03 Dear Teacher Read online

  When I arrived, Anne was showing Sally and Jo a smart programme with a dark-blue cover. On the front it read,

  York Festival & Mystery Plays

  6–30 June 1980

  Sponsored by the Midland Bank

  President: HRH The Duchess of Kent

  Vice-President: The Marquis of Normanby, CBE

  ‘My friend said it was absolutely wonderful and she gave me this programme,’ said Anne. ‘So how about it?’

  ‘Count me in,’ said Sally.

  ‘I’ll come, but Dan’s working,’ said Jo.

  ‘How about you, Jack?’ said Anne. ‘We’re going to the Mystery Plays on Thursday night.’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘I’ve not been since I was a schoolboy.’

  Every four years the York mystery plays were performed open-air in the city and attracted huge audiences. Born in the Middle Ages, these ‘mystery’ or ‘craft’ plays flourished throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the people of York had carried on the tradition.

  ‘I see Christopher Timothy, the actor from All Creatures Great and Small, is in it,’ said Sally, scanning the long list of actors.

  ‘They usually have somebody famous as the lead part,’ said Anne.

  Sally looked at the back of the programme. ‘It says here that the De Gray Rooms in Exhibition Square will be open from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. throughout the festival and, if you have a meal, you get a concessionary ticket for 50p. So why don’t we all meet there?’ Everyone nodded in agreement. ‘What about John?’ asked Sally. ‘Do you think he might go?’

  ‘John’s not one for watching plays,’ said Anne sadly, ‘but he might be interested in the scenery.’

  ‘So are you organizing the tickets, Anne?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I’ll check with Vera this afternoon and book them tonight,’ said Anne. ‘I’ll ring Beth, shall I, Jack? I’m sure she’d love to go.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I said, but I missed the smiles exchanged between the three women.

  At lunchtime, Sally asked if she could slip out of school to go to Dr Davenport’s surgery on the Morton Road. She explained she needed a pick-me-up and I asked her if she would get one for me as well. She seemed preoccupied and didn’t get the joke.

  The rest of us relaxed over a cup of tea in the staff-room when Vera arrived following a busy morning at her cross-stitch class in the village hall. She immediately began to replenish the black ink in the drum of the Gestetner duplicating machine and we all watched in admiration. Vera was the only person who could achieve this task without getting her hands covered in ink.

  ‘I’m looking forward to the mystery plays,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid Joseph won’t be able to join us. He’s involved in an ecclesiastical conference in York all this week and he says he won’t be able to take his Religious Education lessons.’

  I guessed Joseph was probably relieved.

  I decided to do my Bible story during afternoon school and quickly understood Joseph’s frustrations when I came to mark the children’s exercise books. Eleven-year-old Frankie Kershaw had written ‘Moses went up Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments but he died before he got to Canada’, while ten-year-old Cathy Cathcart informed me that ‘the group who followed Jesus was called the twelve decibels’. I knew that to be a good teacher of young children you had to understand their world. As I put a small red question mark in the margin, I reflected that you also needed a sense of humour.

  After school, I stayed late in the office to begin my end-of-year reports for the children in my class until seven o’clock, when I decided to call into The Royal Oak for a quick meal on my way home. I hadn’t been shopping at the weekend and my kitchen cupboards were empty again.

  At the bar, Sheila was in heated conversation with Stevie ‘Supersub’ Coleclough. ‘What you on about?’ shouted Sheila, pointing at the plate of food she had put on the bar. ‘That’s proper mince, that is, straight from Piercy’s Butcher’s in the ’Igh Street. There’s none finer.’

  Stevie looked dubiously at the mince-and-onion pie, chips and peas, covered in delicious gravy. It made my mouth water.

  ‘It said in t’paper them scientists in London were mekking it from beans,’ said Stevie. He pointed to a headline in a Yorkshire Post that had been left on the bar.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Stevie. ’Ow can y’mek mince from beans?’ grumbled Sheila.

  Stevie blushed scarlet, picked up his meal and wandered away to join the rest of the Ragley cricket team. Big Dave was the captain and was haranguing his followers about his latest concern. ‘Handbags for men … they’ll be wearing earrings next!’

