05 Please Sir!

It’s 1981 – the time of Adam and the Ants, Rubik’s Cube, the Sony Walkman and the Falklands War – as head teacher Jack Sheffield returns to Ragley-on-the-Forest School for another rollercoaster year.

Vera, the ever-efficient school secretary, has to grapple with a newfangled computer – and enjoys a royal occasion – while Ruby the caretaker rediscovers romance with a Butlin’s Redcoat. And for Jack, wedding bells are in the air. But the unexpected is just round the corner…

The Alternative School Logbook 1981–1982

Jack Sheffield

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First published in Great Britain
in 2011 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Jack Sheffield 2011

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2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

For my sweet Elisabeth

Jack Sheffield
was born in 1945 and grew up in the tough environment of Gipton Estate, in north-east Leeds. After a job as a ‘pitch boy’, repairing roofs, he became a Corona Pop Man before going to St John’s College, York, and training to be a teacher. In the late seventies and eighties, he was a headteacher of two schools in North Yorkshire before becoming Senior Lecturer in Primary Education at Bretton Hall College. It was at this time that he began to record his many amusing stories of village life as portrayed in
Teacher, Teacher!, Mister Teacher, Dear Teacher
and
Village Teacher. Please Sir!
is his fifth novel and continues the story of life in the fictional village of Ragley-on-the-Forest. He lives in York and Hampshire.

Visit his website at
www.jacksheffield.com

I am indeed fortunate to have the support of my superb editor, the ever patient Linda Evans, and the wonderful team at Transworld, including Larry Finlay, Bill Scott-Kerr, Nick Robinson, Madeline Toy, Lynsey Dalladay, Sophie Holmes, Vivien Garrett, copy-editor Judy Collins, and the ‘footsoldiers’ – fellow ‘Old Roundhegian’ Martin Myers and the quiet, unassuming Mike ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ Edgerton.

Special thanks go to my industrious literary agent and Britain’s most youthful forty-year-old, Philip Patterson of Marjacq Scripts, for his encouragement and good humour.

I am also grateful to all those who assisted in the research for this novel – in particular: Patrick Busby, Pricing Director, church organist and Harrogate Rugby Club supporter, Hampshire; Janina Bywater, nurse and lecturer in psychology, Cornwall; Rob Cragg, ex-European Director, Molex, and classic-car enthusiast, Hampshire; The Revd Ben Flenley, Rector of Bentworth, Lasham, Medstead and Shalden, Hampshire; David Hayward, retired environmental scientist and radio-controlled model aircraft enthusiast, Hampshire; Steve Holford, postman and former potter from Stoke-on-Trent, Hampshire; John Kirby, ex-policeman, expert calligrapher and Sunderland supporter, County Durham; Jennifer Lines, retired headteacher and local artist, Hampshire; Roy Linley, Enterprise Architect, Unilever Global Expertise Team, and Leeds United supporter, Port Sunlight, Wirral; Sue Maddison, primary school teacher, Harrogate, Yorkshire; Kerry Magennis-Prior, ex-churchwarden, St Andrew’s Church, Medstead, Hampshire; Sue Matthews, primary school teacher and John Denver enthusiast, Wigginton, Yorkshire; Phil Parker, ex-teacher and Manchester United supporter, Holme-upon-Spalding Moor, Yorkshire; The Revd Canon John Rendall, retired parish priest and Canon Emeritus of York Minster, Yorkshire; Charlie Shaylor, retired headteacher, lay reader and expert bread-maker, Hampshire; Pat Skinner, nurse and bread-pudding champion, Hampshire; Caroline Stockdale, librarian, York Central Library, Yorkshire, and all the wonderful staff at Waterstone’s Alton, Hampshire, and Waterstone’s York.

Fate is a capricious companion … Just one look and I knew.

‘So you didn’t get the job?’ Beth said quietly.

I shook my head. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Jack, what do you mean?’ she said.

I took a deep breath and the words tumbled out. ‘Well, Ragley School is staying open, so I chose
not
to go forward to the final interview.’

There was a hint of sadness in her green eyes. ‘I see,’ she said.

‘But it’s wonderful news, Beth, and … I love being a village teacher.’

She sighed deeply and shook her head. ‘I know, Jack, I know.’

