all dependent on gender and 'nominative' and 'subjective' cases and god knows what else; I no longer know what any of them mean. In the first year of learning it I was a studious little goody-two-shoes who rose to the challenge and Mrs Bacciarelli's firm teaching methods kept me in my place. One or two little things have stuck, so for instance I can confirm that the plural of 'succubus' would be 'succubi'. Always a useful thing to know.

Here's a picture of one just to grab your attention.

Lilith by John Collier (1892)

When Mrs B retired in the third year a mild-mannered, softly spoken Northern man who wore tweed jackets and bicycle clips took her place - and I lost mine. To be honest, I'd had enough of translating sentences that had so little relevance to contemporary life. At least in French lessons we wrote about Philippe and Michelle going to the shop to buy Johnny Halliday records. In Latin, the most stimulating sentences involved centurions, slaves, temples and the occasional dog. That's not as interesting as it suggests, either. I think the only time I laughed in a Latin class was when there was a text which referenced the island of Lesbos. Cue much predictable but surreptitious sniggering.

Anyway, Mr Bicycle Clips couldn't keep my attention and after being caught for copying my friend's homework more than once I was relieved to be able to give up such a difficult language and take up German instead. Before I did, though, my mum did her best to help keep me interested in this ancient subject. She bought me a copy of 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit'!

(I don't think she could find any books in Latin about succubi.)

Apple for the teacher

My mum liked to regale my sister and me with a tale of how she got into trouble at school once for a piece she wrote for her English class.  Given free rein to come up with something as imaginative as possible, she composed a gory and explicit horror story about a girl who accidentally swallowed an apple pip.  The pip germinated in the girl’s stomach and slowly grew into a tree inside her, eventually killing its host in a particularly agonising and gruesome way (I think it was when the branches started to poke their way out of her ears and eye sockets that it got especially grisly).   My mum told us that she took great relish in describing this as vividly  as possible – as requested in the teacher’s brief - and it sounds like something Roald Dahl could have come up with for ‘Tales Of The Unexpected’.  However, the teacher didn’t see it in such a positive light and gave her 14-year old pupil a severe reprimand, as well as having words with my grandparents expressing concern about the “inappropriately” unpleasant subject matter.  It was as if she had committed some cardinal sin.

We used to laugh at this reminiscence, my mum’s eyes gleaming mischievously as she explained the reaction her teenage story had provoked, which was clearly still very memorable to her.  Luckily it didn’t put her off writing, and as an adult she used her imagination and gift for words whenever she could; perhaps she would have blogged if this medium had been around while she was alive.  But her experience set me thinking about the effects that teachers can have – how some can absolutely bring out the best in you and be an inspiration, but others can really set you back.

My first English teacher at secondary school fell into the latter category.  I’d come out of primary school with a real love of reading and creative writing, getting good marks and being eager to learn more.  So when I started nervously at the big school with its long corridors and scary timetables and even scarier teachers, I hoped I would at least be within my comfort zone when it came to English.

Unfortunately Miss B seemed to have it in for me from the start.  She wasn’t a likeable person, with a cold, hard air about her which accentuated her extremely unfeminine presence.  I can picture her now: steely grey cropped hair, shapeless red trousers and chunky knitted patterned cardigans, sitting on the edge of the desk with her legs apart (thank god for the red trousers), looking out at her class of 12-year-old girls.  She was unable to meet the eyes of any one of us, even less able to turn the corners of her mouth up into something remotely resembling a smile.

She was American, and seemed fixated on cowboy stories.  So when she taught us grammar, the examples she gave were always along the lines of, "The cowboy (subject) rode (verb) his brown (adjective) horse (object)".  Always.  Whenever I hear the word 'posse' (not often, I grant you) I see Miss B in her red trousers chalking stick-drawings of cowboys on the blackboard. She loved that word.

I tackled each English assignment with gusto but my efforts were frequently met with humiliation.  Maybe I deserved the low marks she gave me - or perhaps it was my lack of reference to cowboys - but there was never any guidance or positivity to go with them.    And it’s one thing to encourage a reserved child to speak in front of the class to help them overcome their shyness, quite another to pick on them time and time again and then draw attention to their discomfort.  I started to dread English lessons.  I kept trying to prove myself to Miss B but it felt as if I was battling against the odds; she was never going to like nor nurture me.  Looking back I just feel disdain for her.  I know teaching isn't an easy profession but... I wasn't a troublesome pupil.  She didn't need to make me feel like crap.

