03 Dear Teacher Read online

  I looked down at Heathcliffe Earnshaw’s exercise book. He had simply written one word: ‘Peas’. It was to the point if nothing else. ‘So what’s your resolution, Heathcliffe?’ I asked.

  ‘Peas, Mr Sheffield,’ said Heathcliffe bluntly. ‘If ah crush ’em in potato they won’t taste as bad.’

  It struck me that there was a lot to be said for having achievable resolutions.

  Jimmy Poole was waving his hand in the air so I stepped in to help out. ‘Yes, Jimmy, what is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah want t’try my betht, Mr Theffield.’

  ‘That’s a good resolution, Jimmy,’ I said.

  ‘Ith jutht that I can’t alwayth be my betht.’

  ‘But as long as you try, Jimmy, that’s the main thing,’ I said.

  Jimmy smiled, picked up his well-chewed HB pencil and proceeded to write.

  Next to him, Elisabeth Amelia Dudley-Palmer was looking up the word ‘mistakes’ in her Oxford First Dictionary. She gave me a big smile and showed me her book. She had written, ‘I know I make a lot of mistakes but the more I make the cleverer I get.’

  I was beginning to wish I had talked to Jo’s children before making my own resolutions. As I walked out I noticed Joey Wilkinson staring intently up at the map of England on the classroom wall. Puzzled, I glanced down at his exercise book. Joey had written, ‘I am going to be good to my great grandma cos my great granddad died. I asked her where he had gone. She said he’d gone to Devon.’

  It occurred to me that the afterlife could be spent in worse places.

  Meanwhile, at the far end of the village, Petula Dudley-Palmer was in heaven. Thanks to her monthly issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, her prayers had been answered and her New Year resolution was about to be achieved: 1980 would definitely be the year she would become a slim, athletic, bronzed beauty.

  For the tiny sum of £7.95 + 75p post & packing from a far-away address in Surrey her Sensational Sauna Suit had arrived in the post. The suit had been designed by a famous ‘figure-culture expert’ (although it didn’t say who) and was made of soft, pliable waterproof fabric with airtight cuffs and wristbands. She had been assured that the suit would ‘create its own atmosphere’ when she did her exercises. All she had to do was wear it just like the slim goddess in the photograph while she did her dusting and hoovering. Although she had Ruby’s daughter, Natasha, doing a bit of cleaning for her twice a week, she was still left with a few household chores. So, after donning the suit in the privacy of her bedroom, she decided to polish a set of crystal glasses from the cabinet in the lounge.

  * * *

  In contrast, Clint Ramsbottom’s New Year resolution involved a life-style change. The eighties had opened up a whole new world of culinary delights. Supplementing his range of Monster Munch snacks was a choice between a new, revolutionary Golden Wonder Pot Noodle or a Batchelor’s Snackpot (curry and rice with chicken). His Smash Hits magazine told him the eighties would be a decade of sex, drugs and rock and roll. He was encouraged. There were only two left for him to experience. So starting off with a trendy carton of pot noodle certainly seemed a step in the right direction to achieve the status of the new-age man.

  By Friday morning, the Revd Joseph Evans had accepted that his New Year’s resolution was in tatters. Joseph had decided he would make an effort to understand the world of children that up to now had proved to be a secret garden. In the middle of his Bible story with Anne’s class he paused and, with great gravitas, delivered the immortal line ‘And Jonah was swallowed by a whale’.

  Terry Earnshaw’s hand shot in the air. ‘Ah’ve been t’Wales,’ he shouted.

  ‘So ’ave I,’ yelled Molly Paxton, not to be outdone. ‘We stayed in a caravan.’

  And for the next ten minutes Joseph found himself involved in a discussion about caravan holidays.

  During morning break we finished off the last of the Brontë Biscuits. By lunchtime, the boxes of Sarah Bernhardt Butter Cream & Fondant Fancies had been emptied and, during afternoon playtime, Sally shared out the Rich Yorkshire Tea Loaf. By the time Jodie Cuthbertson rang the end-of-school bell my trouser belt was straining and I vowed to begin my strict fitness and diet regime over the weekend.

  Back at Bilbo Cottage, I was looking in my empty fridge when the telephone rang. It was Dan Hunter.

  ‘Hi, Jack. Fancy a pint?’ he said.

  ‘I thought you would be looking after Jo,’ I said.

