Down an English Lane (28 page)

‘I’m glad to see you two are getting on OK,’ said
Maisie cheerily as she joined them. ‘Celia, could you come and give a hand with the clearing away, please? It isn’t fair to leave all the washing up to Patience and Mrs Hollins, and all the other women seem to have disappeared; so I said we’d help. You can get off home, Ted, if you like… Thanks for coming to help; you’ve been great.’

‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘You can’t walk home on your own…’

‘I could if I wanted to; I’m a big girl now,’ she laughed, ‘but it’s all right. Archie Tremaine says he’ll run us all home later when we’ve finished. You as well, Celia, and Doris and Audrey – although she doesn’t need a lift. We’re all going to help.’

‘OK then,’ said Ted, feeling a little put out. ‘I know when I’m not wanted.’ He grinned to show there was no ill feeling, but he did feel, rather, as though he had been dismissed. ‘I’ll perhaps see you tomorrow then, Maisie? Half past seven, eh, when you come out of church?’

‘Yes, all right…’ she replied.

‘Goodnight then,’ he said, deciding not to kiss her, not in front of her friend and everybody else. ‘Goodnight, Celia. It was nice meeting you. See you again sometime, perhaps?’

‘Yes, perhaps…’ she replied smiling at him.

It was just a casual remark, ‘See you again’, but as he walked home Ted thought to himself that he wouldn’t mind at all if he were to see Celia James again…

Chapter Fifteen

A
nne Mellodey had received a letter soon after Christmas inviting her – although it was more of a demand than a request – to attend a staff meeting at Middlebeck School on the morning of the third of January. The communication was from the new headmaster, Roger Ellison, who had written – typed, to be more accurate – in somewhat pedantic tones that he wished to discuss prospective procedures and staffing arrangements for the forthcoming years.

The school, at that moment, still had only three classes; an Infant and two Junior ones, with a teaching head. Miss Foster had taken charge of the Infants, Shirley Barker of years one and two of the Juniors, and Anne of years three and four. The classes were large, but the possibility of having another teacher, or teachers, had been brought up several times and then rejected by the powers that be.

When Anne arrived at the appointed time, ten o’clock, she was surprised to see not only Roger Ellison, but the man who had acted as the usher at the interview, and another person; a woman of roughly her own age, soberly dressed in a tweed coat and hat and sensible brogues, whom she could not remember having seen before. Shirley Barker was there too, looking a little overawed, and she gave Anne what looked like a smile of relief as she entered the room. So she, Anne, was the last to arrive, of which fact Mr Ellison soon reminded her.

‘Ah, so there you are Miss Mellodey. We are all here now so we can make a start. Do come in and sit down…’

‘I’m not late, am I?’ she asked pointedly, knowing that she was, in fact, five minutes early.

‘No, no; not at all. Almost dead on time,’ the headmaster replied, looking at his wristwatch with an exaggerated gesture.

The meeting was being held in what had been Anne’s classroom – she wondered if it still would be under the new regime – and the other four were already seated around her desk; it was a large table really, with drawers that locked, but it was always known as the teacher’s desk. As the school dated from the mid-nineteenth century many of its features were still early Victorian. The desk sat on a little raised dais at the front of the room, the idea having been that the teacher could, thus, have a bird’s eye view of what his or her pupils were doing
at all times. And that was still not a bad thing, Anne had been forced to agree, although she did not approve of some of the Victorian ideas. The windows were small and quite high up; it was almost impossible for the children to see out of them. The children of a hundred years ago had not been encouraged to stare out of windows and daydream, but to concentrate on their work. Consequently the classrooms were rather dark, especially during the winter months, which meant that the lights had to be switched on for a good deal of the time. Fortunately, the lighting had been changed, some years ago, from gas to electric.

Another modern innovation that had been installed in recent years were the radiators, which ran from a coke-fired boiler. When Anne had first come to the school her room had been heated by a coal fire around which a sturdy fireguard had always to be in place. It had provided a comforting, homely touch on cold days, but the new system was much more efficient, and safer, too. Obviously the conscientious caretaker, Mr Scribbins, a man in his sixties who had done the job for years, had been at work early in the morning because the room was comfortably warm.

‘Let me introduce you to Mr Fortescue,’ Roger Ellison continued. ‘He is a member of the Education Committee and he has kindly come here today to outline some plans that we have for Middlebeck School.’

