Letters to Peter Gwendolyn 2

Another in the series of angst-ridden teenage poetry , dear readers…

This offering was written when I was 15. It is predictably juvenile. However, it illustrates two basic principles developing that are staples of my adult moral code: teamwork and civil disobedience.

I was a fringe member of the school football team. One of the older players had recently been excluded from school when it came to light he had been living outside the school’s catchment area for some period of time. The squad planned a walk-out from lessons in protest. At an arranged time we would all make our way to the large lawn in front of the school. Many other students took part in sympathy. My memory tells me that hundreds walked-out with us but this is likely to be sentimental.

Simultaneously and coincidentally, my outstanding history teacher had been teaching us about the student protests of the 1960s. It was the initial challenge to the small town, conservative values that had been instilled in me since birth.  The seeds from that class continue to blossom today.

The two events collide in this piece written a week before my 16^th birthday.

 

The Return (Walk Out)       -May 1, 1978

A very chilly breeze blew

when a young boy’s dream became reality.

And numbers were few

in spite of a few’s creativity.

 

And I wonder why I took part.

Was it for militancy?

Or reliving a dream?

Or just to be spiteful?

Or to be one of the gang?

Who knows and who cares?

 

Wild rumours spread so fast

under the green and blue.

And quite often I thought of the past

as I floated in seventh heaven

I really didn’t care at all.

 

Wide open skies

and beautiful girls

watching the flag fly.

Ask yourself; what are you doing out here again?

I can’t remember.

I didn’t expect this kind of heaven

the day we returned to 1967.

 

Cheering crowds from all walks of social life

chanting similar causes.

Bearing the cold and the strife,

uniting for separate causes. 

 

Keep the Faith,

 

The Head

The Oxfam Run

Today I tackled the second job on Mrs Head’s long standing list of chores to do. “Clean out the aquarium” is now crossed out but some clever clogs had drawn a skull and cross-bones next to it. The girls took the news of Bubbles and Vanilla’s demise better than I had feared. One of my daughters (the one who wants to be a veterinarian but only if the animals are not sick) confided, “Bubbles and Vanilla, I didn’t know what their names were.”

Regardless, I am pleased to report, that today’s chore-related death toll stands at ZERO.

Job number two on the list was to take several unwanted boxes of assorted clothes, toys and books to Oxfam. For the uninitiated, Oxfam stands for Oxford Famine Relief. It is charitable endeavour that occupies low-rent properties and is staffed by volunteers. They receive donations of unwanted household goods (like those in the boxes Mrs Head has been wanting out of the flat for a month now) and sells them on to the public. The principle is that there is very little overhead and the profit is ploughed straight into African famine relief.

Oxfam is a good cause and I am happy to do something, albeit small, which provides direct action in response to the latest famine to strike the Horn of Africa. Dear readers, I hope you are familiar with the situation in that part of the world. If, by chance, your news diet consists solely of Brad and Angelina and Justin Bieber, please take a moment to find out more about the famine here.

Despite the self-esteem boost that the charity drop-off gives me, it is countered by two issues I have with the Oxfam experience.

First: Oxfam’s location. The shop is located at the top end of our street. However, our street is medieval and has never evolved from its original, narrow layout.  Oxfam sits on the northern edge of the ancient lane, where the road narrows even further. Therefore parking is a nightmare. Traffic markings on the antiquarian pavement warn motorist not to stop. Indeed to do so means that traffic cannot pass by. It is that narrow.

The boxes to be donated were heavy and plentiful in number. I asked my two youngest daughters if they would like to break the 30 day period of national mourning for Bubbles and Vanilla and help me do the Oxfam run. They baulked momentarily until I took a fake phone call from a starving child in Africa.

“What’s that young child in Africa? You have no food and are starving to death? Well I would like to help you but I need two people to help me shift the boxes. My daughters can’t help because they want to watch reruns of America’s Next Top Model. But don’t you worry little African child. I will take the boxes up to Oxfam myself, even if I have to do it one item at a time. I won’t let you down. You just hang in there because it is going to take me hours with no help…Hello?…Hello, little African child? No! Please don’t cry.”

Two minutes later the girls were carrying the boxes to the car.

WE managed to pull over to the side of the lane. A chorus of beeping horns stirred behind us. I jumped out of the car and held my Black Berry aloft to an irate taxi driver. “I’m dropping off stuff for Oxfam, I got a little starving African child on the phone right here. You want to tell him he will get nothing to eat because you can’t wait two minutes? Huh?!”