  ‘No. Her mother’s just arrived and Jo wants me out from under her feet.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Have you eaten?’

  He read my mind. ‘How about a pie and a pint in the Oak about seven?’

  ‘Sounds good. See you there,’ I said. The diet could start tomorrow.

  When I arrived in The Royal Oak, the football team had gathered as usual and Little Malcolm was facing a crisis.

  ‘Ah’m off t’York tomorrow wi’ Dorothy,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’ asked Big Dave abruptly.

  ‘It’s me resolution,’ said Little Malcolm meekly. He looked nervously left and right and then leaned over the table. ‘Shoppin’,’ he whispered.

  ‘Shoppin’ … wi’ a woman?’ exploded Big Dave.

  The whole team stopped supping momentarily and stared at Little Malcolm.

  ‘It’s jus’ that ah promised ’er ah’d go.’

  Then Big Dave gave Little Malcolm the worst insult any Yorkshireman could bestow on a friend – apart, of course, from calling him a southerner. He gave him his ‘big girl’s blouse’ look.

  Little Malcolm recoiled but then tried to salvage some pride. ‘It can’t be that bad, Dave,’ he pleaded. ‘She says it’s t’January sales. Y’get stuff cheap.’

  There was silence as the rest of the football team tried to accommodate the sheer horror of shopping with a woman. Clint Ramsbottom eventually spoke up.

  ‘Ah went shoppin’ once wi’ ’er from t’fish ’n’ chip shop in Easington,’ he announced.

  ‘ ’Er wi’ t’big chest?’ asked his big brother, Shane.

  ‘Y’reight there, Shane. It’s big all reight,’ said Little Malcolm, relieved at the diversion.

  ‘Took two hours t’buy three pair o’ shoes,’ said Clint.

  ‘Two hours?’ chorused the rest of the team.

  ‘An’ nex’ day she took two pairs back.’

  ‘That’s reight, lads,’ agreed Don from behind the bar. ‘My Sheila does that wi’ ’er underwear.’

  Everyone stared once again at the curvaceous Sheila but wisely kept their thoughts to themselves. After all, Don had once wrestled on the professional circuit under the name ‘The Silent Strangler’.

  Dan and I found a corner table and made short work of pie, chips and mushy peas, two bags of crisps and a few pints of Chestnut Mild.

  ‘So have you made a New Year resolution, Dan?’ I asked as we began our third pint.

  ‘Yes,’ he said mournfully. ‘I had such a bad head after our party I promised to give up beer.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked.

  ‘Usual,’ I said defensively: ‘getting fit and suchlike.’

  ‘And how’s it going?’ said Dan, sinking the rest of his pint.

  I emptied my glass slowly and put it down on the table top. ‘I’m starting tomorrow.’

  The next morning bright light pierced my eyelids and I recoiled at the pain. My head was thumping and I decided to drive into Ragley for a black coffee in Nora’s Coffee Shop.

  Three miles away, Anita Cuthbertson, Jodie’s big sister, had the same idea. She was sitting behind the sofa reading her Jackie magazine. For ten pence this was teenage heaven. While the article ‘How not to get talked about’ had been mildly interesting, it was the ‘Problem Page’ that had captivated her attention. The question ‘Should you keep your eyes open or closed when kissing a boy?’ had reverberated round her teenage brain all morning. Suddenly, Anita realized what her New Year resolution must be. But first she had to do some research.
She needed to talk and that meant only one place.

  In the days before mobile phones, opportunities for discussion on the important things in life – namely, boys, music and clothes – were limited. However, in Ragley village the obvious answer was to meet a fellow soulmate in the ultimate forum for village gossip – namely, Nora’s Coffee Shop. So, after watching Noel Edmonds present Multicoloured Swap Shop on BBC1 while she ate a bag of Monster Munch, Anita decided to hurry down the High Street, sit in her usual table next to the jukebox and wait for her best friend, Claire Bradshaw, the cheerful daughter of Don and Sheila Bradshaw.

  I got there at the same time as Anita. ‘Hello, Mr Sheffield,’ she said. Anita had been in my class when I first arrived in Ragley.

  ‘Good morning, Anita,’ I said, ‘and a happy New Year.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Sheffield,’ said Anita. ‘Ah’m gonna work ’ard at school this year – it’s me resolution.’

  ‘Well done, Anita,’ I said as I ordered a jam doughnut and a black coffee from Dorothy behind the counter.

