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Monday came, and the morning sky was grey, grey as Greengate on a sunny afternoon.
Billy rose early and was ready when David Priestley called to take him to St Chad’s Church for 7.30 Mass. As they were setting off, Mam called from the scullery:
‘On your way back from church, I want you to call at the Jewish bakery and buy threepenn’orth of reject bagels or buns or whatever they’ve got.’
In the vestry of St Chad’s, David showed Billy how to put on a cassock and a cotta, making a few fussy adjustments as if dressing a dummy in Lewis’s window.
‘There,’ he said finally. ‘St William of Cheetham.’
The two boys lit the altar candles, and processed with Canon Calder, the parish priest, into the silent old church. At that time in the morning it had an eerie atmosphere, their footsteps on the terrazzo-tiled floor echoing round the empty building. Empty, that is, except for two devoted worshippers: old ‘Brother’ Kelly, whose private ‘silent’ devotions sibilated round the near- deserted nave; and silver-haired Sally Sweeney, who was noted for her dedicated attendance at all church services, including weddings and funerals. Especially
funerals, which were her favourite.
The Canon’s voice reverberated round the hollow church as he intoned the beginning of the Mass:
'In nomine Patris , et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen I
David responded with a fluency born of long practice. Five minutes into the Mass, he caught Billy’s eye and gave him a broad grin and a meaningful nod. The priest turned to face the congregation of two.
‘Dominus vobiscuml
‘Dominus, have the biscuits come?’ Billy said quietly.
Giving a big wink in Billy’s direction, David responded, 'Et cum spiritu tuol
‘Yes, and the spirits too,’ Billy mouthed.
A minute later, the priest whirled round and raised his arms.
‘Kyrie eleisonl
Sotto voce , Billy replied, ‘Carey a licence,’ whilst David, grinning even more broadly, answered correctly: 'Kyrie eleisonl
'Christe eleison, said the priest.
‘Christy a licence,’ said Billy, adding under his breath, ‘But it’s Abie who needs the licence.’
The rest of the ceremony passed without incident, and Billy watched and imitated everything that David did, enjoying the experience immensely.
‘At the end of the week,’ David said, on the way home, ‘the Canon gives us sixpence if we’ve served our quota. Then there’s tips from weddings and funerals. Funerals are the best, ’cos not only do you get good tips but also a ride home in a big black limousine.’
‘It seems quite easy, David.’
‘I told you it was easy. And it will get easier still as you go along. Just follow in my footsteps and you’ll be OK.’
‘I’ll try to do that,’ Billy said.
They parted and Billy went to the Jewish bakery. He waited around for twenty minutes or so, then bought a big bag of bagels and seeded buns for threepence.
At home, he found the usual breakfast chaos. His brothers argued and bickered amongst themselves whilst Mam made toast, one piece at a time, by holding a round of bread, speared on an ordinary dinner fork, up to the bars of the living-room fire. Every weekday morning it was the same. She burned the thumb of her right hand, while the boys fought and squabbled noisily over who was first in line for the piece of toast due to come off the assembly line.
‘The next one’s mine!’ wailed Sam as Mam threw a finished piece on to the table.
Jim was too fast for him and snaffled the toast with practised ease.
‘Workers first,’ he said.
Sam’s whining reached fever pitch:
‘Aw, that’s not fair. Mam. I’ve been waiting I don’t know how long for that piece. It was my turn and now he’s rotten well swiped it.’
‘Shurrup, the lot of you,’ yelled Mam, her thumb resembling a well-done steak. ‘Shurrup. I’ve only got one pair of hands.’
‘I’m fed up of this rotten house and this rotten lot. That was my piece of toast.’
‘Shurrup, I said,’ Mam shouted, and she winged Sam a beauty across his left cheek.
Sam’s whingeing took on a new urgency.
‘Go on,’ he howled, turning the other cheek. ‘Hit the other side now!’
Mam duly obliged by landing a second slap right on target.
It was at that juncture that Billy, bearing buns and bagels, arrived like the relieving US cavalry.
‘I saw you in church yesterday listening to that sermon,’ Billy said as he deposited the provender on the table. ‘You shouldn’t do everything that the Bible tells you, ’cos sometimes it tells you some funny things like if your eye looks at something bad, you’re supposed to pluck it out. Next thing we know, you’ll be walking around like Lord Nelson!’
