During one memorable spring term the last two periods of Friday afternoon were given over to ‘Horticultural Studies’, a startling innovation in the curriculum but too good to last. Our form would single-file out to a small allotment at the rear of the school overlooking Coronation Park, where Mr Dickinson would pretend to await us eagerly. With his flat cap, rust-coloured tweed suit and cheeks like wrinkled tomatoes, he was straight out of Ambridge via Thomas Hardy. He spoke in a broad, twinkly Lancashire accent that we all mimicked even when talking to him. I assume that we were meant to learn about gardening and about the growing of vegetables. To develop a sense of wonder at the rhythm of the seasons, the richness of the soil and a respect for the earth and all the treasures therein. Unfortunately, Mr Dickinson may have been a dab hand at the milking of cows and the cutting of corn, but he couldn’t cope with thirty-five Scousers let loose in a field, last thing on a Friday afternoon. Soon wheelbarrows were being pushed at breakneck speed in chariot races, hoes and rakes had become spears hurtling through the air. Fallon picked up a sickle and with great skill pinged it all of twenty yards into a tree trunk beyond the park railings. Then came the Battle of the Potatoes which, although our finest hour, was ultimately to end in defeat.
Mick Cullen spotted a potato in the soil, pulled it out and threw it at Terry Cannon, knocking off his glasses. Potatoes in the ground? This was news to us; until that moment we all thought they grew in sacks. Soon everybody joined in and the sky was fizzing, black with soil and spuds. Friday afternoons had never been so much fun. An organic, GM-free potato in my hand, I was looking around for a soft target when I saw the Angel of Death, Brother Murray, his face the colour of raw liver, flying towards us like something out of The Matrix.
Unfortunately Mick was facing the wrong way and didn’t see Brother Murray pick up a shovel and slam it into his back. The lad went down, dare I say it, like a sack of potatoes. Mr Dickinson was nowhere to be seen. We were screamed at and sent back to class to await the strapping of a lifetime. We helped Cullen to his feet, bruised and shaken (and lucky not to have been seriously injured) and trooped like a defeated army back to the classroom.
We were kept waiting for half an hour, time for the fear to build, the faces to pale and Batty, who would always cry, to cry. Eventually Murray came in, his anger somewhat subsided, but deadly nonetheless. We all lined up and received four strokes each. Lucky, he told us, not to be bent over the desk and beaten till we couldn’t sit down for a week. When it was Cullen’s turn we wondered if Murray, out of a sense of guilt (and the fear surely, that Mick would tell his parents about the assault) would ease up on the lad. Even try and make light of the abuse, which they sometimes did. But no. Four of the best. ‘Let that be a lesson,’ he said.
And it was. A lesson in mindful violence.