  ‘Do teachers mek resolutions, Mr Sheffield?’ asked Dorothy.

  I looked down at the large, sticky doughnut. ‘Er, sometimes, Dorothy,’ I replied and hurried away.

  Anita put her current favourite record, ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ by the Boomtown Rats, on the jukebox for the umpteenth time, accompanied by a despairing groan from Nora Pratt. ‘Ah’m sick o’ them Boomtown Wats,’ she shouted from behind the counter. ‘ ’Ow about a pwoper song like “Day Twip t’Bangor” by Fiddler’s Dwam?’

  Anita’s expression made it clear what she thought of a day out in a Welsh seaside resort and she hung her sparkly Blondie shoulder bag over a plastic chair. She glanced at the clock above the peeling posters of the Ragley Amateur Dramatic Society’s recent pantomime. The photograph of Nora in her Alpine corset staring appreciatively at Aladdin’s magic lamp, which was actually a gravy boat covered in tinfoil, stared down over the coffee machine. Anita knew with absolute certainty that, once Claire Bradshaw had read the same article, she would make a beeline for Nora’s Coffee Shop to seek mutual solace for her equally troubled teenage mind.

  Behind the counter, Nora Pratt was filling the plastic display case with slightly stale currant teacakes, while her assistant, Dorothy Humpleby, was reading her brand-new 1980 Top of the Pops Annual. For Dorothy it was sixty-four pages of heaven. A photograph of a youthful Paul McCartney was on the front cover and the full-page colour pin-ups of the Bee Gees and Legs & Co would soon decorate her bedroom walls. She was flicking through the features on Blondie, David Essex, The Who, Status Quo, Barry Manilow and Thin Lizzie when Anita placed her order.

  ‘A Milky Way an’ a frothy coffee, please, Dorothy,’ said Anita.

  ‘ ’E’s dreamy,’ mumbled Dorothy, pointing to the photograph of David Essex.

  ‘ ’E’s a bit old f’me,’ said Anita. As Dorothy transformed the splash of lukewarm milk into a bubbling inferno, Anita had a thought: ‘If y’kissed ’im would y’keep y’eyes open, Dorothy?’

  Dorothy looked across to the table where Big Dave and Little Malcolm were enjoying their mugs of sweet tea. Before Dorothy could answer, Nora leaned over the counter. ‘D’you weally want t’know?’ asked Nora.

  Anita nodded vigorously.

  ‘Allus keep ’em open, luv, else you’ll wegwet it. Y’can’t twust men.’

  When Nora returned to the till, Dorothy whispered, ‘Some aren’t that bad, Anita, but mebbe y’ought t’keep ’em open till y’sure.’ Then Dorothy cast a wistful glance at Little Malcolm, who was listening to Big Dave’s complaints about New Year resolutions concerning shopping with women.

  On Saturday evening my fridge was still empty so I drove to the fish-and-chip shop in Easington. By six forty-five I was settled in front of the television, eating a large battered haddock, double chips, mushy peas and four thick slices of white bread. Meanwhile, Jimmy Savile on Jim’ll Fix It was showing me how to eat spaghetti correctly, go tracking with bloodhounds and how to make model trains. This was followed by All Creatures Great and Small and The Dick Emery Show, during which time I enjoyed a Mars bar and a cup of coffee. In Dallas, Sue Ellen was romantically attracted to a lean, fit, rodeo cowboy whose diet appeared to be different from mine.

  It was about that time I realized my resolutions were reluctant ones and I wasn’t destined to become a ‘new-age-eighties-man’. In fact, I was two pounds heavier, felt completely unfit and understanding women was as likely as a knighthood for Bob Geldof.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sex and the Single Teacher

  The Ragley and Morton Weight Watchers Club have hired the school hall from the County Council for their weekly meetings.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Thursday, 31 January 1980

  ‘HE WANTS TO take me to a nudist beach!’ exclaimed Sally.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Vera, presuming she had misheard and almost spilling her Earl Grey tea. She took off her spectacles, polished them vigorously and stared at Sally.

  ‘Colin says he wants to spice up our life,’ said Sally, shaking her head in dismay.

  ‘Did you say a nudist beach?’ asked Anne, almost choking on her garibaldi.

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Jo, suddenly interested and closing her Ladybird Book of the Weather.

  ‘It’s in Yorkshire,’ said Sally.

  ‘A nudist beach in Yorkshire!’ exclaimed Anne.