This brings me, dear readers, to the second reason I rue the Oxfam trip.

A few years back Oxfam started to become a chic and trendy place to shop. Champagne socialists could synchronise both their ethics and their need for designer labels by scouring the rails for hidden gems. Oxfam staff soon wised up and some branches now stock primarily premium donations only. In the old days the charity was grateful for any donations. Now a volunteer screens each incoming box. Those deemed to fall short of the required quality mark are refused.

I stood in the doorway of the shop, car horns filling the air. In my outstretched arms I held the box out for the quality control officer to check. Being one who hates rejection, I was more concerned that our junk would not be of a sufficient standard rather than creating a massive central London traffic jam.

It was the Man from Del Monte moment: waiting for the donation to be approved. I gestured with my eyes that the boxes’ content was in fact, quality. Finally, the squat inspector nodded and directed me to leave the boxes. I turned to hug my daughters. Accepted! We had been judged righteously; the man from Del Monte said, ‘Yes.’

Outside I motioned my thanks to the long queue of motorist waiting for me to unblock our street. I shouted out to the taxi driver, “Those two minutes probably saved an African child’s life.” The cabbie leaned out of his window and shouted back, “Why don’t you skip a meal and send him that, fat boy!”

Two hours later and already one of the books we donated is in the Oxfam shop’s window display. The price sticker reads £5.99. I stop myself before I regret not putting it on Ebay.

So the second chore was complete: a small act of kindness. I hope our few boxes of unwanted clothes, books and toys are like a pebble dropped in a lake. I hope the ripple effect from the radiating circles reaches all the way to Africa. I hope the effort goes someway to balancing the karma of yesterday’s fish massacre. I am pleased my daughters chose righting social injustice over Tyra Banks.

But I feel bad that I lied to my two girls. I decide that I must confess to them or risk sullying the whole exercise, the whole lesson in helping others.  “It wasn’t really an African child on the phone you know. I was pretending”

Keep the Faith,

The Head

The Untimely Death of Bubbles and Vanilla

Legend has it that when a wolf began eating the good townsfolk of Assisi, St Francis walked into the woods and did a deal with the beast. In exchange for regular food, the wolf would cease from attacking people. It was peace in our time.

I killed half of our pets this afternoon. It was an accident but it doesn’t make it sit any easier. If it goes to trial, I will plead I was trying to be a Good Samaritan.

Mrs Head has been (repeatedly) reminding me to clean out the aquarium before we leave for the party island of Ibiza. Today was the day I decided to surprise her when she came home from work by actually doing at least one of the jobs from the long list she posted on the refrigerator door. Therefore my procrastinated intentions were sound.

As I lifted the aquarium I heard it crack. Water started trickling from its base. Waltzing it into the bath tub, I transferred our two ghost carp; Bubbles and Vanilla to an empty 2 litre Coke bottle. Frantically I tried to repair the leak but the story does not end well, dear readers. Bubbles and Vanilla didn’t make it as I couldn’t get enough air into the coke bottle.

My two youngest daughters are very attached to all our pets; 2 cats and 2 fish. Well, 2 cats anyhow. The girls are out for the day and I am now thinking how to break the news to them upon their return. One of my daughters has expressed an interest in being a veterinarian; but only if she doesn’t have to work with sick or suffering animals.

Simultaneously, I am clearing away the evidence. I will tell the girls that I buried Vanilla and Bubbles next to their other dear departed fish; Speckles. In reality the two ghost carp (now appropriately ghost-like), are making their way through the London sewer system following a ‘burial at sea.’

The aquarium is gone from the place it has occupied for the past decade. I think they are going to notice. I might go for the Bobby Ewing/Dallas argument and tell them it was all a dream- there never was an aquarium.

Mrs Head is looking at me disapprovingly and shaking her head. I keep saying out loud, “I wiped out half of the girls’ pets in one afternoon.” Mrs Head is wondering why the powers-that-be entrust me with the safety of 506 children at work.

I carry the aquarium to the rubbish bin on the pavement outside our flat. Across the street I imagine St Francis is watching me. He strokes the neck of a wolf sat calmly by his side. I call out to him that it was an accident. He calls back, “Talk to the hand, the face ain’t listening.” I think I catch a glimpse of Bubbles and Vanilla’s ghostly bodies in the wolf’s jaws.

I text the girls: GOOD NEWS IS THE CATS ARE FINE…

 

Keep the Faith,

 

The Head

The Spy

“The fish in Helsinki catch cold on a Tuesday.” I am practicing. Just in case they call again.

