03 Dear Teacher Read online

  ‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ agreed Little Malcolm, looking relieved.

  Colin saw me sitting at the same table, walked in and slumped down.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Maybe I should give up woodwork classes.’

  ‘Why not just go on Friday nights and meet Sally for a drink after her Weight Watchers class?’ I was word perfect with my script.

  Suddenly Sally and Jo walked in. Colin looked up in expectation and Sally stared hard at Jo and then me. ‘What’s going on?’ she said.

  ‘We hoped you might like to talk things through,’ said Jo.

  Colin walked up to the bar. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, with the eyes of a homeless puppy.

  ‘Have you?’ said Sally.

  ‘Did you enjoy Weight Watchers?’ asked Colin.

  ‘It was really good,’ said Sally. ‘I’m going to stick at it.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Colin.

  ‘So what have you been making?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Kitchen cupboards.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ll get them down that staircase?’ asked Sally.

  Colin’s eyes widened. ‘Bloody hell, I hope so!’

  Then they burst into fits of laughter.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally,’ said Colin. ‘I want to make it right. The nudist camp idea was stupid.’

  ‘Oh, maybe not,’ said Sally, with a mixture of relief and mischief in her eyes.

  Jo and I smiled at each other and walked away, while Colin and Sally talked as if they had a lot to catch up on. By ten o’clock they left together, hand in hand. Colin had parked his car on the other side of the village green, near the school gates. On one of the pillars was a large handwritten notice which read: Weight Watchers – please use the double doors at the side of the hall.

  Sally and Colin burst into laughter, climbed into their car and roared home.

  Back in their tiny kitchen, Colin prepared two mugs of Horlicks. ‘I’m going to give up woodwork,’ he said, taking two biscuits out of the biscuit barrel and then, as an afterthought, replacing them.

  Sally gave him a hug. ‘Being single didn’t suit me,’ she said with a grin.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Colin.

  They went upstairs and Sally placed the nudist camp brochure on the shelf in her wardrobe where she could find it again. It was then she noticed a certain book she hadn’t read for a long time. She picked it up, flicked through the pages and smiled.

  Chapter Twelve

  Look Before You Leap

  School closed today for the spring half-term holiday and will reopen on Monday, 3 March.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Friday, 22 February 1980

  AS I DROVE towards Ragley village on the winding back road from Kirkby Steepleton, the plain of York was still in the grip of winter. Snowflakes drifted like north wind confetti, weightless in the pale beam of the headlights, while a vast darkness lifted reluctantly from the frozen earth. It was Friday morning, 22 February, and the half-term holiday was almost upon us.

  ‘G’mornin’, Mr Sheffield,’ shouted Ruby as she swept the snow from the steps in front of the entrance porch. Ruby’s headscarf was tightly knotted under her chin and her breath steamed in the cold morning air.

  ‘Good morning, Ruby,’ I shouted across the car park. ‘And how’s Ronnie?’

  ‘ ’Ibernatin’,’ said Ruby in disgust, as she clattered her yard broom against the school wall to shake the snow from the bristles. ‘ ’E allus does in winter.’

  Suddenly Sally drove through the school entrance. Sally and Colin had bought a new second car and her ‘S’ registration, dark-blue Ford Fiesta bumped over the frozen cobbles and parked next to mine. Her old zest for life had returned.

  ‘Morning, Jack. Morning, Ruby,’ she said, as she grabbed her shoulder bag, filled with exercise books, and scurried up the steps into the entrance hall.

  In the staff-room, Vera picked up a third of a pint milk bottle, shook it to mix in the cream and removed the foil top. Then she poured the milk into a small saucepan and began to heat it over our single electric ring. ‘Coffee, everybody?’

  ‘Yes, please, Vera,’ chorused Anne and Jo, who were sitting by the gas fire and checking the half-yearly reading-age figures for each child of seven and under.

  ‘Did you notice the holiday includes a leap-year day?’ said Vera, pointing with a wooden spoon at the calendar on the staff-room noticeboard.

  Jo looked up. ‘Dan said something about it being a day when women could propose to men.’

  ‘Sally will know,’ said Anne, putting down her Berol pen.

  As usual, Sally, our resident historian, was a fund of information. ‘Dan’s right, Jo,’ she said. ‘It all began with St Patrick. He started the tradition when St Bridget complained that women were fed-up having to wait for men to pluck up courage to propose.’

