Out of the Woods But Not Over the Hill (5 page)

I was attending a gala charity function the other week. The ‘star' of the evening was one of these ‘cutting-edge, alternative' comedians, who was ‘guaranteed to make us roll in the aisles'. Well, I stayed firmly in my seat until I could stand no more and departed for the toilets. The material was, to my mind, uninspired, vulgar and relied for its dubious humour on poking fun at others who were in some way different. Of course, there was the usual string of inane and predictable Irish jokes.

One of the highlights of my holiday in Blackpool when I was a child was an evening at the pier show. I looked forward most to the appearance on stage of real comedians, and I laughed until my sides ached at the very best of the crop. Nearly all the stars at Blackpool came from the music hall tradition: big hearted Arthur Askey (‘Hello Playmates'), Tommy Cooper (‘Not like this, like that'), Richard Murdoch, Al Read (‘Right Monkey'), Jimmy James and Eli, Dickie Henderson, Freddie Frinton, Beryl Reid, Arthur Haynes, Joan Whitfield, Norman Evans, Professor Jimmy Edwards and Chick Murray (‘I'm taking the dog to the vet to have it put down.' ‘Is it mad?' ‘It's no too pleased.'). There was Frankie Howerd, who managed to have people doubled up with laughter and he said nothing, but just spluttered and ‘Ooed' and ‘Aahhd', jettisoning any script he might have had and departing on some wild fantasy of his own.

My favourite was the great Hylda Baker, with her gormless and silent stooge, Cynthia. This small woman (four foot, eleven inches) characterised the fast-talking gossip and her catchphrases (‘She knows, you know,' ‘“Be soon,” I said,' and ‘You big girl's blouse') became household phrases. It is reputed that when she appeared at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, Noel Coward observed after the performance he had ‘endured' that, ‘I would happily wring that woman's neck – if I could find it.'

In her moth-eaten fox fur, ill-fitting checked jacket, large handbag over the arm, and misshapen hat, she had the audience rolling in the aisles with her facial contortions and mangling of the English language. ‘I don't think you've had the pleasure of me,' she told the audience as she came on stage, wriggling her small frame as if she had chronic worms. ‘I can say this without fear of contraception,' she would continue. ‘I went to the doctor and he was standing there, his horoscope around his neck. He said I'd got the body of a woman twice my age. “Get away,” I said, “you flatterer, you.” I was so excited I nearly had a coronary trombonist and fell prostitute on the floor.'

Then she would look up at her silent friend. ‘Ooo,' she would mouth, ‘Have you been with a fella? Have yooo? Have yooo been with a fella?' Cynthia would stare into the middle distance with a blank expression. ‘She knows, you know,' Hylda told the audience. ‘Oh yes, she knows, you know.' Simple, innocent, clean, inoffensive, silly material, but hilariously funny.

Hylda Baker was a direct descendant of Mistress Quickly and Mrs Malaprop and the precursor of Connie, the character who appears throughout my Dales books. She was one of those people who mangled and murdered the language with malapropisms and
non sequiturs
to great comic effect. She could mince words like a mincer minces meat.

Aged ten, I waited in the rain on the pier after a show to get Hylda Baker's autograph. She arrived at the stage door. ‘Have you been standing there in the rain, you little tinker, you?' she said as she scribbled her name across the programme which I still have to this day.

I was enthralled when I attended a brilliant performance by the character actress, Jean Ferguson. In her one-woman show she was uncanny in recreating the comic genius of Hylda Baker, capturing the voice and mannerisms, the body wiggling, the facial contortions and handbag adjustments.

Sadly, Hylda Baker spent the last years of her life in a nursing home for retired variety performers and died alone in Horton Hospital in 1986, aged 81. Only eleven people attended her funeral. This great comedian has been largely forgotten, but not by one of her greatest fans who, as a child, remembers waiting in the rain outside the stage door on a wet Saturday evening in Blackpool for an autograph.

Stage Struck

On a recent Saturday visit to my home town of Rotherham, I met Miss Greenwood, my former infant teacher, in All Saints' Square. She is now over 80 years old, but still possesses the shining eyes and the gentle smile of the great teacher she was. I loved Miss Greenwood and those early years at school. I moulded little clay models, dug in the sand pit, played in the water tray, counted with little coloured beads, sang the nursery rhymes, danced with bare feet in the hall, made models with toilet rolls and cardboard boxes, splashed poster paint on large sheets of grey sugar paper, chanted poems, listened to stories and learnt to read. And how I loved those stories she read in the reading corner.

That Saturday I took Miss Greenwood for afternoon tea, and we reminisced.

‘And do you remember when you wet yourself, Gervase?' she asked with a twinkle in her eyes.

‘Of course I do. How could I ever forget?'