There was a loud knocking at the front door.
‘Glory be t’God!’ said Mam. ‘Who can that be at this time o’ the morning? I hope it’s not her-next-door on the cadge for sugar or summat. Go and see who it is, our Les.’
Les was back in a minute.
‘It’s the postman. He sez he has an unstamped letter for us. There’s a double surcharge or summat on it.’
‘Now who can that be from?’ Mam said, puzzled.
She went to the door to find out. The boys heard the postman say:
‘Sorry, Mrs Hopkins. There’s no stamp on it, though someone’s tried to draw one in pencil there in the corner. Anyroad, the charge is double, I’m sorry to say. That’s twice three-halfpence, making threepence due altogether.’
Mam took three pennies from her purse and paid up. She came back into the living room still perplexed, carrying the surcharged letter.
‘It’s addressed to “Master Samuel Hopkins”. Here, it’s yours,’ she said, handing over the letter.
Billy and Jim had gone strangely quiet and were grimacing at each other as Sam, wearing a confused expression, opened up his mysterious letter.
‘Well, what does it say?’ Mam asked.
‘It says: “Dear Sam, You are daft and potty. From your brothers Billy and Jim.” ’
‘You daft devil, Billy,’ said Jim. ‘I told you to put it in the letter box of the door, not the pillar box at the corner of the street.’
‘Right, you pair of daft buggers,’ said Mam. ‘You can both pay me threepence each for worrying me like that.’
This incident was only one of many against Sam, who had been cast in the role of family scapegoat. The other boys enjoyed baiting him, because he never failed to oblige them by reacting in exactly the way they had hoped. One of Dad’s gramophone records began, ‘And it’s Pom! And it’s Pom! Pom! Pom! Pom!’Whenever they were short of entertainment, they had only to chant, ‘And it’s Sam! And it’s Sam! Sam! Sam! Sam!’ for him to reward them by throwing a fit of purple rage. He was also the most faddy kid in the family. And that was saying something, for they were all a fussy lot as Grandma McGuinness had rightly asserted. Jim was chief tormentor, especially in the matter of food, for it usually meant an extra helping for him. Whenever there was meat pie for dinner Jim always sang - sotto voce, of course:
‘Our John Willie's got scabby eyes,
A dirty snotty nose,
And he makes meat-pies'
On cue, Sam would begin yowling:
‘I can’t eat this pie now, Mam. Our Jim’s put me off.’
This morning’s breakfast scene was no different from usual.
‘Right,’ said Mam. ‘No more toast. I’m fed up burning me hand. Get stuck into the buns!’
Jim was leaving for work, but as he hurried through the door, he found time to say:
‘See all those little bits of things on the buns?’ indicating
the poppy seeds. ‘Rats’ droppings from the bakery!’Then he was gone.
‘Can’t eat ’em now!’ Sam wailed. ‘I’m fed up in this rotten house. If it’s not our Jim putting me off everything, it’s everybody going on about Billy and how brainy he is. Right, I’ve tried all that stuff about turning the other cheek. From now on, it’s gonna be “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”!’
After breakfast, Billy looked at the clock. It was already quarter to nine. He hadn’t realised how much time he’d spent at church and queueing up for bagels. Being late at St Chad’s was serious and meant the strap. Mr Thomas’s rules were inflexible; no exceptions - no excuses.
Henry Sykes had told Billy that if you put a single horsehair on the palm of the hand, there was no pain. This morning, in anticipation of the strap which was sure to follow, he took precautions, extracting a strand from their horse-hair sofa before running as fast as his legs would carry him to try to beat the nine o’clock deadline. He arrived at the school gate at 9.02 and found the headmaster waiting with a queue of latecomers already lined up.
‘Right, all of you. In to morning assembly,’ he ordered.
Billy was lined up with six others on the stage in front of the whole school.
‘Now,’ announced Mr Thomas, ‘Charles Dickens has a character called Mr Micawber who says “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and sixpence, result misery.” In this school, arrival eight fifty-nine, result happiness; arrival nine oh one, result misery.