  Everyone agreed instantly and with equal contempt, except for Clint Ramsbottom, who stared into the haze of cigarette smoke and thoughtfully fingered his left ear.

  ‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ agreed Little Malcolm somewhat belatedly. Malcolm’s thoughts were elsewhere. He had his eye on a car. While the local council turned a blind eye to Big Dave and Little Malcolm using their bin wagon for personal business, Malcolm knew deep down in his heart that Dorothy Humpleby would be far from impressed if they turned up at their next dance in a three-ton refuse wagon. On Victor Pratt’s forecourt, Malcolm had seen a 1250 cc. bright-green, two-door Deluxe 1973 Hillman Avenger with a sticker in the windscreen marked £795. This was a fortune to Little Malcolm but he thought his big cousin might chip in.

  ‘An’ what can ah do f’you, Mr Sheffield?’ said Sheila. ‘Yer looking tired.’

  ‘Just a half of Chestnut and the same as Stevie, please, Sheila. It looked lovely.’

  ‘Ah like a man wi’ a good appetite,’ said Sheila. ‘Ah’ll bring it t’yer table.’ With a wiggle of her skin-tight leather miniskirt she disappeared into the kitchen.

  I picked up the Yorkshire Post, found a quiet table away from the jukebox and began to read an article entitled ‘Snap, Crackle and Stop’. It said that fifty Yorkshire folk had been asked if they wanted morning television and most of them had said no. Currently during the early morning there was nothing on television except for the Open University on BBC1 and BBC2 up to 7.55 a.m. and, on ITV, programmes for schools and colleges began at 9.30 a.m. So the idea of breakfast television seemed strange.

  Sheila arrived with my meal and leaned over my shoulder to look at the newspaper. ‘What y’readin’, Mr Sheffield?’ The smell of her scent was overpowering.

  ‘It’s about breakfast television, Sheila.’

  ‘How d’you mean, breakfast television?’

  ‘Well … it’s television at breakfast time.’

  ‘That’ll never catch on, Mr Sheffield,’ she said, ‘unless y’put on Hawaii Five-O when ah’m slippin’ out o’ me negligée.’

  ‘You’re probably right, Sheila,’ I said, quickly dispelling the image that had sprung into my mind.

  I tucked into my meal and scanned the end of the article. ‘Ah’m too busy mekkin’ ’is breakfast,’ a certain Mrs Cynthia Clack of Thirkby was reported to have said. It was clear that breakfast television would have a hard time catching on in Yorkshire.

  * * *

  On Thursday at six o’clock I pulled up outside Beth’s house and she hurried down the path and jumped into my car.

  ‘Thanks for the lift, Jack,’ she said. ‘It was difficult getting out of school so quickly.’

  Beth was wearing an elegant floral-print, calf-length dress with a neat braid trim on the collar and looked stunning. She carried a fleece on her lap in anticipation of the temperature dropping as the night wore on. I was aware of the heady scent of Rive Gauche perfume as we sped into York and, once again, I knew contentment.

  It was a perfect summer evening, warm and still, and the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey were bathed in sunlight. After meeting in the De Gray Rooms for a hasty summer salad, Anne, with a slightly bemused John Grainger in tow, gathered us together and we walked into the Museum Gardens.

  Sally had brought a bag of sixpences and used them all to buy everyone an ice-cream cornet with a flake in it. The ‘
tanner’, worth two and a half pence, was about to go out of circulation and Sally had collected a jarful of the small silver coins over the years.

  ‘Isn’t this the most perfect setting?’ said Jo. We found our seats, enjoyed our ice creams and looked in admiration at the imposing stone walls and arched windows of the ruined abbey. Traditionally, it was against this dramatic setting that the mystery plays were performed.

  ‘It used to be a Benedictine monastery,’ said Sally, ‘but in 1270 it was almost totally destroyed by fire.’

  ‘Clever how they’ve built the scenery round it,’ said John, ‘and it’s well-built: just look at those dovetail joints.’

  ‘Pity Colin’s not here – you could have compared notes,’ said Sally with a grin.

  I glanced at Beth. She had put her fleece over her shoulders. ‘Are you warm enough?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m fine, Jack,’ she said. ‘It’s good to be here.’