Thank god, then, that she left after my second year (possibly under a cloud) and the lovely, young, warm-hearted Miss McM took her place.  Under her empathetic and inspiring mentorship I regained some confidence; English became a subject to enjoy again and I looked forward to each opportunity to write.  It didn’t matter what about – ghost stories or politics or what we did at the weekend, but never cowboys - every composition was marked with care and included encouraging comments offering constructive advice.  Thank you, Miss McM. I have a feeling you would have loved my mum’s tale of the apple pip girl. 

Beware of the pips

Oh, boy!

Ben had dark curly hair, big brown eyes and a cheeky smile which accentuated the dimples in his cheeks.   Even though we were only six he had something about him that made me feel excited.  I looked forward to seeing Ben at school every day -  so much so that it even helped me overcome my fear of Michael, the infamous class bully, who was best known for being good at kicking shins and flushing gloves down toilets.

One Spring morning Mrs Marychurch announced that she was going to take the class for a nature walk.  We had to line up by the door in pairs.  “Right now, children, join up: boy girl, boy girl…”   Some of the boys looked distinctly unsure about this while the girls giggled, but we soon fell, rather chaotically, into couples.  Somehow, magically, I ended up with Ben.  “Now hold hands with your partner, everyone, and don’t let go,” our kind, maternal teacher instructed.  Ohhh!  I clung tightly to Ben’s palm, which felt warm and nice, and I knew I wouldn’t be letting go in a hurry. 

Off we went on our walk, a Crocodile of six-year-olds, out of the school grounds with its flat-roofed 1960s classroom blocks, across the road and up to the top of the wide tree-lined path which led between a cricket field and a meadow of Friesian cattle.  There at the summit Mrs Marychurch pointed out an oak tree and some cow parsley.  Then she let us all run to the bottom with the breeze in our hair, our grey skirts and shorts flapping, and Ben and I raced down that hill, laughing, our hands still tightly clasped.  We kept on going, further and further down the path, exhilarated.  Of course we were on strict instructions to return the second Mrs Marychurch summoned us back.  “Oh I think she’s calling…” Ben said anxiously as we stopped to catch our breath, Mrs Marychurch now just small and slightly blurred some yards behind us.   “No she isn’t!” I insisted.  My companion seemed less certain and urged me to return with him but I was adamant.  So we turned our backs on her distant figure and carried on.  And thus, at the tender age of six, I got my favourite boy into trouble.  When it finally dawned on us that the rest of the class had all joined our teacher and we were the only ones who hadn’t, our sheepish return was met with a very stern telling-off.  “I told you she was calling,” whispered Ben crossly after we’d been shown up horribly in front of our classmates. I was as mortified as a lovestruck six-year-old could be, which is to say: very…   In spite of trying to make it up to him with presents of Love Heart sweets (‘Be mine’ and ‘Will you’), that was the end of Ben and me.

A certain six-year-old's view of Mrs Marychurch and her class in 1970

There weren’t many other boys in my class to fall for over the following years.  I became good mates with Ian, Iain, and the two Andrews, but that was because they weren’t much like the other boys and I wasn’t much like the other girls.  We all liked nerdy activities like drawing, reading, collecting little rubber animals and writing stories, so playing together was comfortable and easy.  I just didn’t ‘fancy’ any of them.  Mind you I didn’t fancy Christopher either but that didn’t stop me inadvertently leading him on one time.  As we spilled out of the classroom for lunch that day the not-very-bright boy with the thick-lensed spectacles and rodent teeth started touting for girls to play Kiss Chase with him.  All his favourite girls - Alison, Claire, Nicola and Ruth - were quick to say “No”.  I, stupidly (oh, so stupidly), felt sorry for him.  I don’t know why but I came out with a classic line which I was soon to regret.  “No I don’t want to play, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like you,” I said, as flirtatiously as a nine-year-old could, even though I didn’t like him.  Oh, why did I say that, why?

