The Heart of the Dales (17 page)

‘May I look?' I asked a blond-haired boy with large ears who was poring over an exercise book.

‘Sure,' he replied, sliding the book across the desk. I sat next to him and examined his work. He watched me for a moment before telling me, ‘I'm writing a newspaper article about the effects of pollution on the marine environment. We went on a trip with Mr Hornchurch to an aquarium last Saturday and we learnt all about oil tanker leaks and the rubbish that gets dumped in the oceans of the world, so I've got lots of facts and figures.'

It was an excellent piece of work – clear, well structured and neatly written. I glanced though his exercise book and was struck by the quality of the other pieces of writing. His work was unusually accurate and well presented for one so young.

‘You're a fine writer,' I told the boy.

‘Thanks,' he said. ‘I want to be a journalist like my mum when I leave school.'

‘And you seem to be a very good speller,' I said. ‘How old are you?'

‘Eleven,' he replied.

‘I don't think I've ever met an eleven-year-old as good at spelling as you.'

The boy smiled broadly. ‘Cheers, mate!' he said, nudging my arm with his elbow.

‘Is everyone in the class as good as you?' I asked.

‘Mostly,' he told me. ‘You see, we do quite a bit on spellings with Mr Hornchurch.'

‘And what do you do to become so good?' I asked.

‘Well,' replied the boy, ‘we do rules for a start.'

‘Such as?'

‘There's “i” before “e” except after “c”. Of course, it doesn't always work. Mr Hornchurch says that where there's a rule, there's generally an exception.'

‘He's right there,' I agreed. ‘At school I learnt the little poem:

It is “i” before “e”;,

Except after “c”,

Or when it is “eigh”,

As in “neighbour” and “weigh”.'

‘That rule works with me,' the boy continued, ‘because I'm called Kieran but it doesn't work with my mum, she's called Sheila, and it doesn't work with my dad, he's called Keith. They're what's called ‘irregulars'. We list any irregulars in our spelling book.' The boy reached into the drawer beneath his table and produced a notebook. On each page was a different spelling rule neatly written out in large black letters. ‘So you see,' he explained, ‘under the irregulars for this rule we have: “weigh” and “weight”, “freight” and “height”, “heir”, “heifer”, “beige”, “feign”, “weir” and loads of others. Mr Hornchurch says the English spelling system is really confusing, specially to those trying to learn the language. He says that foreigners have to learn the language three times: first its meaning, then how to pronounce it and then how to spell it.'

‘I see,' I said, extremely impressed. I thought at that moment of Mrs Sidebottom and tried to imagine the fun foreigners would have attempting to pronounce her name.

‘When Mr Hornchurch was at university, he studied languages and taught foreign students over the summer holidays. He used to ask each of them to read a sentence at the end of the course. Hold on a minute, I've got it written down in my jotter.' The boy reached into the drawer again and produced another book. ‘This is the sentence: “A rough-coated, dough-faced, tough-looking thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, and after falling into a slough by the side of a lough, he coughed and hiccoughed and went on his way.”'

‘That's very good,' I said, chuckling.

‘Mr Hornchurch said that if the students could pronounce all the words correctly at the end of the course, they had just about mastered the English language and they had been taught well.'

‘You don't seem to have a problem with the English language, Kieran,' I told the boy, ‘and Mr Hornchurch appears to have taught you very well indeed.'

‘He's a good teacher is Mr Hornchurch. He makes the lessons interesting, and likes a laugh – but he sometimes comes out with things.'

‘Does he?' I said, my thoughts returning fast to the principal reason for my visit to the school. I wondered just what the ‘things' were that the teacher came out with.

‘He uses unusual words and expressions. He says, ‘English is a real can of worms, as slippery as a snake in olive oil, like walking blindfolded through a minefield.' He's full of expressions like that.'

‘Well, you seem to be pretty knowledgeable about the English language,' I told him and I meant it.

‘Look at this word for example,' said the boy, picking up a pencil and a scrap of paper and scribbling something. ‘Look at that word – “GHOTI”. How would you pronounce that, then?'