‘Now, in this world, being on time, being punctual, is one of the most important things in life. A great French
king once said: “Punctuality is the politeness of princes.” But there is a lot more to it than just politeness. Oh, yes. Everything depends on being on time: the rising and setting of the sun, the moon, the stars, the tides. Our great British industry and our commerce all depend on it. The factories and the mills must start on time; the trains, the trams and the buses all must run on time. If you go to catch the nine o’clock train and you arrive at five past, it’s too late, lads. The train has gone! Remember this, boys: “Punctuality is the soul of business.” I read the other day that a man called Lucas said: “People who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.” That might be true where he comes from, but not here, not in St Chad’s school!’ -
He turned to the first latecomer:
‘White, you were late every day last week. What’s your excuse this time?’
‘Please, sir, me mam forgot to wind the alarm clock up.’
‘Remind your mother then. Hand out!’
Thwack. White shrugged his shoulders impassively.
‘Next. Hardman, what’s your excuse?’
‘Please, sir. Please, sir, I had to go to the lavatory and I had to wait me turn.’
‘Be first in the queue next time!’
‘But please, sir, I have five brothers and I’m the youngest.’
‘No excuse. Hand out!’
Thwack. A cry of ‘Ow! Ow!’
‘Tarpey! What have you to say for yourself?’
‘Please, sir, I had to wait for me mam to finish patching me keks.’
‘We don’t say “keks” in polite society, we say “trousers”. Anyway, it won’t do. Hand out!’
Thwack. A yelp.
At last it came to Billy’s turn to have his excuse assessed.
‘Hopkins, you’re not usually late. What excuse?’
‘Please, sir, I served half-past-seven Mass and then I had to get the family breakfast from the Jewish bakery.’
‘Not good enough. You should set off earlier. Hand out!’
Surreptitiously, Billy managed to stick the horse-hair on to the palm of his right hand. Mr Thomas brought the tawse smartly down and then, spotting the hair, looked Billy straight in the eye.
‘It doesn’t work, lad,’ he said. ‘Now hold out your other hand for trying to deceive your headmaster!’
Smarting from the burning pain, and blowing and shaking each hand in turn, Billy joined the main body of the school for prayers.
‘Oh Lord, send me here my purgatory,’ he recited with the others.
After prayers, Mr Thomas gave his little talk, as he did every morning.
‘There was once a father with six sons. One day he made them all bend down and he covered them over with a big sheet. Then, even though they hadn’t done anything wrong, he started belting them with a big strap. He didn’t know which one he was belting as they were all hidden under the sheet. Very unfair, you all think. But when he’d finished, he took the sheet off them and said: “Let that be a lesson to all of you for the rest of your days. Life is very unfair and it’s no good moaning about it. You have to learn to take the knocks and the blows even when you haven’t done anything and you don’t deserve them. Remember - that’s life!”
‘Now, we’ve come to the end of another school year.
Today the school will break up at dinnertime instead of the usual four o’clock.’
The school could not restrain a loud cheer in spite of the glares and cuffs of the supervising teachers. For most of them, school was a prison with no court of appeal and no time off for good behaviour. The lucky kids, they thought, were those who were off sick or in hospital with TB.
‘We shall return to school after the holidays on Monday the thirty-first of August. During the holidays, keep out of mischief and try not to get yourselves killed.’
Then, in military fashion and in time to Miss McGurk’s rendering of ‘Christ the Lord is risen today!’ on the old battered piano, the various classes filed out to their classrooms.
Seated two to a desk and in absolute silence, Billy’s class waited for Miss McGurk to make the trip from hall to classroom. In this five-minute period, the ink monitors seized the opportunity to make their rounds, filling the ink-wells with their watery, freshly made-up ink. Then their mistress arrived.
Miss McGurk was the most feared and hated teacher at St Chad’s. She was an Irish teacher of the old school - stern, unbending and often cruel as a disciplinarian. She was about forty years of age and she wore flat, sensible shoes and carried with her everywhere a massive leather handbag. On her lip - unlike Miss Gibson - there was no hint of a moustache. No hint. It was a definite moustache. All the kids in the class, except the very tough ones - like Stan White - lived in mortal fear of her, and some of them were nervous wrecks, their fingernails bitten down to the quick. On her desk she had a brown strap always hot from use, and she hit out on the flimsiest pretext and
sometimes when there was no pretext. It was rumoured that in the locked drawer of her desk she had a green strap which she had had specially made up for her in Ireland. When it came to straps, this, it was said, was the jewel in the crown, the mother of all straps. Punishment with this piece of Irish leather was reserved for specially evil crimes, like swearing, farting, playing with oneself or making too many blots or mistakes. Some of the kids were mental defectives or of very low intelligence. It didn’t matter. She made no allowance for handicaps.
