It had been raining, and I could see through the classroom windows that it was beginning to get dark outside. The rain-lashed footpaths reflected the yellow lights of the school building in their shimmering, mirrored surface, and as the art lesson neared its end, I started gathering my stuff together in preparation for the bell which would signal our release.
One thing was wrong however; my schoolbag was absent from its accustomed place under my desk. "Right, who's got my schoolbag?" I challenged, standing up and addressing the line of classmates to my side. "Is this it?" came a murmur from the far end. "Yeah, pass it along to me!" I said, and the bag was handed from one pupil to another until it reached me.
No fool was I! First thing I did was check the contents to ensure that nothing was missing. In actual fact, the reverse was true - at the bottom of my bag was a class paintbrush which didn't belong there. "Please Miss," I said to the teacher, "someone's put a paintbrush in my schoolbag." As it turned out, I'd have been better placing the brush in its pot with the others and saying nothing, but perhaps I was fueled by a subconscious desire to solicit an acknowledgement of my 'virtuous' nature.
Mrs. BARCLAY (dubbed 'Screamer Barclay' by we pupils) seemed unperturbed. "Put it in its pot!" was all she said - so I did. However, at lesson's end, she took a count of the brushes and discovered that some were missing. She decided that a search of the boys was in order, but not the girls. (Obviously, in much the same way that ol' QUEEN VICTORIA reputedly couldn't imagine women ever indulging in 'unnatural desires', Mrs. Barclay clearly considered females incapable of taking something that didn't belong to them. The settlements often arrived at in today's divorce courts suggest otherwise.)
Mr. McLEAN, the head art teacher, was sent for, and when he arrived, 'Screamer' explained the situation about the missing brushes. She concluded her summary of events by saying - and these are her actual words - "A brush has already been found in Gordon Robson's schoolbag." I regarded this as a gross misrepresentation of the facts, so I interjected and said "Yeah, and it was me who found it!"
I wasn't the subject of any undue attention as a result of Mrs. Barclay's less than stringent recounting of the facts, and it may be that it hadn't been her intention to cast me in the role of transgressor, but nevertheless it riled me at the time and still does whenever I think of it today, more than 40 years after the fact. Reputations often rest on such gossamer threads that I'm always prepared to stand up and defend mine at the drop of the proverbial hat.
Now, I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere, but I'll leave you to figure it out for yourselves.
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Why not take advantage of our free therapy session and exorcise your demons of yesteryear by unloading them in the comments section? Go on - you'll feel much better for it.
We were in biology one time when the teacher, Mr O' Neill, gave us a bird's egg to pass around and while i was holding it Ross Evans squeezed my hand and caused the egg to crack but we continued passing it around and when it got back to Mr. O' Neill he exclaimed "Who did this ??!!" - Ross piped up "it was Colin, sir" which I angrily denied and luckily I was believed as I was known to be a good boy on the whole :)
ReplyDeleteOf course, that apple you took in every morning for the teacher wouldn't have hurt, eh, CJ?
DeleteSCANDAL : " SCHOOL TEACHER SACKED FOR BRUTALITY! "
ReplyDeleteSometimes a good result can come from a schooltime scandal. This was one such time.
The top class teacher at our village junior school was a particularly nasty piece of work, who I shall just call Mr.A ( nothing to do with Steve Ditko's creation, but any chance to give it a plug! ). We were warned about him beforewe entered his year. His chosen weapon of punishment was a wooden board pointer which he would beat the hands of us tiny 11 year old boys mercilessly with for the slightest thing. Indeed, I honestly cannot remember what ANY of my numerous thrashings were actually FOR! - But, the bastard had it in for me. ( "INFAMY, INFAMY!!" )
One evening at home, my Mother noticed the terrible state my hands were in and demanded to know how they had got in that condition and was horrified to hear my tales of Mr. A. So, the next morning 2 angry parents took me in to see the headmaster and showed him the state of my hands. Mr. A was sent for and at one point my Dad lunged forward, rolling his sleeve up, but my Mother held him back!( I was SO proud of my Dad that morning! ) And the upshot of it was, Mr.A was never seen again. It turns out that there had been several previous complaints of cruelty made against him and ours was the last straw!
I resumed my class and the whole class cheered when brought in to replace him was the teacher from the previous year - the kindly Mr. Tibbs....er, I mean, Jones!
RESULT!!
And I seriously doubt that anyone would've had any sympathy for the odious Mr. A, JP. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Delete