I could have been a spy. Twice over. No, really.

The foregone opportunity surfaced from the depths of my memory today when I observed something rather odd at Bond Street station.

Travelling upwards out of the murky tunnels of London’s underground train system, I shuffled my feet to find a tread on the steep escalator. London’s Tube system is built quite far underground so the escalator ride tends to take the best part of a minute or so. It is a good chance to engage in people watching; several downward-bound escalators pass by the same number heading in the other direction.

I was observing the parade of tourists, shoppers, workers and families flowing past me when I spotted it:  a man travelling upwards, eyes fixed straight ahead. About halfway through the escalator journey he reached inside his suit jacket and produced a packet the size of a fat, standard envelop. Maintaining his static gaze, he extended his right arm straight out to his side into the path of our moving stairs. A disembodied hand about a ten-person-distance in front of me calmly took the envelope. Leaning over the handrail I tried to make out the recipient as the suited man passed me. His eyes, his head never varied from their constant position.

Of course, it could have been anything. It was most likely innocent. Twenty minutes before someone could had made a phone call; “I forgot that letter I need for the meeting.” “Well I am heading to Bond Street so why don’t I meet you there.” “Great. I will be on the escalator; the one that takes forever.”

But my gut reaction; the voice inside my head tells me that it was espionage.

It is well documented that London is a haven for spies and their activities. In 1978, Bulgarian journalist Georgi Markov was killed on Waterloo Bridge: a two minute walk from where I now recount this story. Markov was killed by a poison dart concealed inside the shaft of an umbrella. Despite sounding like something from a James Bond film, it is true. Look here.

Five years ago former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in a Knightsbridge restaurant. He was given radio-active sushi. I will leave you, dear readers, to make your own Fukushima jokes, but the story is real as you can see here.

But what of my own brush with the twilight world of espionage I hear you ask?

It was late 1998. I was a few years into my first posting as a Head Teacher in North West London. A father of one of the pupils would come up to me before and sometimes after school each day for a chat. There is nothing unusual in that, many parents do the same on a daily basis. The well-spoken Englishman has a cut-glass accent that suggested he had been educated in Britain’s elitist schools. During our numerous, short conversations, I learned that he worked for the British Government but nothing more specific. He seemed very interested in my  nationality  and would regularly ask questions about American culture and my upbringing.

About 6 months after we met, he approached me and in his Queen’s English said, “I would like to invite you to a gathering of other Americans living here in London.”

He was most insistent. Despite relaying that I would not be interested, he pressed. “You really must come, it is something my office is organising and I think you will find it most interesting and helpful to your career.”

After a week or two of such conversations I relented. It was arranged that I would meet the group at a local office building. I knew the building well, as it was the headquarters of an American bank.

At the pre-arranged time, I found the plummy-speaking parent waiting outside the office tower. He pulled me aside as we made our way together to the lift/elevator. “I have to confess something,” he said, “This group is a recruitment tool for the CIA.” I laughed until I realised he was being serious.

Protesting that I was most definitely not spy material, let alone an American spy, he led me out of the lift and into a large board room. A dozen other displaced Yanks surrounded the table. They were all, like me in their 20s or 30s. From their dress, I could tell all were in professional occupations.

The meeting began when a dour-faced man who spoke like Clint Eastwood asking the candidates around the table to share, “Why you love your country.”

Open-mouthed I listened as those before me talked freely and openly. They shared jingoistic snippets of devotion to the American flag and the American ideal. Shuffling in my seat, I was most uneasy with what was being said. Those who know me well will account for the fact that my views on the country of my birth are less than positive.

Eventually came my turn to join the USA-Love-Fest.

“In short, America is not my country. Britain is. America was founded on honourable principles, namely all men are created equal and the guaranteed pursuit of happiness. However, it has economically and politically manoeuvred itself into a position where it can do real good in the world but chooses not to. Instead it has become hi-jacked by outdated Puritan values and has become insular. It cares nothing for the world outside its own borders. Frankly, America’s reputation in the world is a cause for embarrassment rather than pride.”

I looked up to gauge the reaction in the room but the facilitator had already moved on, asking the countryman to my left in his Clint Eastwood-esque drawl, “So what do you love about America?”

The recruitment meeting ended when Clint the Squint told the assembled patriots, “We will be contacting two of you to discuss the way forward.” With that I left. Scratching my head and re-running the bizarre events through my mind I walked out of the bank building wondering how long it had been a front for the CIA.