  The summer sun was beginning to bleach her honey-blonde hair once again and, in the evening light, she looked beautiful.

  To the accompaniment of the Rowntree Mackintosh band, the actors walked across the grass and the drama began. The plays were meant to represent the history of the world from God’s creation to the Last Judgement. We watched, spellbound, as God created heaven, earth and hell and then witnessed the angel Lucifer’s fall from grace. It was hard to believe that the ordinary artisans of the Middle Ages had the skill to create such wonderful plays along with beautiful stained-glass windows and the mighty cathedrals of England.

  Eventually, all the audience were invited to sing ‘Jerusalem’ and, as the sun gradually sank behind the nearby St Olave’s Church, the peacocks, wandering free in the grounds, screeched in accompaniment.

  It was a tired but happy group who said goodnight and Beth and I set off for my car in Marygate. Far from the footfalls of the evening city, we walked hand in hand with calm conviction through the Museum Gardens.

  * * *

  On Friday morning, as I drove towards the school gates, I saw Heathcliffe Earnshaw sitting on the village green. He had filled an old Tizer bottle full of water and dropped in a liquorice shoelace. Then he screwed on the cap and shook it until his teeth rattled. Finally, he stared hard at the grubby-looking liquid. It had definitely changed colour. Then, he wiped the snot from his upper lip, unscrewed the bottle and lifted it to his lips. Like a connoisseur of fine wines he swirled it round his mouth and then, unlike a connoisseur, he swallowed it. With a satisfied nod of appreciation he screwed on the cap. Perfect, he thought. For Heathcliffe, this was a typical start to a day.

  I parked my car, hurried across the playground and bumped into Jimmy Poole. ‘Hello, Jimmy. What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah’m thuckin’ a thweet, Mithter Theffield,’ replied Jimmy. ‘Ith a therbert lemon. Would you like one?’

  I recalled my mother telling me never to refuse a present from a child. ‘Yes, please, Jimmy.’ I walked into the entrance hall, popped the sweet into my mouth and, in doing so, broke one of my own school rules.

  Sally was using the phone in the school office. ‘I’m just ringing to check the results and whether or not I need a prescription,’ she said.

  It sounded personal so I walked through to the staff-room.

  ‘ ’Morning, Jack,’ said Anne, adding two more labels to the collection box on the staff-room table. The Ragley scout group was saving Golly labels from Robertson’s jam and marmalade jars in order to provide camping equipment and we were all eating vast quantities to support the cause.

  ‘ ’Morning, Anne,’ I said, but she had already gone.

  There was clearly something going on in the school office, so I walked in. Sally was sitting at Vera’s desk, staring at the telephone receiver. ‘What’s Colin going to say?’ she murmured to herself.

  ‘Life’s a mystery,’ said Vera with a smile. ‘You never know how it will turn out.’

  ‘Well … you’ve all guessed, I suppose,’ said Sally.

  ‘The pineapple chunks certainly got me thinking,’ said Anne with a smile and she squeezed Sally’s hand.

  ‘Pineapple chunks?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Sally!’ exclaimed Jo and almost jumped over the desk to throw her arms round her.

  ‘Pineapple chunks?’ I repeated.

  Vera gave Sally a hug. ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she said.

  ‘What’s all the fuss about pineapple chunks?’ I said. ‘Oh, I remember now, Sally: you’d lost them.’

  ‘Yes, I had, Jack, but it’s not important now.’

  ‘Personally, I prefer tinned pears, especially with vanilla and chocolate ice cream,’ I said.

  The three women stared at me as if I was from another planet.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Jack, I think Sally might have some news for you,’ said Vera.

  Sally nodded and looked at me in the way women look at men when they genuinely feel sorry that their intuition and sensitivity were surgically removed at birth. ‘Jack … I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant!’

  ‘Yes, Jack,’ said Sally.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Er, well … er, well done,’ I spluttered.

  ‘Thanks, Jack,’ said Sally with a straight face. Then all four women burst into hoots of laughter.