  ‘Not like my Dan, then,’ said Jo confidently.

  Little did she know it but, at that moment, Dan was cursing her down at the local police station. Jo had misguidedly bought her six-feet-four-inch policeman-husband a bottle of Macho by Fabergé, a powerful new scent for men, much to the amusement of his less-liberated colleagues.

  Undeterred, Sally pressed on. ‘Eventually, a law was passed in Scotland in 1288,’ she explained. ‘It allowed women to propose to men. If they refused, they had to pay a fine.’

  ‘Sounds a good idea,’ said Anne.

  ‘Quite right,’ agreed Sally. ‘Refuse and you pay a fine. Accept and you pay for an engagement ring.’

  ‘It might be the night for me then,’ said Vera. Sally, Anne and Jo looked at one another in surprise. ‘Only joking,’ added Vera with a smile.

  The morning progressed quietly except in Jo Hunter’s classroom, where the Revd Joseph Evans was leading a Religious Education lesson on the theme of Lent. He explained that Lent lasts for forty days and forty nights, from Ash Wednesday to Easter, the time spent by Jesus in the wilderness. He then explained the concept of self-denial, a tough task with seven-year-olds.

  ‘Does this mean we can’t ’ave Easter eggs?’ asked Heathcliffe, who was rapidly emerging as Class 2’s equivalent of Arthur Scargill.

  ‘Yes, you can have Easter eggs,’ said Joseph.

  Elisabeth Amelia Dudley-Palmer, one of the few who had been paying attention, raised her hand. ‘It’s because Jesus rose again on Easter Sunday,’ she said.

  ‘ ’E prob’ly didn’t want t’miss out on ’is Easter egg,’ said Heathcliffe.

  The bell for morning break was always a relief for Joseph.

  By lunchtime Vera had completed all her paperwork, tidied her desk and put the tin of late dinner money in her shopping bag to deposit at the bank. ‘Enjoy your holiday, everybody,’ she said and drove away with Joseph to Easington.

  On this freezing day, Shirley had made one of my favourite school dinners – mince and dumplings followed by gooseberry crumble and custard – and I felt content when I walked into the staff-room for a cup of tea.

  The telephone rang and Anne picked it up. ‘Yes, Laura, he’s here now,’ she said and passed over the telephone, while my colleagues began to drink their tea in complete silence.

  ‘Jack, I just need to check if you’re free next Friday,’ said Laura. She sounded in a hurry.

  ‘Er, yes, I should be: it’s half-term.’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Laura. ‘Just leave the whole day free.’

  ‘Why? What’s happening?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ she said. ‘Let’s just say it’s a nice surprise,’ and she rang off.

  The conversation round me recommenced and I was left to wonder what Laura was planning. She had certainly captured my interest.

  It had been a busy half-term and at the end of the school day we all gathered in the staff-room to say goodbye.

  Sally had spent 35p on this month’s Do It Yourself magazine and was flicking through the pages. ‘It’s for Colin,’ she said, look
ing in bewilderment at the article on how to build an antique pine bookcase. ‘I thought he would enjoy it. There’s a free filler knife, so it looked like a bargain.’ She stuffed it in her bag. ‘Don’t worry, I still prefer Cosmopolitan,’ she added with a grin.

  Jo gave Anne a lift home and Sally, who was meeting Colin outside the Odeon cinema to see Bedknobs and Broomsticks, sped off towards York. I decided to make the most of the peace and quiet of the school office and catch up with a few hours of paperwork. With Ruby singing ‘Edelweiss’ while she mopped the hall floor, I completed a report for the school governors and, finally, added another entry into the school logbook. I had just written ‘School closed today for the spring half-term holiday and will reopen on Monday, 3 March,’ when the telephone rang. It was Laura again.

  ‘Hi, Jack. It’s all fixed,’ she said excitedly. ‘I’ll pick you up at Bilbo Cottage at ten o’clock next Friday and have you home again by early afternoon.’

  ‘So, what is it?’

  ‘Let’s just say you’ll find it an uplifting experience … and I guarantee it will be fun!’

  ‘Well … er, thanks, Laura, whatever it is,’ I mumbled.

  ‘So just wear casual clothing – jeans and a sweater will be fine – and I’ll see you then.’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like to reciprocate, so maybe we could go for a meal in the evening as a thank-you from me?’

  ‘Perfect, Jack. Let’s do that.’

  ‘So where would you like to go?’