I went hungry that lunchtime.  Instead of eating I spent the entire hour being pursued by Christopher.  He chased me up and down the long playing field, in out and out of the line of willow trees, round and round the Pudding Stone and across the hopskotch squares on the tarmac.  I tried to hide under the coats hanging up in the cloakroom and behind the floor-length orange curtains in the Assembly Hall.  We played cat and mouse until I got that sandpapery feeling across my chest and a throbbing in my forehead, but my determined hunter wouldn’t give up.  I longed for lunchtime to be over. Eventually the boy cornered me by the rabbit hutch, pressed me up against it and pushed his mouth hard against mine.  I struggled, but to no avail - it was only the ringing of the school bell at the end of the lunch break that finally freed me from his clumsy grasp and his horrible wet lips.  If only it had rung sooner.  Flopsy the rabbit was not the only one to feel traumatised that day.

But I recovered from that and in the last year of Juniors my dream boy was Nicky.  All the girls loved Nicky and he was way out of my league.  He had lovely blue eyes and was supremely self-assured.  I didn’t expect my admiration to be reciprocated because I was neither pretty nor confident, and I'd never really spoken to him before, but when I was seated next to him in the final term I realised that I could sometimes make him laugh.  I started to learn that a bit of wordplay or a corny gag could go a long way.  Nicky actually appeared to like it when I tried out the “Do you know Theresa Green?”  joke on him ("what? - you don't know trees are green?") and it seemed I went up a few points in his estimation.  Enough points in fact to warrant me a place in his ‘Top 5 Girls’ list which he updated weekly.  I made it to Number 3 and, seeing as Number 1 was Big Karen who was already wearing - and noticeably filling - a bra, that was quite an accolade. (Like several of the other girls in my year I just had two small bumps under my blouse which embarrassed me greatly.) I don’t remember who Number 2 was.

I left primary school rejected by Ben and unwillingly kissed by Christopher but with a small, sweet confidence boost from appearing on heart-throb Nicky’s special list. It’s a shame really that I was then sent to an all girls’ school and boys became something of an alien species.  Or maybe it was just as well.

School dinners

I expect my primary school had the best of intentions when it came to feeding its pupils at lunchtime, it being late 1960s/early 1970s Britain, a time and place where meat, potatoes and two veg were the school dinner staple, and fast food hadn’t yet made its entrance as a daily diet option.  There were certainly no cold choices, nor cheese strings, burgers and crisps on the menu.

The canteen with its wobbly-legged tables covered in sheets of blue PVC, and little chairs (colour coded for size with a red, green or blue spot), was a noisy place between 12 and 1pm as 200 children aged between five and ten were herded in to get our plates of lumpy Shepherd’s Pie and bowls of gooey Rhubarb Crumble.  We drank lukewarm tap water from lightweight, slightly dented beakers, possibly made from titanium, in not-quite-shiny gold, silver and – if you were lucky – pink.  There were far fewer pink ones than gold and silver and so they took on some kind of special status, making the water in them taste just that little bit better.

Dishing out the servings from behind the hatch and taking away our empty plates (as well as supervising at playtime) were the Dinner Ladies.  Some were surly and authoritative, others kind and maternal.  We soon knew which ones to turn to and which ones to avoid.  Mrs Bird was one of the ones who’d give you a cuddle if you fell over and got those little bits of playground grit embedded in your freshly grazed knees.  I can still remember every detail of how she looked: tall and slender, she had dyed hair the colour of copper piping which she backcombed up in an elaborate and outdated beehive, wore a gold letter M around her neck and the shortest skirts I’d ever seen on anyone not on TV.  We loved Mrs Bird.  Whereas Mrs Cann...I can see her hard, lined face now, her sallow complexion and her pencilled-on eyebrows resembling wasp antennae, several dozen shades darker than her hair... no, Mrs Cann was not the kind of woman you'd get - or want - a cuddle from.