She began by calling the register to make sure no one had escaped. At the same time, she checked on Mass attendances, which were recorded on a chart on the classroom wall. She lifted the lid of her desk and took out a box of Sharp’s toffees and a tin of chocolate biscuits. The kids in her class watched her every move like dogs waiting for their meal. The first name always to be called was one of her special favourites.
‘Flewitt!’
‘Nine o’clock Mass and Holy Communion, miss.’
‘Excellent, Joey. Here you are - one toffee and one biscuit. And another gold star for you!’
Flewitt went out to the front, collected his reward and stuck a small star on the long row of gold stars he had already accumulated against his name.
‘Hopkins!’
‘Nine o’clock Mass and Holy Communion, miss.’
‘Very good, William. A toffee, a biscuit and a gold star.’
Billy accepted his prizes and placed his star on his row of mixed gold and silver honours.
‘Sykes!’
‘Nine o’clock Mass, miss.’
‘Why weren’t you at Communion?’
‘ ’Cos I swallowed a little bit o’ water, miss.’
‘You were quite right not to go, Henry. Listen, class. There was once a little boy who swallowed a drop of water when he was brushing his teeth and he thought it didn’t matter so he went to Communion anyway. On the way home from Mass, he was knocked down and killed by a bus. Where do you think he is now?’
‘Burning in hell,’ the class chorused - all impressed and moved not only by the story of the little boy’s tragic death but also by that bit about the boy brushing his teeth, since none of them possessed a toothbrush - as the school dentist would have confirmed.
‘Right, Henry. One toffee and a silver star. White!’
‘Never went, miss.’
‘Not “never went”, White, but “didn’t go”! Why didn’t you go?’
‘Miss, since me dad left us, me mam sleeps with me uncles and they never wake up in time.’
‘You mustn’t tell us about your uncles here. And you must learn to get up yourself. Get out here and hold out your hand!’
The brown strap whacked White’s hand.
‘Now go and put a black star against your name.’
Stan White did so. When it came to his personal record of stars. White was all black.
In St Chad’s school, there were many tough kids. None came tougher than Stan White, who had raised swearing and blaspheming to an art form. His dad had run off with a younger woman the year before, and his mam had had to go on the game in order to support her young family. Stan was nearly nine and already streetwise and the senior male in his family. Not only was he cock-of-the-class, he could fight many of the older boys in the two classes above. He was scared of no one and was incorrigible. At playtime he would, for a ha’penny, let anyone have as
many whacks at his hands as they wished with a strap that he had stolen.
Only one punishment scared him - Miss McGurk’s ladder! It was the equivalent of walking a pirate’s plank. The classroom had a high ceiling with a trap-door to the loft. Leading to this there was a ladder permanently in position.
‘Up there in the roof,’ Miss McGurk had told them, ‘it is very dark and there are hundreds and hundreds of rats ready to gnaw the very eyes out of any boy who’s sent up there. If I find anyone in this class being sinful and wicked, up there he goes, I promise you!’
It was the one threat that worked, for even the hardest kids in the class quaked at the thought of being made to climb that ladder.
‘You never go to Mass,’ barked Miss McGurk at Stan White. ‘Call yourself a Catholic? A Whit Friday Catholic is all you’ll ever be. Who knows what a Whit Friday Catholic is? Hands up!’
The very term ‘Whit Friday’ was enough to trigger off powerful memories in Billy’s mind.
Whit Week walks! These were an annual affair and a most important event in the school’s calendar. Every year, about three or four weeks before Whit, all the Hopkins boys were taken to Mays’, the pawnbroker’s and outfitter’s on Rochdale Road, to be kitted out: new shoes and stockings, grey breeches, a brightly coloured elastic belt with a hooked clasp, a new white shirt and a silk tie, a beautiful navy-blue blazer with an embroidered emblem on the pocket, and to crown it all, a new cap with the letters ‘SC’ emblazoned on the front. Billy didn’t know how it was all paid for - perhaps by weekly payments, but then his mam didn’t believe in the never-never.