I had come across George Bernard Shaw's capricious spelling before. I often used this word on my English courses to demonstrate what I grandly called ‘the orthographic irregularities' in the English language. However, I decided with young Kieran to play dumb. ‘I've never heard of it,' I said, ‘but I suppose I would say “goaty”.'

‘It says “fish”,' the boy informed me. ‘You have “gh” as in “laugh”, “o” as in “women” and “ti” as in “station”. Mr Horn-church said he was shown this by a famous writer called George Bernard Shaw – probably a friend of Mr Hornchurch's.'

‘Well, I don't think your teacher has actually met George Bernard Shaw,' I said, ‘but I do know that that particular writer was very keen on making spelling easier for people.'

‘But we don't just do rules,' the boy continued. ‘We learn what Mr Hornchurch calls “little wrinkles”.'

‘Go on,' I said, intrigued.

‘Say if you want to learn a particular word like “necessary”. We learn a “little wrinkle” – “one coffee and two sugars” – then you remember it has one letter “c” and two letter “s”s. “Accommodation” is another difficult word – “two cottages and two mansions” – and you remember the two “c”s and two “m”s.'

‘That's very good,' I said, laughing.

‘Mr Hornchurch's got loads of “little wrinkles” and we also work out our own.'

‘I must try myself,' I told him.

‘Then we do mnemonics,' said the boy.

‘“Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain”,' I said.

‘Pardon?'

‘That's a mnemonic,' I told him, ‘to help remember the colours of the rainbow in sequence: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. If you want to learn the order of the planets you learn: “My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets” for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.'

‘It's good that,' said the boy. ‘I'm going to write that down in my jotter. Mr Hornchurch says that if we come across something interesting, or an unusual word or phrase or an old expression, we should write it down because it may come in useful later on when we are doing our writing.'

‘That's a very sensible idea,' I said, and watched the boy begin to write the two mnemonics I had given him. ‘Well, thank you for talking to me, Kieran,' I said, standing and getting ready to see what the other children in the class were doing.

‘Don't go yet,' he pleaded. ‘I've not explained what mnemonics we use to help us remember how to spell difficult words.'

‘Very well,' I said, sitting down again.

‘As I was telling you, we work out mnemonics for difficult words. Take “because” – “big elephants can always understand
small elephants”; “rhythm” – “rejoice heartily, your teacher has measles”. Then there's “embarrass” – “every mother's boy acts rather rudely after some sausages”. You can work out a mnemonic for any difficult spelling.'

As the boy spoke I was reminded of the word that was almost consistently misspelt in letters I received from parents when I was a teacher. The word was ‘diarrhoea'. One very inventive parent wrote to me saying that, ‘Debbie is off with dire rear', another that his son was absent with ‘diahr, dihia, diahrh,' with all three attempts crossed out and then the phrase, ‘the shits' written after it.

‘See if you can work out a mnemonic for “diarrhoea”. Do you know how to spell that?'

The boy shook his blond head.

‘Look the word up in the dictionary, and then see if you can think of a sentence to help you remember how to spell it.'

‘I'll have a go,' he said and off he went to find a dictionary.

I turned my attention now to two girls working together on the next table, which was covered with brochures and booklets.

‘Once you get Kieran started,' the first girl told me confidentially, ‘you can't shut him up. Mr Hornchurch says he talks like a Gatling gun, whatever one of those is.'

‘May I ask what you're doing?'

‘Me and Miranda – I'm Rowena, by the way –' said the girl, ‘are writing a guide for the aquarium of the future. We all visited the aquarium last Saturday and –'

‘I d-didn't,' interrupted her partner, a mousy little girl with large glasses.

‘Well, no, Miranda, you didn't go but the rest of the class did,' continued Rowena.

‘My f-father wouldn't l-let me g-go,' stuttered Miranda, ‘H-he said I had to s-stay at h-home to p-practise my p-piano. He d-doesn't believe in s-school trips. He s-says they're a waste of t-time.'

‘Well, perhaps he'll take you to the aquarium himself one day,' I said.

‘N-no, he w-won't. He's always too b-busy,' said the child, firmly.