I went home and told Mrs Head about the experience. “I would make a rubbish spy,” I observed. “I can’t keep a straight face and I lose everything.” I envisaged myself misplacing the microfilm by leaving it on a train or getting my fat fingers in front of the miniature camera lens.

And besides; what information could a head teacher gather which would be of use to the CIA? Joseph did not eat all his packed lunch on Tuesday? Susie wanted to hold hands with Thomas behind the bike shed but she saw him talking to Laura and now she says he is a Poo-Face?

Needless to say, I wasn’t one of the lucky two to be contacted.

Two years later and George W Bush had stolen the 2000 election. I was about to move onto my second headship when I received a phone call. I recognised the voice on the other end as the well-spoken parent who worked for the government.

“The group would like to meet you again.”

I was more shocked than annoyed. Surely they got the gist of my stance after my brief sharing speech in the American bank building two years before. I went into my anti-American tirade once again to prove the point. I certainly wasn’t interested last time and now the buffoon Bush Jr was in office. That made the negativity within me increase exponentially.

They never rang again after that.

It has crossed my mind that ever since I have been on some unofficial and murky list of disenfranchised ex-pats. Certainly on my next visit to the States, myself and my entire family was stopped and held in a detention room for several hours. The officials could not understand that despite having an American passport myself, I had denied my children the same privilege.

“It is simple, really,” I explained over and over again. “My kids were born in Britain, they will be raised in Britain, their mother is British and they are British. They do not need nor do I want them to be American citizens.” The officer either couldn’t understand or didn’t believe my logic.

So if I suddenly and inexplicably disappear off the face of the earth, dear readers, use this blog as evidence. I said no to the intelligence machine. Twice. I will keep a watchful eye for stray umbrella points on Waterloo Bridge and stay out of Sushi bars for evermore.

 

Keep the Faith,

 

The Head

Primark

For the second time in a few months I awoke to Mrs Head announcing that she was bestowing upon me the honour of taking her shopping. I did try to get out of it by posting a plea on Face Book for someone to give me an excuse not to go. Football season is still a month away, so that was out. I pretended to be too upset about the Greek economic situation but that didn’t work either.

Her reasons for wanting me to go are known only to herself. However, after each such expedition she vows never to take me again. Today was no different.

First we made the obligatory stop at Pound Land. No, my mistake: Pound LandS. Plural. We went to three different Pound Lands. Frequent and dear readers will remember a previous blog about the Pound Land experience (here). Sadly there was no Man Musk testers to sample today but I did have a spritz of a fragrance called Madonna Tattoo.

Today’s blog can be considered a sequel to Pound Land. Today our final shopping stop was to Primark. Even typing the name makes me shudder.

Primark is Pound Land’s better-looking cousin. Primark is Pound Land dressed up for a night out on the town. Both sell cheap merchandise in terms of price and quality. Both serve the same clientele. In fact the pavement between the two shops is grooved with the footprints of folk making their way directly from one establishment to the other.

I have only been inside Primark about half a dozen times in my life. Primark’s resistance to embrace ethical suppliers means that Asian sweat shops continue to provide the bulk of the flimsy clothing they sell.  However, moral issues aside, I have come to hypothesise a pattern to the retail chain which was reinforced during today’s visit. Allow me to share my observations, dear readers:

1. PRIMARK EMPLOYEES ARE LEGALLY BLIND

Primark employs over 27,000 people in the UK. All must have a sight impairment of some kind. None of the employees seem to have ‘pick up clothes that have fallen on the floor’ in their job description. My few visits to Primark are always spent trying to dodge a crumpled pile of clothing on the floor under each display.

I wonder if someone IS employed to run through the shop before opening time, knocking random items off the rails and onto the floor. I say this in the assumption that the clothes are picked up at some point after closing time. It is equally likely that the same clothes have lain on the floor for years. I sat waiting for Mrs Head, watching the several of the 27,000 store employees walking past pile after pile of crumpled clothes. Thinking I would make myself useful, I randomly knocked a few items on the floor myself; When in Rome…

2. PRIMARK SELLS RANDOM CLOTHES WITH OBSCURE LINKS TO REAL PLACES OR PEOPLE

Need a Betty Boo on a skateboard t shirt? Buy it at Primark. Marilyn Monroe Loves the 1970s on a scarf? Buy it at Primark. And if those items don’t appeal, dear readers do not fret. A short walk into the obscure American references section might tickle your fancy. There one can purchase a shirt proclaiming “San Diego University Ski Team.” The more discerning shopper might wish to dig through a discarded pile on the floor for a retro-style sweat shirt sporting an embarrassing clash of entities such as “Louisiana Yankees.”