Whit Monday was for Protestant processions. If it was sunny, the Protestants said: ‘God knows his own!’ and if it rained, ‘God waters his little flowers!’ Catholics used the same expressions - it was one of the few things they had in common.
Whit Friday was reserved for the Catholics, and for them it was a public demonstration of faith. Churches from all over the Salford diocese blew the dust off their banners, statues, crucifixes and display floats, and brought them out of storage. These were decked and covered in a profusion of beautiful flowers, ribbons and gaily coloured silks.
When the St Chad’s processors gathered outside the school in preparation, Billy stood open-mouthed with awe and wonderment at the utter splendour and beauty of the people and the pageantry of the occasion.
Here were the scrubbed-faced young boys - Stan White among them - newly suited, hair gleaming and plastered flat with barber’s hair oil, and each with a bright-red sash tied around his torso like an ambassador; the small girls in their brightly coloured silks; the young ladies in their bridesmaid’s dresses and long white gloves; the teachers with their unaccustomed well-groomed, shining look; and the parish priest in black suit and gaiters, silk topper and silver-headed cane.
And when the proud banners bearing the St Chad’s legend, and the silken streamers held by the beautiful maidens were raised, when the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was lifted on to the decorated carriage and the Children of Mary took up their positions, when the schoolchildren were arranged in military order by the teachers, then Billy’s heart swelled and overflowed with pride that he belonged and was part of such an august body of people!
The band struck up with ‘Colonel Bogey’ and they were on their way!
Down Cheetham Hill they flowed like tributaries as other churches joined them, and other bands struck up with rival tunes. Forward marched the glorious procession, swelling to even greater lengths as church after church merged. St Chad’s, Corpus Christi, St Anne’s, St Boniface’s, St Malachy’s, St Patrick’s, Was there no end to these churches from such far-flung places as Blackley, Miles Platting and Ancoats? On down Corporation Street, along Market Street, the thronging crowds cheering and shouting tumultuously - ‘Keep your ’ead up, son!’ and ‘Swing yer arms, our Billy!’ - as they made their way majestically to Albert Square. From time to time a proud mother would break away from the cheering bystanders and rush out to her son or daughter to give advice and thrust money or sweets into their hands.
Finally they reached Albert Square, where a vast multitude - beyond anything Billy had ever seen or imagined - had assembled. Then the strains of ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ broke out and that massive crowd stopped its excited gabble, men and boys removed their hats and, standing to attention, everyone joined in the hymn - many moved to tears and sobbing at the sheer emotion of the scene.
Faith of our Fathers, living still In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword;
Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy
when e’er we hear that glorious word!
Faith of our fathers! Holy Faith!
We will be true to thee till death,
We will be true to thee till death.
★ ★ ★
Then there was the anti-climax of the slow and somewhat wistful march back to school, and the final dismissal. Back home to Honeypot Street to be told to get ‘them new clothes off sharpish’ and to see them stored in the wardrobe, where they had now become the new Sunday best. So, rather deflated and dejected, they went back to their normal routine and play, though without much enthusiasm.
In the pubs in town, however, heavy drinking and sentimental speeches were the order of the day. There were declarations of undying faith and loyalty to the Holy Mother Church from men, and sometimes women, who had not been near a church in years. A wrong word, though, in the wrong ear and a powder keg would be ignited and drunken brawls would explode: ‘No man is going to insult my church or my religion! Take that, y’idiot!’ Thus was born the expression ‘Whit Friday Catholic’.
‘Please, miss,’ said Billy now, in answer to Miss McGurk’s question. ‘It means someone who never goes to church but says ’e’s a Catholic on Whit Friday.’
‘That’s right, William. Someone who claims once a year to be a Catholic - usually in a pub in order to start a fight.’
Miss McGurk set the class to learning about baptism from the catechism whilst she sat at her high desk and tackled the daily calculation of register totals. It was a task she did not find easy, and she squirmed and shifted position several times, inadvertently revealing a little of her thighs as she did so.
White, who was sitting in the front row and
immediately in front of her, had a first-class view. Suddenly he turned to the class, leered and said in a loud whisper:
‘Blue today, lads!’