  ‘How about the Dean Court?’

  ‘Oh, well … er, OK. I’ll book a table for seven o’clock.’

  ‘That’s lovely. See you on Friday.’

  ‘OK. ’Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  I stared at the receiver and smiled. Laura was definitely different.

  I looked at my watch. I was tired and hungry and The Royal Oak beckoned. I locked the door behind me, breathed in the cold night air, wrapped my old college scarf a little tighter round my neck and fastened the top toggle of my duffel coat. Then I climbed into my car and drove out of school with a week’s holiday stretching out before me. I wondered what Laura had planned for the following Friday and smiled in expectation.

  The Royal Oak was welcoming and warm with a roaring log fire and I ordered a pint of Chestnut Mild and a hot meat pie. Don the barman had switched on the television in the taproom and assorted members of the Ragley Rovers football team were staring blankly at a strange man who was standing next to one of the new television-detector vans.

  ‘The anti-television-licence-evasion scheme begins on 25 February,’ said the grey-suited, bespectacled man with the appearance of a mad scientist. ‘Our television-detector vans incorporate the latest technological innovations,’ he continued smugly. ‘The detector consists of a highly sensitive receiver and a directional aerial array mounted on the roof of the minibus body.’

  ‘Who’s ’e?’ mumbled Deke Ramsbottom. Deke was wearing a black armband, upset at the news that John Wayne had died at the age of seventy-two.

  ‘Yeah, what’s ’e on abart?’ asked Big Dave.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Little Malcolm.

  The mad scientist was building up to the big finish. ‘Television receivers work on the supersonic heterodyne principle. Energy from this signal escapes from this receiver in the form of radio waves. By examining the radiations generated in the frequency-changing process, they can discover the programme that is tuned to and the television’s location.’

  There was a stunned silence.

  ‘So what’s all that about?’ asked Clint Ramsbottom.

  Don cleaned a pint glass thoughtfully with a York City tea towel. Then he placed the glass on the counter, put down the tea towel and leaned over the bar. ‘Tell me this, Dave,’ said Don: ‘ ’ave you an’ Malcolm got a TV licence?’

  ‘Y’mus’ be joking,’ said Big Dave.

  ‘Y’joking all reight,’ echoed Little Malcolm.

  Don shook his head sadly. ‘Lads, ah’m not joking.’

  ‘So what’s it all about, then?’ asked Deadly Duggie Smith.

  ‘Yeah, what did Brainbox ’ave t’say, then?’ asked Shane Ramsbottom.

  ‘D’you want me t’tell y’gently?’ asked Don.

  Big Dave and Little Malcolm nodded.

  ‘ ’E says you an’ Malcolm are stuffed.’

  Big Dave stared at Don uncomprehendingly. ‘ ’Ow d’yer mean, Don?’ he asked.

  ‘You lads need t’buy a TV licence, ’cause they’ll find you if you ’aven’t.’

  ‘Bloody Nora!’ exclaimed Big Dave.

  Little Malcolm just shook his head, which at least made a difference from nodding.

  ‘Remember this day, lads,’ continued Don. ‘It’s t’beginning o’ t’end. Big Brother’s come t’Ragley.’

  The holiday flew by and, on Thursday morning, I decided to drive into school to complete an audit of the contents of the stock cupboard and send off a new order to the educational suppliers in Wakefield. We were running short of powder paint and sheets of A3 paper. Anne had been tearing up old wallpaper sample books to provide paper on which her children could paint their wonderful creations. We also needed a few more rolls of sticky-backed plastic to cover our precious but increasingly well-thumbed Ginn Reading 360 reading-scheme books.

  The road into Ragley village was lonely and quiet but Mother Nature was trying to lift the spirit and give hope for better days ahead. Hazel catkins shivered defiantly in the bleak hedgerows and the tiny yellow stars of winter aconites brightened the dark woodland. As I drove into the school car park, icy blasts rattled the grey slate roof tiles and flurries of snow settled in curve-stitching patterns on the Victorian windowpanes.

  After an hour of silent endeavour I switched off the staff-room radio, even though the Nolan Sisters were telling me they were in the mood for dancing. I definitely wasn’t. On this cold morning what I really needed was a coffee. I pulled on my duffel coat and scarf and walked out of school.

  I hurried across the High Street and, as I opened the door of Nora’s Coffee Shop, Stan Coe was on his way out and barged past, nearly knocking me over. ‘Mind where y’goin’, Sheffield!’ he shouted gruffly.