3. PRIMARK EMPLOYEES HAVE NO FINE MOTOR SKILLS

This links with hypothesis number 1. Clothes that are not on hangers/rails, tend to be ‘folded’ into piles on a tabletop. I say folded. Most of the stock has been unfolded before I get there and left in familiar crumpled piles. Again the employees do not have the perception to notice this. Even if they do, they do not stop to refold items. Never.  Initially I put this down to fine motor skills but this was negated as I noted several employees on mobile phones. It takes dexterity to text.

4. PRIMARK HAS AN ALIEN CUSTOMER DEMOGRAPHIC

Today I was aimlessly picking up items to examine as I waited for Mrs Head to finish her shopping. (Of course I threw anything I picked up directly onto the floor: I am always happy to lend a hand for a committed cause). At one point I picked up a pair of shoes. The shoes were connected to each other by a piece of plastic cord, indicating they were a matching pair. As I teased the pair off of the shelf I noticed a third shoe was connected by a separate plastic cord. Therefore I make the assumption that someone (perhaps extra-terrestrial) is combing around our capital city saying to themselves, “Shops just don’t cater for us with three feet.”

5. THERE IS ALWAYS A BIN OF RANDOM, UNIDENTIFIABLE GOODS FOR SALE

Near the entrance (by now I had given up on waiting for Mrs Head and had gone for a cigarette), there was a large wire basket full of….uh…I am still not sure. There were definitely women’s sandals inside. But I also noted: discarded McDonald’s wrappers, something that looked like a cotton sausage with a cherry print motif, a rolled up (used) tissue. A piece of crumpled and torn A4 paper had been cello-taped to the outside. The sheet read Jud 1.

6. PRIMARK CASHIERS/CHECK OUT /TILL QUEUES ARE CONFUSING AND LONG

I met Mrs Head as she was lining up to pay. She innately knows what to do at the checkout but I can’t get my head around the system. Two queues each long enough to be for the new ride at the Theme Park face each other and then double back on themselves. Dotted within the chaos are last-chance-buy-impulse-items. I picked up a pair of socks with James Dean on them. Or was it Justin Bieber? Who knows? I threw them on the floor anyhow.

Keep the Faith,

The Head

East is East and West is West

Every school has its own unique flavour. Officially it is called ethos. Unofficially we call it ‘the feel.’

Regular and dear readers will be aware that I am currently in my fourth posting as a Head Teacher. I tend to remain at each school about 4 years before moving on to the next test.  As I have become more experienced in my role, I have sought more robust challenges. Thus, each school in succession has been flawed incrementally.

I visited the staff from my third posting the other night. They were meeting to say farewell to a colleague who I respect immensely and was therefore honoured to be invited. The journey to the pub where the party was planned was on the complete opposite end of London from my glass box and negotiating the rush hour traffic turned out to be a 2 hour 30 minute affair.

My third headship (let’s call the school Westlands) was a successful posting. The job at hand intrigued me in that the school had been without a head teacher for several years. This strange situation stemmed from an incident involving parents fighting on the playground. The fight put a chain of events into motion which ended up being a test case for head teacher’s rights in the national media.  The right-wing, xenophobic British Press latched onto the story and maximised its appeal to Little England.

After that, the school became a pariah. No Head Teacher would take on the school on a long term basis. The pupil population dwindled and the school fell into a rudderless malaise.

I sensed something at Westlands when I first visited. It was potential. My experience has afforded me the skill of being able to walk into a school and within 5 minutes to have an innate understanding of its ethos. Westlands was a sleeping giant, I felt. It just needed to be loved and nurtured.

Geographically, the school straddled two juxtaposing neighbourhoods. To the north was an area of economic deprivation which was home to a large Somali population displaced by the ongoing war in the Horn of Africa. I have huge respect for the Somali refugee families I have met down the years. They have witnessed horrendous scenes but remain upbeat, positive, friendly and polite.

The neighbourhood to the south was the school’s traditional catchment; an affluent and pristine neighbourhood of multi-million pound houses. It was and remains home to numerous television personalities. It is a land of wine bars and organic grocers, of pretentious boutiques that are reassuringly expensive. A bit like this:

Needless to say, families in the neighbourhood to the south did not attend the school. It was considered a blemish on their neighbourhood. Westlands was gossip fodder for the chattering classes at dinner parties. Therefore the school remained under-subscribed and utilised only by the Somali community to the north.