‘Who said that?’ she snapped angrily. ‘Was it you, Sykes?’
‘No, miss. Honest to God, miss.’
‘Don’t take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Then it must have been you, White!’
‘Me, miss?’ he exclaimed in feigned innocence. ‘Not me, miss. I wouldn’t look up your clothes, miss. Honest!’
‘Well, it was either you or Sykes. Was it White who said it, Sykes?’
‘I think it might have been, miss. But I’m not sure,’ said Henry, not wishing to take the blame for something he hadn’t done.
‘Right, White. I’ve had enough of you and your impudence. Up the ladder you go. See what colour the rats are, since you’re so interested in colour.’
White had indeed turned white.
‘Please, miss, I won’t do it again. Honest. Please, miss.’
Miss McGurk was adamant and unforgiving.
‘Up you go. White. You filthy beast!’
Stan began the slow ascent up the ladder whilst the class, spellbound with horror, had become still and silent.
‘Keep going, White!’ she bawled. ‘Right to the top!’
White was now terror-stricken at the thought of the rats waiting in the loft above.
‘Please, miss. I promise never to look up your clothes again. I promise I won’t tell anyone the colour of your knickers. Honest to God, miss. Please, miss.’
‘Very well. You may come down this time. But if I ever catch you doing anything like that again ... I promise you . . .’
Stan returned to his place, but when an opportunity arose, he turned to Henry, showed him a clenched fist and whispered:
‘You wait till playtime, Sykes. You’re gonna get thumped for tellin’ on me.’
Miss McGurk turned to the class, who were still mesmerised by the Stan White drama.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to have been learning your catechism. What is Baptism? You, Flewitt!’
‘Baptism,’ answered Flewitt, ‘is a Sacrament which cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians, children of God, and members of the Church.’
‘Good. Does it have to be a priest that baptises you or can anyone do it?’
‘Anyone can do it in an emergency,’ answered Billy. ‘You could even use tea or beer if there was no water handy.’
‘Right. But let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that. Now. What do we promise in Baptism? You, White!’
‘We promise in Baptism, miss,’ he said, ‘to renounce the devil and all his work and pimps.’
After religious instruction, Miss McGurk turned to her favourite subject and her favourite method of torturing her charges - mental arithmetic. She began:
‘I went to the greengrocer’s and I bought: three cabbages at a penny three farthings; two pounds of potatoes at twopence halfpenny; a pound of apples at twopence three farthings; a pound of carrots at a penny halfpenny; a pound of onions at a penny farthing. Right. How much change did I get out of half a crown? You, Campbell!’
The hapless Campbell was one of those pupils with no fingernails, and as far as he was concerned, mental arithmetic may as well have been advanced calculus.
‘Please, miss, I don’t know. Would it be fourpence ha’penny?’ he said, making a wild stab at the answer.
‘It would not. Get out here!’
Carrots Campbell went out to take his punishment like a man - as did many others in that lesson. The one thing they seemed to be learning was fear and the arbitrary nature of pain and punishment. Maybe Mr Thomas had been right.
Cuffing and clouting also accompanied the handwriting lesson - and handwriting meant copperplate script with lots of whirls, curls, loops and flourishes. Great store was set by having a good hand. The trouble was that writing was done with standard issue pens and the watery ink which the monitors had put into the inkwell of each desk. Nibs had a dual purpose, since they could be used either for writing or for dart-throwing, and, even though they inevitably wore out, it was almost impossible to obtain a replacement, with the result that attempts at calligraphy often resulted in scratches and ink blots.
‘Handwriting time!’ Miss McGurk announced. ‘Copy the first two verses of “Daffodils” from your poetry books into your English exercise books!’
In fairy tales, King Midas had the misfortune to turn everything he touched into gold. For many of the St Chad’s kids, everything they touched turned into an ink smudge. They already had grubby hands to start with, and they seemed to drip ink from the ends of their fingers like monsters in a science-fiction story. Add to this the fact that many of them trembled with nervousness and it was easy to understand why their exercise books were a mass of blots and blotches. Miss McGurk did her best to help by walking up and down the rows administering blows with shouts of‘You donkeys! You dafties! You dolts!’ causing the ink-drippers to be even more nervous and
Billy Hopkins
prolific. ‘Campbell,’ she yelled. ‘Your writing looks as if a swarm of ants has escaped from your inkwell and walked all over your exercise book without wiping their feet!’