‘We have met before, Miss Mellodey,’ said Mr Fortescue, a middle-aged man whom Anne had only known as the one who had acted as usher at the interview. He smiled at her and held out his hand. ‘I am very pleased to make your acquaintance again.’

‘Yes…’ said Anne, ‘thank you…’ not knowing how else to reply.

‘And this is Miss Crompton,’ said Mr Ellison. The woman who was a stranger to Anne half rose from her chair to shake hands. ‘How do you do?’ she said, and Anne replied in the same vein, wondering why she was there. ‘This is Miss Mellodey,’ he told the woman. ‘She will be able to show you the ropes, so to speak, as will Mrs Barker. They have both been on the staff of Middlebeck for several years.’ He turned to Anne.

‘I am pleased to say that Miss Crompton will be joining us next week as our fourth teacher.’ He beamed expansively. ‘I know we will all do our best to make her welcome.’

Well, that was a surprise and no mistake, thought Anne. How on earth had he wangled that, and seemingly with no interview? And where did he intend to put another class, for goodness sake?

All was soon to be revealed. ‘Now…let’s get down to business,’ said the new headmaster, importantly squaring the pile of papers in front of him, although Anne was to notice that he made hardly any reference to them all the time he was speaking. ‘I am delighted to inform you that due to
the persuasive powers of Mr Fortescue here, we have been granted a fourth teacher, and very soon – by the end of the next term, I hope – our staff will be increased to five.’ He glanced around as though inviting comments, and as Shirley Barker did not speak, Anne felt obliged to do so.

‘That is good news,’ she said, as, indeed, it was, ‘but…may I ask where we are to accommodate the two new classes?’ Unless, of course, the thought struck her, that Roger Ellison intended being a non-teaching head, as was the norm in larger schools? Surely he would not be able to get away with that… But no, that was not his intention. He beamed even more fulsomely.

‘Ah yes, I was coming to that. The Education Committee has informed us that we are to be given one of the new prefabricated classrooms, a double one, and it will be erected in the yard at the rear of the school. The children will still have the yard at the front in which to play and do their physical training, and it is hoped that eventually we will be able to make use of the spare land beyond the school. In the meantime though, until the new classrooms arrive, the extra class will be held in St Bartholomew’s church hall. The rector has kindly agreed to this, and I believe the system worked very well in the early years of the war. It is not ideal, I know, but I am sure we will all do our utmost to make it work… And I am going to suggest, as Miss Crompton is a newcomer and will need our
support, that Mrs Barker should be the one to take the class in the church hall? That is, if you wouldn’t mind, Mrs Barker?’

The decisive smile, with his eyebrows raised, that he levelled at Shirley gave her no option but to murmur, ‘Yes…yes, of course. I don’t mind.’

Poor Shirley, thought Anne, wondering what else this ‘new broom’ had in store for them. Miss Foster had been asking for another teacher, and for more accommodation for the pupils, for ages, but to no avail. And now this newcomer had managed to get round the Education Committee before he had been here five minutes. Unless, on the other hand, the decisions had already been made, as the result of post-war planning. She recalled that the new Education Act had promised great things, so maybe they were already happening.

Roger Ellison steepled his hands and nodded gravely. ‘Good…that is very good. In due course – I am hoping by the beginning of the next scholastic year, that is to say September, 1946 – we will have six classes, two Infant and four Junior, to keep pace with the increasing birth rate. And it is predicted that in a few years’ time – by the beginning of the Fifties, if we dare look so far ahead – there will be a sizeable increase in the number of children ready to start school… Due to fathers returning from the war, of course,’ he explained in confidential tones, as if they could not work out for themselves the reason for so many babies having been born.
‘Goodness knows where we will put them all then…’ He gave a jovial laugh, ‘…but let us just concern ourselves, for the moment, with the present situation, and tomorrow and its problems, I am sure, will take care of themselves.’

Anne was beginning to realise why this man had been given the post of headmaster. He certainly had what was known in the north as ‘the gift of the gab’, and bags of confidence to go with it. There were more surprises awaiting her and Shirley Barker, although the new teacher, Miss Crompton, had probably been informed already as to which class was to be hers. It was revealed that her Christian name was Phyllis, and that she had been granted a transfer from her school in the Huddersfield area. Her elderly parents, with whom she lived and looked after, had decided to retire to Middlebeck, and her application for a change of school had arrived, fortunately, at the time when the Education Committee had agreed to appoint another teacher.