I put my arms around her slim waist and kissed her gently. ‘This won’t affect our wedding plans, will it?’

She looked at me as if she was seeing me for the first time and said nothing. The air was still and there were no clouds on this perfect day but the look in Beth’s eyes made my heart sink. In the heaven that was once my heart, the sky was broken.

That was six weeks ago and the school summer holiday was now almost over. My interview at County Hall for a large primary school on the east coast of Yorkshire had ended abruptly. At the last moment I had withdrawn my application when Miss Barrington-Huntley, the Chair of the Education Committee for North Yorkshire, had informed me that Ragley Church of England Primary School was not on the list of schools to be closed. My fiancée, Beth Henderson – like me, a village school headteacher in her mid-thirties – found to her great relief that her school, Hartingdale, was also reprieved. It should have been a time for celebration. Instead it seemed to cause unease in our relationship. Falling in love had been easy; the next step was proving difficult.

It was Tuesday, 1 September 1981, and I was sitting alone in the school office. All was still and quiet. A watery sun streamed in through the high-arched Victorian windows and tiny motes of dust were suspended in the shaft of hazy sunlight waiting for a waft of air from the open doorway. Gentle rain was sweeping over from the Hambleton hills, but it was a quiet rain. Droplets caressed the bare branches of the avenue of horse-chestnut trees at the front of this lovely old school and I recalled the first time I had sat at my headteacher’s desk. Later I had met Beth … and it was a perfect memory.

My fifth year as headmaster of Ragley-on-the-Forest Church of England Primary School in North Yorkshire was about to begin. It was a day of silent aspirations, a morning of new directions … and I wondered if I had made the right decision to return to Ragley School.

Then I unlocked the bottom drawer of my desk, took out the large, leather-bound school logbook and opened it to the next clean page. I filled my fountain pen with black Quink ink, wrote the date and stared at the empty page. The record of another school year was about to begin. Four years ago, the retiring headmaster, John Pruett, had told me how to fill in the official school logbook. ‘Just keep it simple,’ he said. ‘Whatever you do, don’t say what really happens, because no one will believe you!’

So the real stories were written in my ‘Alternative School Logbook’. And this is it!

86 children were registered on roll on the first day of the school year. We were informed by County Hall that as part of the ‘Reading for All’ initiative, the North Yorkshire county library van will begin weekly visits to school. The newly appointed Computer Studies and Library Development Adviser will be visiting school to examine our reading policy and make recommendations
.

Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

Thursday, 3 September 1981

‘Y’still ’ere, then!’ shouted Mrs Winifred Brown through the open office door. ‘Ah ’eard they were shutting y’down,’ she added bluntly. As usual, our angriest parent had the demeanour of a snorting rhino and the finesse of a wrecking ball.

I looked up from my headteacher’s desk. ‘No, Mrs Brown, Ragley School is
definitely
open.’

‘Pity,’ she growled as she pushed little Damian Brown back out of the entrance door towards the school playground. Her seven-year-old son, with his skinhead haircut and sticking-out ears, was simultaneously picking his nose and sucking a giant gobstopper. Multi-tasking came easily to Damian. ‘Ah were jus’ checkin’,’ retorted Mrs Brown. ‘Y’don’t know if y’comin’ o’ goin’ in this school.’ Then, with a parting withering look, she turned on her heel and stormed off.

I unwound my six-feet-one-inch frame from my chair and put on my old herringbone sports jacket with the frayed leather patches on the elbows. Then I gave my black-framed Buddy Holly spectacles a quick polish using the end of my outdated flower-power tie and walked out into the entrance hall.

‘Tek no notice, Mr Sheffield. Y’can’t please some folk.’ It was Ruby the caretaker, her rosy cheeks flushed with the effort of sweeping the stone steps in the entrance porch. She leant on her yard broom and shook her head. ‘Winifred’s been proper vexed since ’er Eddie lost ’is job mekkin’ them toilets.’ Eddie Brown had been a fitter at Portaloo in York but was now resigned to sitting at home and listening to the regular tirades of his formidable wife. Only his pet ferret, Frankenstein, was a source of true companionship. It occurred to me that no matter how complicated my life seemed to be, there was always someone worse off.