Creative writing followed.
‘See that funny mark on the blackboard?’ she asked. ‘Tell me what it reminds you of! You first, Shacklady!’
Shacklady was a mental defective with a hare-lip and a ferret-like face, and in all fairness he should have been in a special school.
‘It reminds me of a funny mark on the blackboard,’ he answered.
‘Out here!’ she bawled. ‘I’ll teach you to be funny in my class!’
The brown strap swished and found its mark - twice.
By this time Billy was panicking and put his hand up in desperation.
‘Please, miss, it reminds me of a man looking out to sea watching the white, screaming seagulls skimming the tops of the waves.’
Tears sprang to Miss McGurk’s eyes. She went to her capacious handbag and pulled out a Sharp’s caramel.
‘Here you are, William,’ she said. ‘For you. You should go a long way one day.’
‘Yeah,’ said Stan White. ‘To Timbuktu.’
‘Out here, White!’ said Miss McGurk.
At playtime, the kids were turfed out and the teachers retired to their staffroom to recover their strength and their spirits. St Chad’s playground resembled Strangeways prison yard with its high wall topped with broken glass embedded in cement. There was normally a teacher acting as a warder on duty, but as this was the last day of term, they had all gone to celebrate the event with a glass of sherry in the staffroom.
OUR KID
Billy was playing a game of ‘Which-hand-is-it-in?’ with Henry when Stan White strode up to them, held out his fist and said:
‘Right, Sykes, you’re in for a good thumping for telling on me.’
‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Billy. ‘Leave him alone. McGurk made him tell.’
‘Keep outa this, Hockey. It’s nowt to do with you. S’none of your business.’
‘Henry’s me pal. So I’m making it me business.’
As soon as he said this, an excited and expectant shout went up from the other kids in the vicinity: ‘A fight! White and Hockey! A fight! A fight!’
White pushed his shoulder against Billy’s and snarled:
‘Wanna start something, Hockey? I can lick you easy.’
Billy pushed back and said:
‘Oh, yeah. Y’couldn’t lick a toffee apple.’
‘I’m warning you - you gonna get a knuckle butty. I’ll mollycrush you.’
‘Oh, yeah. You and whose army?’
‘Scram, Hockey, afore I spit in your eye.’
‘You’re just a big mouth, Whitey. If your mouth was any bigger, you wouldn’t have no face left to wash. That’s all y’are - just one big mouth!’
‘Say that again, Hockey, and I’ll paste you.’
‘Big mouth! Big mouth!’
In an instant the two boys were grappling with each other and rolling over and over on the stone flags, clinging to each other like wild cats. Panting like two steam engines, they tugged and tore at each other’s hair and jerseys, and Billy forgot all his boxing lessons as he tried to gain the upper hand on his savage, flailing opponent. By some miracle, he managed to roll away, get to his feet and adopt his Len Harvey stance. Now his blood was up.
‘Get up, Whitey, and fight fair.’
White struggled to his feet, and as he did so, Billy rapped him on the forehead with three rapid straight jabs - rat-a-tat-tat.
White’s face registered complete amazement, as well as a purplish swelling above his right eye. With a roar, and with arms opened wide as if to embrace him, he charged at Billy. As they wrestled about, White kicked Billy in both shins and followed this with a head-butt. Billy’s nose began to bleed, but he managed to land a right hook on White’s jaw. Then he felt himself being held back by a strong hand on the scruff of his neck.
‘Right, you two. Enough,’ shouted Mr Woodley, the deputy head. ‘Go and wait outside the staff room for Mr Thomas.’
Holding his head back, Billy stemmed the blood from his nose with his hanky and, accompanied by White, whose face was looking none too good, went to await Mr Thomas’s dispensation of justice.
As the two boys waited, they could hear through the half-open door of the staff room the voice of Mr Kinsella, who was in charge of Standard 5 and the most popular teacher in the school:
‘For the past ten years, I’ve been a jailer in a children’s prison. It’s been my job to clamp down their bubbling energy and to chain them to their desks for six hours a day. You can see in their eyes that they hate school, for it’s only when the bell rings at four o’clock that their eyes light up with delight at the thought of getting away from our clutches for a few hours. Did you notice how they cheered when they were reminded that today is the start of the long holidays? We pump rubbish into one ear and watch it come out the other. What’s that old rhyme again?