I took the school on, sensing its potential. It was quickly apparent that I had chosen wisely. The staff was entirely committed to turning the school around. Change can be difficult to manage at any institution but at Westlands I was pushing on an open door.

Staff colleagues were friendly, hard-working and most had a wicked sense of humour that fit in well with my own. I cultivated their good will and within two years we had moulded the school into something special. Perhaps too special.

At the end of my second year at Westlands I noticed the change. Suddenly we were receiving applications from families from the neighbourhood to the south. This was unheard of and signalled that the school’s recent turn-around was being noted by the affluent population.

As the southern neighbourhood was the school’s legal catchment, it meant those families received priority in securing places. Westlands soon filled up with a very different clientage: families who were more concerned with ‘keeping up with the Jones’ than keeping on the edge of social reform.

The families from the northern border were squeezed out. I could see what was coming. I approached the school governors and told them the school was changing and we had to make a stand if we were to carry on creating a school we could all be proud of. I had no idea how profound my prediction would turn out to be.

A year later and the school was the darling of the dinner-party circuit. It was being talked about in glowing terms and the moneyed residents of the south were scrambling to be admitted. Day to day management began to become pre-occupied with trivial tittle-tattle and parents jockeying for special advantages for their child.

I can best illustrate this with the story of a local, vociferous mother who very much reminds me of the woman in the video clip I posted earlier. She willingly confessed that she and other parents compared the reading levels of their children at dinner parties. She demanded to know why her child had not been promoted to the next reading level like that of her friends’ children. I explained that her son was not yet ready to move onto the next level. It was (and still is) important that children consolidate one level before moving on. To do otherwise creates problems in the longer term.

She refused to take no for an answer and started a campaign to allow parents to dictate the school’s reading policy. This was fought off (by now the governors sensed that my warning was real). However, I was horrified  to find the same mother had sneaked into the school building when I was working late one night and had taken the next level reading books from her child’s classroom to put in her son’s book bag. Something to brag about over a cappuccino and organic muffin I imagine.

Soon after, Westlands received a visit from Her Majesty’s inspectors. They awarded the school the second highest judgement possible and I am very proud that my own leadership received the government’s very highest acclaim. The school had been in very real danger of failing three years before. However, when I told the school community of the news, it was not met with congratulations. No, dear readers. It was met with queries from parents as to why we hadn’t achieved the very highest honours across the board. Second highest honours do not allow one bragging rights at dinner parties, it seems.

At that very moment, I decided the school I loved was lost. I handed in my resignation a week later. Westlands had been conquered from the south.

I still have many good friends on the staff there. That is unusual as my style is now not to mix at all with the staff. Familiarity breeds an atmosphere where tough decisions become muddled by friendship. I can’t afford that luxury these days.

Still, it was good for my soul; to go into the pub and visit with my former colleagues. My friends. We swapped stories and laughed at times gone by. I hadn’t realised how much I missed them.

My current school, far away in East London has made me stronger but also eaten away part of my soul. Visiting Westlands made me remember what I was, what I can be. Building an ethos is wholly dependent on the people who make it. Westlands was special; never to be repeated.

Driving home from the pub I thought about the opening lines of a poem Rudyard Kipling wrote (when he wasn’t writing The Jungle Book):

Oh! East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

Keep the Faith,

The Head

Farhana’s Goodbye

None of the 60 cracked. Not a single one. But I almost did.

The final day of the school year rolled out today. Two full classrooms of pupils were dismissed for the final time; onto the playground and through the school gates, never to return. Come September they will be in high school.

It was the 25^th year in succession I have witnessed this great rite of passage.  It is consistently the slow march, the backward glance, the apprehension at leaving behind  childish things and embracing the immediate future. But this one was unlike any of the preceding 24.

Every prior final school bell has been met with sheer emotion for departing pupils. A dozen, maybe more, sometimes less, but always a few of the pupils will sob on that slow march. It may be the realisation that their time as big fish in a small pond is gone; high school signals a new period when they are once again the youngest in the school. It may be the fact that the first, the only institution they have ever known has been outgrown. Whatever the personal motive, one can be certain at least a few will be overcome by the fervour.

This final day was different; eerily so. Indelibly so. It will ferment in my memory to become a cherished retrospective of my career.

First, not one of the 60 departing pupils shed a tear. They walked silently, not joyfully to the school gate. Only one, perhaps two turning back to wave goodbye. Many of us staff members stood watching the procession and commented on its uniqueness. Never in a quarter of a century of teaching have I witnessed such a thing.