  The place was almost empty and Dorothy had come round the counter to sit with Big Dave and Little Malcolm. ‘Tek no notice of ’im, Mr Sheffield,’ said Dorothy. ‘ ’E’s the sort that doesn’t put t’top back on t’sauce bottle.’ In the catalogue of rebukes, this was obviously a serious one and I nodded in agreement.

  Meanwhile, Big Dave and Little Malcolm had a problem to solve. On Friday night it was the refuse collectors’ annual ball at the Working Men’s Club in York and this year the organizers had stipulated that fancy dress should be worn. Dave had suggested that he and Malcolm should put on their best suits and go as the Kray twins, but, much to his disgust, Little Malcolm had invited Dorothy to be his partner and she had jumped at the chance.

  ‘What we gonna do, Dave?’ asked Little Malcolm.

  ‘Shurrup. Ah’m thinkin’,’ said Big Dave.

  ‘ ’Ow about still goin’ as t’Kray brothers,’ suggested Little Malcolm, ‘wi’ Dorothy as a gangster’s moll?’

  ‘Ah don’t remember no molls,’ said Big Dave gruffly.

  ‘Oooh, Malcolm, ’ow about we go as super’eroes?’ said Dorothy excitedly. ‘Ah can wear m’Wonder Woman outfit an’ you can go as another super’ero.’

  Little Malcolm had never thought of himself as a superhero. He was just a vertically challenged bin man with a big heart. His only claim to fame was that he could always finish on a double three at darts and play ‘Mull of Kintyre’ on his harmonica. He didn’t think this would frighten many inter-galactic psychopaths.

  ‘ ’Ow about Superman? Ah’ve got a lovely pair o’ blue tights,’ said Dorothy. Big Dave shook his head in anguish, Malcolm went a shade of puce and Dorothy considered Little Malcolm’s legs. ‘An’ ah could tek ’em up a bit,’ she added helpfully.

&nb
sp; Little Malcolm stared at the ground and gradually came to realize that true love can have a strange effect on bin men, even ones that were only five-feet-four-inches tall and born and bred in Yorkshire. He craned his neck and stared up at Dorothy’s false eyelashes. They fluttered just once and, even though he knew he was destined to look a complete prat, all resistance left him. ‘All reight,’ he mumbled.

  Big Dave gave Little Malcolm his ‘southern softie’ look. ‘Ah’ll jus’ go as one o’ t’Kray twins, then,’ he said with exaggerated pathos.

  ‘OK, Dave,’ said Malcolm. Dorothy gave him a hug and for a delicious moment, Little Malcolm was completely but pleasantly deaf.

  ‘ ’Ave y’got any red underpants?’ asked Dorothy.

  ‘Y’what?’ asked Little Malcolm in a muffled voice.

  I smiled as I watched the effect true love could have on the most unlikely of men. However, by the time Dorothy had walked back behind the counter, Little Malcolm had considered his future role as Clark Kent, Man of Steel. The only consolation he could think of was that on the night of the party it would be dark by six o’clock.

  It was leap-year day and the weather was bright and clear. At precisely ten o’clock my doorbell rang and there stood Laura. Her high cheekbones were flushed with the biting cold and she looked simply wonderful in her tight Burberry jeans, blue denim shirt, green denim jacket and a red neckscarf tied in a knot.

  ‘You look amazing,’ I said.

  She grinned. ‘It’s nothing really, Jack – we’re just promoting the Ralph Lauren Western Collection. It’s the latest casual gear.’

  I grabbed my anorak and college scarf and we walked out to her Mini Clubman. Laura drove at her usual breakneck speed towards York but then I was intrigued as we headed south through Stillingfleet and Cawood towards the aerodrome on the outskirts of the tiny village of Kirk Fenton.

  When we reached the red-and-white-striped security barrier we stopped and waited. Almost immediately, from a nearby hut stepped a tall, rangy pilot officer with a severe military haircut and a neat salt and pepper moustache. He looked about forty years old with clear blue eyes and his baggy flying suit flapped in the cold breeze as he walked towards me. The Perspex pockets above each knee flashed in the morning sunlight. Two thick white stripes separated by a single thin stripe against the pale-blue background of each epaulette marked him out as a squadron leader. The guard on duty saluted with elaborate formality, while he responded with curt acknowledgement.