OUR KID
Ram it in! Cram it in!
Children’s heads are hollow.
Jam it in! Slam it in!
Still there’s more to follow!’
‘Most of the kids from this school are going to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water”,’ argued Miss McGurk. ‘I treat them all with loving kindness but I think it doesn’t do to go putting ideas into their heads.’
‘But that’s what we get paid for,’ replied Mr Kinsella.
‘I think Miss McGurk’s right,’ said Mr Thomas. ‘I see our job as bringing a little order and discipline into their disorganised lives and . . .’
He noticed Billy and Stan White standing at the door.
‘What have you two been up to?’ he asked. ‘As if I can’t tell. Who won? Never mind, I don’t want to know. As it’s the last day of term, you can go. I think you’ve punished each other enough. The school nurse is coming round the classes just now so you’d better let her have a look at your injuries. Now, be off with you.’
Heaving great sighs of relief at the unusual leniency, the two boys went back to Miss McGurk and the last lesson of the day. It was the one they hated most - music!
Before the dreaded lesson began, the school nurse came into the class and did a quick check on all the kids’ heads, looking for any lice or nits that might be lurking there, or ringworm that might have developed since her last visit. Billy always wondered why the nurse never examined Miss McGurk’s hair for nits, as she was just as likely to have acquired a few from her wards.
When it came to his turn, his nose-bleed had stopped and so special attention was not required. But the visit of the nurse had at least delayed the start of the music.
On the blackboard, Miss McGurk had painstakingly
drawn music staves on which she had written various notes of music - quavers, semiquavers, crotchets, dotted crotchets, minims, dotted minims - all Double Dutch to the kids in her class.
‘We shall start by clapping out the rhythms you see I’ve written up on the board. Ready! Now!’
The class began clapping but they could tell it wasn’t right by the way she screeched at them:
‘No, no, no! You set of donkeys! You imbeciles! Try saying it with me! Ta. Ta. Ta. Tay. Ta-a-a-tay. Ta-ta-ta-ta tay.’
But to no avail. The kids just did not understand what they were required to do. Miss McGurk flipped her lid.
‘Right. We’ll try again,’ she screamed in an apoplectic frenzy. ‘Anyone fooling about gets the green strap!’
‘Ta-tay. Ta-tay. Ta-tay,’ chorused the class nervously.
‘Ti-tee. Ti-tee. Ti-tee,’ chanted White, unable to resist the challenge and curiosity of a new experience offered by the much-vaunted green strap.
‘You’ve asked for it, White. Get out here!’
She went to her desk drawer and withdrew the dreaded green strap. There was a gasp of excitement and horror at the sight of the Irish tawse which, up to this point, had existed only in myth and legend.
‘Hold your hand out, White, and see how you like this!’
White held his hand out to the side and, with professional proficiency, waggled it about in a jerky, seesawing motion, making it very difficult for Miss McGurk to hit the target accurately. The first whack was slightly off course and clipped the tips of his fingers, causing even that hardened character to cry out in pain. The second stroke, however, missed his wobbly hand altogether and struck Miss McGurk on the thigh, sending her into a paroxysm of rage.
OUR KID
‘Out! Out! Get out! Go home! You vile wretch! And don’t bother coming back!’ she shrieked.
Whitey slunk to the classroom door, but before he disappeared he gave the whole class a cheeky grin and a broad wink.
‘See you next term, miss,’ he said as he departed.
After he had gone, the class was joined by boys from Standard 6 and 7, and the real music began as they worked their way through their repertoire of sea shanties. They sang them all with great gusto and enthusiasm: ‘Hearts of Oak’, ‘Shenandoah’, ‘A-roving’, ‘Drunken Sailor’ and the great favourite with them all, ‘Bobby Shaftoe’.
‘One day,’ said Miss McGurk, ‘some of you will join the Royal Navy and maybe have the privilege to fight for the British Empire and all that she stands for. Remember these shanties then, boys, and cherish them.’
Thus ended the term and the academic year at St Chad’s Elementary School.