‘But even when we become a six teacher school – God willing – I still intend to be a teaching head,’ Roger Ellison told them. At least that was a point in his favour, thought Anne. She had little time for the heads who directed proceedings from the comfort of their private domain – spoken of in hushed tones as the ‘Headmaster’s Room’ – and scarcely ever set foot in the classrooms, and certainly never in the hurly-burly of the school yard. But the bombshell
that he dropped next was not at all to her liking.

‘As you know, the former headmistress, Miss Foster – who has done sterling work here, I must say – was in charge of the Infants. Now that is not my forte, as I am sure you will understand…’ He gave a disparaging little laugh which seemed to indicate that he could, in fact, do anything if he set his mind to it. ‘So I would like to suggest that Miss Mellodey should now be responsible for the Infant class. And I know she will make a very good job of it.’ He looked at her, as he had looked at Shirley, with an affirmative nod which told her that it was not a suggestion, but a decision. Anne, however, was made of sterner stuff than her colleague, and although she knew she would have to submit to his plans she was determined to have her say.

‘I have never taught Infants, Mr Ellison,’ she replied. ‘I am much more at home with children of the Junior age group, but…’

‘But you are the ideal person for the task,’ he interrupted her. ‘That is why I am asking you to do it.’ Telling you, would have been the more correct wordage, she mused. He did not say why he had chosen her for this dubious honour, rather than either of the other two women. ‘I am sure you have heard the saying that if you can teach Infants then you can teach anyone?’ He smiled ingratiatingly at her. ‘I know it is a difficult job, but I believe you are more than capable of it.’

She nodded. She had heard the saying from the
lips of Infant teachers, who believed it was, in fact, the hardest age group of all. Teachers in the Junior and Senior strata were inclined to regard it as childminding, but those who actually taught the very young children knew differently. ‘Yes, of course I will go along with anything you suggest, if it is for the good of the school,’ she answered. All the same, she could not help but feel that she had been demoted, moving from her Standards Three and Four, to the very bottom, as it were, of the teaching ladder.

Mr Fortescue from the Education Committee, however, soon disabused her of that notion by thanking her sincerely for agreeing to the change and by hinting that, as the school grew in numbers, there could well be promotion for the teacher in charge of the Infants. Did he mean a deputy headship, she pondered? At that moment she was bemused, knowing that the management of the school was going to be very very different in future.

Just what those differences would be was soon to be revealed. Shirley Barker would still be teaching Standards One and Two, the seven- to nine-year-olds, but in the church hall rather than in her familiar classroom. Roger Ellison himself, as Anne had already guessed, was to be responsible for Standards Three and Four, with the new teacher, Miss Crompton, assisting him. He treated them to a lecture on the new Education Act on which, it seemed, he was an expert and a great advocate.

‘It has been a beacon, lighting the way out of darkness,’ he informed them, his eyes glowing with fervour. ‘The abolition of fees in the municipal Grammar schools is a great step forward. And it affects us right here, in our Primary school…’

That was the new word, Primary, with the subdivisions of Infant and Junior; and Secondary instead of Senior was the name for the Grammar schools and the new Secondary Moderns. As Anne listened she realised why she had been questioned at her interview about streaming, the segregating of the children according to ability. It was the new headmaster’s intention, he told them, to make sure that as many children as possible were granted these ‘special’ places – formerly called ‘free’ places – in the Grammar schools. And this could only be achieved by separating the children according to their capabilities and by giving special tuition to the ‘chosen ones’; although he did not actually use the phrase it was the way Anne interpreted it. The children of Standards Three and Four were to be given tests in Mathematics and English during the first few weeks of the term, and then, when they had been graded, he would teach what he termed the ‘more academic’ pupils and Miss Crompton the ‘less able’.

Which was a far cry from the tradition of the old village school, thought Anne, as she listened in growing consternation. There had been very little rivalry between the pupils in the past. All the
children had known, for instance, that Maisie and Audrey – she thought of them because they were still special to her – were at the ‘top of the class’ and would go on to the Grammar school; whereas the majority of them, including their friend Doris, would not do so. This granting of many more special places, it seemed, would bring about divisions between the clever ones and the not so clever. Children, given half a chance, could be dreadfully cruel, and she had already heard such derogatory words as ‘thickies’ used on occasions. Maybe it was just as well that her destiny, for the moment, was to teach the Infants. She would make sure they did not concern themselves with such distinctions.