  It was a strange Friday. Colin left work as soon as he heard the news and rushed into school. After an emotional, tearful conversation with Sally he sped off back to work to take all his colleagues for a liquid lunch. Ruby professed to have known for the past month, owing to her vast experience in all things maternal, and Shirley the cook brought in a tray of home-made biscuits, still hot from the oven, at afternoon playtime. I volunteered to do playground duty and Vera, Anne, Jo, Ruby, Shirley and even Shirley’s assistant, the fiercesome Mrs Critchley, could be heard laughing as Sally recounted the recent events in her life.

  She told them she had read in an early edition of Cosmopolitan that Michael Parkinson had said that the most beautiful thing a man can do for a woman is have a vasectomy. Even the prim Vera laughed and was secretly pleased that Colin hadn’t read that particular article in Sally’s magazine.

  That evening, driving home, I felt happy for Sally. She had found contentment and the gift of a child. As I walked into the hallway of Bilbo Cottage it occurred to me that life doesn’t have to be a mystery. Perhaps you just have to ask the right questions.

  Fortunately I knew Beth’s telephone number off by heart.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brass Bands and Butterflies

  The Parent–Teacher Association has organized a day trip to Robin Hood’s Bay on Saturday, 28 June, to support the Ragley and Morton Brass Band.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Friday, 27 June 1980

  THE BUTTERFLY HOVERED in the single shaft of sunlight and one pair of eyes followed its every movement. Amelia Duff gripped her programme tightly and stared at the flying insect. But there was no peace in the eyes that followed the beating of its multicoloured wings.

  The village hall was full and, sitting in the row in front of me, the Revd Joseph Evans was nodding his head in time to the music. Next to him, Vera peered at the side of the stage and stared intently at Amelia. Then she followed Amelia’s gaze until she saw the tiny butterfly, hovering with flickering wings by the open window. Finally, a gentle smile of understanding crossed Vera’s face. Then she turned back to the brass band and tapped her beautifully manicured nails on the side of her Marks & Spencer’s handbag in time to ‘We All Live in a Yellow Submarine’.

  It was Thursday evening, 26 June, and the Ragley and Morton Brass Band were having their final practice before Saturday’s annual Brass Band Festival at Robin Hood’s Bay on the beautiful east coast of Yorkshire. This was a big event in the village calendar and the Parent– Teacher Association had organized a coach party to go and support them.

  The band comprised a disparate group of villagers and a motley collection of cornets, tenor horns and trombones, as
well as Ernie Morgetroyd’s battered euphonium and the ancient flugelhorn played by his brother Wally. The youngest member of the band, thirteen-year-old Wayne Ramsbottom, who had been in my class two years ago, comprised the entire percussion section.

  Sadly, their closing rendition of ‘Abide With Me’ lost some of its inherent beauty each time Wally sneezed and sprayed enough germs to infect the conductor and the entire front row. Peter Duddleston, the eloquent band leader and local bank manager, put down his baton on his elaborately decorated music stand with its brightly embroidered cover and turned to address the audience. ‘Thank you for your support and let’s hope for a sunny day on Saturday.’

  * * *

  It wasn’t until Friday lunchtime that Saturday’s trip to the seaside cropped up. Predictably, Joseph was looking downcast when he walked into the staff-room after his weekly Religious Education lesson. He put his pile of Class 1 notebooks on the coffee table, picked up Jodie Cuthbertson’s book, opened it and read out loud, ‘God must have big hands because Jesus sits on his right one.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘Where am I going wrong?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry, Joseph,’ said Vera reassuringly, ‘tomorrow we have a trip to your favourite seaside resort.’ With that, she cleared her desk and gathered together the huge collection of letters and packages that had to be posted to County Hall in Northallerton. The official paperwork seemed to increase week by week but today the pile was larger than usual and Vera stacked the letters and packages in a large cardboard box.

  ‘Come on, Vera,’ I said, picking up the box, ‘let me help. The fresh air will do me good.’

  We walked out of the school gate, turned left under the avenue of horse-chestnut trees, skirted the corner of the village green and crossed the High Street. Next door to Diane’s Hair Salon was the Post Office with a red telephone box outside. Blocking the Post Office doorway like a flying buttress was the huge frame of a very disgruntled Mrs Winifred Brown.

  ‘Five pence f’telephone calls! It were only two pence las’ year,’ shouted Mrs Brown, rummaging in her purse for loose change.