But it was a one-on-one farewell that will burn even brighter.

About 10 minutes before the final bell, there was a knock on the door of my glass box. One of our staff had brought a young girl (let’s call her Farhana) to my office. She had asked to come along to say goodbye.

Farhana is one of the 40+ children at our school with severe special educational and learning needs. Such children at our school have a range of needs, many of which are sadly life-limiting. Many have a solely sensory-based curriculum in which we attempt to broaden their experience through touch, sound, sight and signals.

The girl who had come to say good-bye has severe cerebral palsy. The past 9 years she has been at the school have been spent improving her communication skills. The aim was to have her speak a word before she left school.

Each of  the high level SEN pupils communicate in unique and different ways. It is important that when we as staff members seek to interact with the children, we remain consistent. One young boy, through constant repetition, responds to me with a high-five when we cross paths. The high five is the interaction which allows him to know I am near by. Although his eye sight is failing, I can signal to him by saying “High five” as I walk past his wheelchair and he will respond by putting a hand in the air for me to clasp.

Farhana’s signal was to laugh at the same game. If I saw her, I would duck behind her wheelchair and slowly call her name. I would jump out in front of her and laughingly, gently say “Boo!” She would giggle infectiously despite not having the facial muscle control to speak.

A month ago, the staff who work extensively with the young girl told me the news that she had reached her goal; Farhana spoke a word. Since that day she had been keen to learn more and was reaching a spoken vocabulary of 5 or 6 words. Throughout the past month I was keen to hear her speak but each time I came across her in the school, we got no further than our “Boo” signal which caused her laugh contagiously but not to speak to me.

On this the final day she would be at our school, Farhana entered my office with a member of staff who said she had come to say goodbye. I sat on the edge of the coffee table in my glass box so that I was on an even eye-level with the child and told her she would love her new school as much as she had loved ours. I was about to go behind her wheelchair to undertake the Boo ritual when Farhana opened her mouth and straining to speak said, “I’m scared.”

My soul soared, dear readers. This child who I spent time with every day for two years had saved the moment I had craved for our last encounter together. To hear her voice beyond that unique laugh was one of the best moments of the past 25 years. I hugged her tightly and told her not to be afraid, repeating that she would love her new school.

She laughed again. I laughed but must admit my eyes were welling at this point. Her face tensed as she strained to say something else. Both me and my staff colleague fell silent to hear her words.

“Good bye.”

I watched as Farhana was hoisted into the transport at the end of the day. Over my shoulder, the departing pupils were on that slow march through the school gates for the final time. Someone said to me they had never seen such a display of stoicism by a group of leavers.

Their fortitude was refreshing, dear readers. They were not fearing the future, the young pupils were instead, embracing it. ‘Twice as many of you are leaving here able to read and write’, I reminded myself. ‘We could have done no better by you or for you’.

Make no mistake, I am immensely proud that we have sent them out into the world with the skills to communicate through writing and reading. But it will not be that feat that will come to mind, when years from now, I recall this Class of 2011. I will remember what we did for Farhana; how on the last minute of the last day I heard her voice for the first time.

Keep the Faith,

The Head

B.F.F.

I have about 50 people who have sworn to be my best friend forever. Need proof? I have it in writing, signed and dated.

Tomorrow is the final day of the school year. Every school has its own last day traditions. For the pupils at the school where I served my second headship, it was a flour and egg fight in the local park. At my third school I started the tradition of the children and staff who were leaving walking through an honour guard made by the rest of the school community. Alice Cooper’s School’s Out would be blasted from the windows to accompany the final salute.

Most British schools seem to have the same tradition: signing school uniform on the final day. There were similarities in the messages with those one can find in an American year book. I use the past tense because I have noticed the messages have been changing over the past few years.

And the tradition seems to be beginning earlier. Today, our oldest pupils who will be leaving us for high school began the exercise a full 24 hours before they actually depart. All over the school, pupils could be found walking around aimlessly with a marker pen in their hand, asking each other “Sign my shirt?” Blame the fact that Christmas adverts are on the telly from Halloween.

I didn’t sign any today. Call me a traditionalist. Tomorrow is the day I sign shirts. I had the final meeting of the year with the local inspectors this afternoon and throughout the full three hours; pupils peered in through the walls of my glass box, motioning to be allowed in so I could sign a message on their back. Waving them away drew funny looks from the inspector who couldn’t see the pupils behind him.