Unfortunately Mrs Cann frequently made my dinner times a source of great stress.  She was a stickler when it came to checking that we’d consumed everything on our plates.  “You mustn’t waste it” was the motto.  Under her watchful eye we felt forced to swallow every last crumb.  However, we also learned that there were cunning ways to make it look as if you’d eaten more than you had.  The easiest way was to smear your leftover bits of hard mashed potato and bullet-like peas around the perimeter of your plate, making sure to leave a nice, clean space in the middle.  There was quite an art to it.  Or you could make little piles out of the mushy sprouts and watery carrot slices and hide them skilfully under your strategically placed knife and fork.  Alternatively, you could just be a messy eater and  drop half the contents of your spoon onto the table or floor.  But I had an additional problem.  It wasn't just a few last mouthfuls of boiled cabbage or a burnt pastry crust I wanted to leave - I didn’t want to eat any meat.  This wasn't something that was ever taken into account at my school back then.  The feeling was that everybody had to eat meat; in fact, didn't everyone want to eat meat?  There was no saying "no" to it.  I spent most of the morning dreading dinner time, and most of the afternoon recovering from it.  Occasionally I’d be relieved to find there was Macaroni Cheese or Egg & Chips on offer and lunchtime would be a breeze.  But most of the time there were meaty things – flabby, greasy sausages, grey slabs of lamb, unidentifiable brown chewy lumps in brown slimey sauce.  I’d ask for the smallest portion I could get, then spend the entire mealtime finding ways to avoid having to swallow it.  If the smearing round plate, hiding under cutlery or dropping onto table ruse didn’t work, I'd put it in my mouth and then conveniently ‘cough’ it into a hanky which I’d shove back in my pocket.  It would stay there leaking gravy or fat into my pleated skirt until playtime, when I'd drop it nervously into one of the deep wire bins, dreading that one day I'd get caught.  I don't know what I thought would happen if I did, but in my head it would be a punishment just too awful to contemplate.

Only the lovely Mrs Bird was sympathetic.  If she was on duty I could always ask her if it was okay to leave some food on my plate, and without fail she would nod kindly, and maybe wink one of her pastel blue-shadowed eyes, as she discreetly took the gristly remains of my dinner and scraped them into the slops bin.  To this day I don't think I've experienced a more reassuring sight than that of the long-legged, beehived Mrs Bird in her mini-skirt, walking away from me with my plate of uneaten liver and kidneys.

Take three girls

My two longest-standing friends and I try to meet up a couple of times a year and last week was one of those occasions.  We’ve known each other since the age of eleven, when we started at the same school, our home town’s equivalent of a 1970s St Trinian’s – all hockey sticks and Latin lessons.  We went through the same humiliation of wearing the awful brown uniform (which, for the first two years was a shapeless tunic because, the school’s Ministry of Uniform dictated, “we don’t offer the option of a skirt to the younger years because they haven’t yet developed waists”.)  Our bond of friendship helped to get us through all those awkward moments of adolescence, comparing notes on buying our first bra and fancying boys.  And developing waists, amongst other things.

We pooled our pocket money to buy Cadbury’s chunky chocolate bars from the tuck shop to share at break times and some years later upgraded this to the occasional Benson & Hedges, ten in a pack from a slot machine in town, having meticulously planned our movements well in advance to avoid being seen by grown-ups.  We’d sneak them into school and find a quiet corner of the playing field to try a furtive puff or two.  I’m pretty sure no actual inhalation ever took place.

By the age of 14 we were also into punk together.  We’d invade the local record shop on a Saturday afternoon and pore over the album covers, longing for the day when we’d saved up enough to buy one.  (see 'The first album you ever bought...?') We also made forays into the local hardware stores – rummaging through trays of bulldog clips and sink chains and any other strange looking metal fasteners or hooks we could find with which to accessorise our DIY clothes.  On the last day of term in 1978 when the school finally allowed a ‘no uniform’ day, we all got into trouble together.  It was our one chance to ditch the brown uniform and proudly wear our bulldog clips and Sex Pistols badges on our DIY clothes into school.  That afternoon we were called in by a teacher and given a stern talking-to; there had been complaints at our apparent lack of respect.  We could not have been awarded a better compliment.

We left school and went to different colleges, got jobs, got married, moved house a few times, but always kept in touch.  Now in our late forties, we meet when we can for lunch in our old home-town, our old stomping-ground, where none of us live any more.  And now our bond of friendship helps to get us through all these awkward moments of middle-age – comparing notes on a whole new set of life experiences.

As I sat there with my two lovely friends last Friday, and we reminisced about the time we had tried to write dirty stories in the school lunch-hour, only to be so mortified at the thought of them being found by a teacher that we tried, unsuccessfully, to flush the offending pages of our exercise books down the toilets, it seemed impossible that 37 years have passed since we first met.