Undoubtedly, this diffident girl with the pronounced stutter, large sad eyes and small pinched face was the child who had innocently been the cause of all the upset.

‘Anyhow,' said Rowena, ‘we visited this brilliant aquarium and we had a talk from this woman fish expert – she's called a piscatologist or something – who says there are hundreds of species of fish no one ever sees because they are so deep down in the ocean where no divers can go.'

‘Why can't the deep-sea divers see them?' I asked. Very often inspectors askpseudo-questions. They know the answers and are merely testing to see if the children know. I always found it refreshing to ask a real question.

‘Because the water pressure is too great right at the bottom of the sea,' the child told me. ‘But Mr Hornchurch says eventually we will be able to see them when scientists have invented special breathing apparatus.'

‘I see.'

‘Mr Hornchurch says the deep ocean is the greatest frontier of discovery.'

‘So what have you written so far?' I asked.

The girl shuffed through the papers. ‘This is our second draft. We've just got it back from Mr Hornchurch with ideas on how we can improve it.'

‘Would you like to read it to me?' I asked.

Rowena gave a dry little cough. ‘Hem-hem.' Then she read. ‘“Eleven thousand fathoms down in a dark, dark world where man has never been, there are sorts of alien life forms. There are snails, molluscs, octopuses, squids, eels and crustaceans.”' She stopped and giggled. ‘I didn't know what the last word was or how to spell it so I wrote “crushed Asians”. Mr Horn-church said it was a very good attempt.' She read on. ‘“There's a big variety of very strange fish at the bottom of the deep black sea. There's gaper eels with big eyes at the front of their heads, vampire squids with flappy ears like Dumbo and white jaws and blood red eyes, there's angler fish, headlight fish, sea
stars and dragon fish which light up their prey before gobbling them up.”'

‘It sounds a very interesting and unusual world,' I said, turning to the other girl.

‘And s-scary,' added Miranda.

‘Yes, it does sound a bit frightening,' I agreed. ‘And how are you getting on at school then, Miranda?'

She nodded. ‘I l-like it here. It's much b-better than my l-last school.'

‘Good,' I said, but before I could question her further, Kieran was at my side.

‘Diarrhoea!' he announced loudly and spelt out the word slowly and deliberately: ‘D-I-A-R-R-H-O-E-A.' Then he recited his very inventive mnemonic: ‘“Died in a Rolls Royce having over-eaten again”.'

‘Very good,' I said, clapping my hands.

‘There's more,' he said. ‘“Did I actually really run home on energy alone?”'

‘Excellent!' I said.

‘There's more,' he said.

‘That's fine,' I said, holding up a hand, ‘I think that's quite enough of mnemonics for one day, Kieran.'

‘No, no, this is the best,' he told me with a cheeky grin on his face. ‘“Dash in a real rush, help or exploding arse!”'

Biting my bottom lip to stifle my laughter, I suggested that perhaps he might like to tweak the ending a little bit, so it became: ‘“Dash in a real rush, help or else accident”.'

Miranda, who had been privy to this lively exchange, turned her little face in my direction and screwed up her nose. Perhaps another word would be added to her father's list when she got home that afternoon.

Towards the end of the lesson, my thoughts inevitably returned to the dreaded meeting that would take place after school but they were interrupted by Kieran who had seen me glancing at my watch and getting ready to depart.

‘Mr Hornchurch,' he shouted out, ‘can we give Mr Phinn the spelling test?'

‘I don't think so, Kieran,' replied Mr Hornchurch. ‘I think Mr Phinn needs to be away. He's probably got an important meeting to attend.' If only he knew, I thought.

‘Oh, go on, sir,' pleaded the boy. ‘It's only a bit of fun and Mr Phinn's really interested in spelling, aren't you, Mr Phinn?'

I could see the pit opening before me, ready for me to fall in headlong. I could just imagine the sort of credibility I would have in schools as the school inspector for English who couldn't spell. ‘Well, er, I am, er, but…' I stumbled.

‘Perhaps another time,' said the teacher, kindly coming to my assistance.