One brave soul was so fully subscribed to the tradition that he walked straight into the meeting and held out his pen. He was swiftly dispatched with a ‘wait until tomorrow’ message. His face was the picture of disappointment. Call me a kill-joy.

The ritual of shirt signing has remained constant in my 26 years of teaching in British schools, but as aforementioned, the message text is changing.

British men specifically, but perhaps men in general, have increasingly greeted each other (in my adult life) with good-natured insults. Some would call it banter. The idea is to communicate a message that seems offensive on the surface but is delivered with respect. It is a subtle and gray area to tread so therefore it is only advisable with male peers well-known to us.

A good example was seen today; it was a message on the back of a boy’s shirt which I could decipher as he motioned through my glass box. It read ALEX- YOUR MUM IS A HORE. STAY IN TOUCH MATE, BILLY.

Now I know Alex’s mother. There is no reason to believe she is anything other than a chaste, observant and upstanding member of the community. If the family have fallen on hard times and mother has had to take up some part-time work to supplement the family income, it is unbeknown to me. What was shocking was Billy’s spelling. I was tempted to rise from the meeting with my red homework-marking-pen and correct Billy’s work:

 

When I got home tonight, I pulled my old high school year book down from the shelf to read some of the messages therein. I was correct in my hypothesis that the nature of the messages has changed quite significantly since I undertook the same end of term ritual. My year book is filled with scrawled writing from at least 50 persons swearing we would be best friends forever. If you are reading this blog by chance and you are one of the said persons who signed with such a message: please accept my apologies. You must think I am a terrible best friend forever (BFF).  No, I haven’t kept in touch despite what I might have signed in your book. I can’t even remember if I intended to even do so at the time, back in 1980.

And to the girls who signed my year book: a question. In your professional lives do you still dot every ‘i ‘with a smiley face or a heart? Oh, and I didn’t stay ‘just as sweet as I am.” Far from it.

The rest of the messages implore me to remember long-forgotten events or inside jokes. One says, “Remember our gym class for Jesus.” I am fairly certain that Jesus was not in my gym class. In fact I am certain as sandals would not have been permitted on the hardwood floor.

So tomorrow, I will sign a few shirts, seeing as it is the final day of term. I will resist the urge to take part in any banter. That will be left to the school boys and never let it be said I don’t recognise the boundaries.

At the final bell I will stand at the gate and wave off the older pupils and wish them well for life. I will remind them that they are always welcome back to their old school. I will be singing Alice Cooper’s classic in my mind. I will be dreaming of a beach in Ibiza.

And just in case, I will wink at Alex’s mum;  the old slut.

 

Keep the Faith,

 

The Head

Letters to Peter Gwendolyn

Two weeks ago, my wife produced a box containing the very few possessions I still retain from the first 21 years of my life.

Mrs Head is the organiser. I am the dreamer. I will tell you it is the basis of a good partnership. Mrs Head will tell you it is hell.

Sifting through the box brought semi-forgotten and long-neglected childhood memories into the spotlight.

Of special interest to me were three, battered and faded ring-binders. They contained about a thousand pieces of prose and rough poetry I had written in my teen-age years. Like most adolescent poetry, the writing has a default setting of awkward, angst-ridden and twee.

But it is a chance to take the piss, so why not?

Back in the day, I collectively called the assemblage ‘Letters to Peter Gwendolyn.’

Peter Gwendolyn was an allegory for my future self. In the thousand pages I was writing to an audience of one; me. I intended the works to be a letter to my future self. They were to be a time capsule of my life to be re-opened and re-examined far in the future:  A voice of my past in the ear of my future.

In 9 months time I will turn half a century old. Fifty years old is a good time for Peter Gwendolyn to open his post and read letters sent more than 30 years ago.  Dear readers, it feels as though that my teen-age project has come to fruition.

And it is a chance to take the piss.

Over the summer, I will be blogging some samples from those tattered and dusty ring binders along with the stories behind them (as much as I can remember them).

Be pre-warned. They are not literary masterpieces. However, in reading them I have been able to spot the germination of ethics, morals and attitudes that are deeply embedded in me now.

And I can take the piss out of myself.

The first offering is, I guess, the title-track.

“Peter Gwendolyn” -November 21, 1982

Someday, I’ll take a pen name

Something strong

And sensitive

And sure

My own name just can’t reflect on

The places I’m being born.

Keep the Faith,

The Head

The Secret Drawer

 

Keep the Faith,

The Head