  ‘Yes. It’s near Bridlington,’ said Sally, staring forlornly at the colourful brochure.

  Anne and I put our coffee mugs down with a nervous clunk on the staff-room table.

  ‘Don’t tell my Dan about it,’ said Jo nervously.

  It was the last day of January and the travel agents in York had begun their annual onslaught on the local population. Scores of assorted holiday brochures had been pushed through the letterboxes of everyone within a ten-mile radius of the city centre.

  However, Sally’s brochure was very different. ‘It’s in here,’ she said and pointed to the cover. Two shapely young women were holding huge, brightly coloured beachballs at a strategic height in front of their supposedly naked bodies. Nearby, two broad-shouldered men with Charles Atlas biceps were setting up a badminton net while standing behind a row of dwarf conifers. Fortunately the conifers were not so dwarf as to expose the parts that would otherwise not see the light of day.

  ‘You don’t look too happy about it, Sally,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘I’m not,’ replied Sally. Her response left everyone in no doubt that this was not the time to pursue Colin’s unusual idea of a romantic holiday for two.

  Vera felt concerned about Sally, who had seemed low in spirits for some time. It was obvious to the women on the staff, if not to me, that everything was not as it should be between Sally and her husband Colin. For several years now, the love of his life had been woodwork and Sally was seeking consolation in the biscuit jar. As the bell rang for afternoon school Sally lifted herself from the chair. ‘And there’s something wrong with my washing machine,’ she said. ‘It shrinks every pair of jeans I put in it.’

  Vera replaced her spectacles and stared hard at Sally. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’m not, Vera,’ said Sally. ‘I really don’t want to be one of the first customers at a nude bathing beach in Bridlington. It’s not my idea of romance.’ Then, suddenly, she burst into tears.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on your class,’ I said and sidestepped quickly into the entrance hall. I knew from past experience that Sally was best left in the capable hands of my ever-dependable secretary. Vera ushered Sally into the school office and the floodgates opened as she told her how fed up she was with life.

  ‘Oh, Vera,’ she said, ‘I’m only a couple of birthdays away from forty and look what’s happened to me.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Vera, offering Sally her handkerchief.

  Sally dried her eyes and then fingered the lacy edge of the handkerchief. ‘When I first met Colin we ha
d such fun,’ she said, staring out of the window. ‘He had long hair then, you know,’ she added with a strained smile. Vera looked suitably surprised. ‘Yes, he did!’ continued Sally, suddenly animated. ‘He was so adventurous and we did lots together. We went dancing … I suppose that helped to keep me slim and active. But then … slowly things seemed to change. He wasn’t as interested in doing anything any more.’ She dabbed her eyes once again. ‘Well, that’s not quite right. He enjoys his woodwork class … but he’s got no time for me.’

  Vera realized this was a time to stay quiet. She smiled gently at Sally, who seemed to gain momentum with the story.

  ‘You see, Vera, I’ve just had enough! I told him to buck up his ideas and get some romance back into our lives or else. And then he comes up with this ridiculous idea. Well, that’s it!’

  Vera’s startled look must have registered with Sally, who shut up immediately and the tears began again.

  ‘Sally, why don’t you come to the vicarage for a couple of days?’ said Vera. ‘It would give you time to think things through.’ Vera had recently read that the number of divorces had reached a peak of 143,000 and she did not want Sally to add to that statistic.

  ‘Thanks, Vera,’ said Sally. She took a deep breath, ‘I think I will.’ Then she dried her eyes, readjusted her tightly fitting skirt, and they both walked back to her classroom.

  Vera nodded at me to indicate all was in hand and Sally gave me a brave smile as she passed me in the doorway. ‘Thanks, Jack,’ she said. When she walked in and stood in front of the blackboard, Sally moved smoothly into teacher mode. ‘Now, girls and boys, please put on your painting shirts.’

  ‘Mr Sheffield,’ said Vera, ‘I need your help.’ Vera was at her best in a crisis and her organization was second to none. ‘I need you to contact Colin and ask him to meet you this evening after work.’ I looked nonplussed. ‘You need to talk to him about getting some romance back into his life.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m the best person to be doing that, Vera!’ I said ruefully, given the lack of success I was having with my own love life.

  ‘With respect, Mr Sheffield, if you say what I tell you to say,’ she replied, ‘you will be fine.’ Vera had that look of absolute confidence about her that I had come to admire.