The time will remain ingrained in my memory. The curtains had opened on the Christmas Nativity play and there I had stood, six years old, stiff as a lamppost. I was the palm tree, encased in brown crêpe paper with two big bunches of
papier mâché
coconuts dangling from my neck, and a clump of bright green cardboard leaves in each hand and arranged like a crown on my head. My mother had knitted me a pale green woollen balaclava, through which my little face appeared. I had stared at all the faces in the audience and wriggled nervously. Then someone had laughed and it had started others off laughing too. It was the first occasion anyone had laughed at me and I had felt so alone and upset. I had looked for my parents and, seeing them in the second row, I had focused on them. They, of course, were not laughing. I had begun to cry and then, frozen under the bright lights and frightened, I had wet myself. It had seeped through the brown crêpe paper leaving a large dark stain in the front. The audience had laughed louder. I had been devastated. On the way home, my face wet with tears, my father had held my small hand between his great fat fingers and he had told me that I had been the best palm tree he had ever seen. My mother had told me that I was the star of the show. I knew full well at the time that they had not been telling me the truth, but it had been so good to be told. I felt so secure and so loved.

‘And do you remember, Miss Greenwood,' I asked her, ‘what you said to me when I came off the stage?'

‘I don't,' she said. ‘Remind me.'

‘Well, I guess some teachers would have stabbed the air angrily with a finger and told that little boy what a silly child he was, and demanded to know why he hadn't gone to the toilet before going on stage.'

‘And what did I say?' she asked.

‘You put your arm around me and you said, “Don't worry, love, I used to wet my knickers when I was your age.” '

There was a short silence. Then a small smile came to my former teacher's lips. ‘Well Gervase,' she said, chuckling, ‘it's funny how things come full circle.'

 

The Good Teacher

The child is initiated into what Kafta called ‘The Lie': ‘Education is but two things: first the parrying of the ignorant children's impetuous assault on the truth, and, second, the gentle, imperceptible, step-by-step initiation of the humiliated children into the Lie.' School, for him, was not a happy time. Indeed, many writers, describing their schooldays, dwell on their unhappiness at the hands of bullies and the cruelty at the hands of teachers. They speak of board rubbers thrown across the classroom, trouser bottoms smoking after a vicious caning, sarcastic, incompetent and sometimes sadistic teachers.

Andy Smith is a case in point. He undertook some building work at my house recently and I found him to be one of the most entertaining, imaginative and skilful people I have ever met. His schooling can at best be described as ‘indifferent'. He was clearly a boy with a talent but one which was not recognised or encouraged by his teachers. On one occasion, after spending many weeks making a chair in the woodwork room, carefully fitting the joints, sanding and varnishing, the teacher, angry with him about something trivial, and in a mighty fury, smashed the chair to pieces before the boy's eyes. Andy was heart-broken. It was something he has never forgotten. He did, however, have the satisfaction of getting his revenge. He bided his time until he had the opportunity, some weeks later, of being alone and unobserved in the woodwork room. Carefully, he sawed two legs off the teacher's prized table, the one he used to demonstrate his own craftsmanship. Balancing the table top on the legs, young Andy scurried away. The following day, the teacher entered the room and threw a pile of books and his case onto the table, which immediately collapsed before him. He had an idea, of course, who the culprit was, but he had no proof so was helpless to take any action.

Sadly, schooldays for Andy and many more children were not ‘the best years of their lives'. Well, my schooldays were. I was very fortunate to have, on the whole, dedicated and hard-working teachers with an enthusiasm for learning and possessing a desire to help their students appreciate and explore the subjects they taught more profoundly. I was never caned or slippered, called an idiot or made to write out lines.

When I recall my schooldays, there were several teachers who stood out as exceptional practitioners. Ken Pike, who later went on to become a distinguished head teacher, taught me for my ‘O' levels in English Language and English Literature. He was an inspirational teacher who infected me with a love of language and an appreciation of poetry and prose. He spoke with wonderful conviction and developed in me a passion for literature. As a school inspector, I often thought that if the material is appropriate to the age and maturity of the students, if the teacher manages to interest and challenge the students, and if they possess some sensitivity, understanding and have a sense of humour, then there would be far fewer discipline problems in schools. It is often when the lessons are dull, and the teacher lacklustre, that poor discipline emerges. Mr Pike had a great sense of humour. It is of inestimable importance that teachers do have a sense of humour – indeed, a sense of fun.

Alan Schofield taught me Geography for ‘O' level. He was a sensitive, tolerant man, always willing to listen, but not a soft touch. He was never too preoccupied to talk informally to the pupils at break times, or too impatient to go over an explanation again if we were unsure. His classroom, decorated with great coloured maps, posters, newspaper cuttings, postcards and photographs was kept neat and tidy. We would line up outside in silence, file in, stand behind our desks, wish him a ‘Good morning, sir,' and then be told to sit. Trained as a primary teacher, I guess he never possessed the letters after his name, but he was a natural teacher who enjoyed teaching, handled dissenting voices with humour and always made us feel valued. Those of us who have been teachers know only too well how daunting it can be to stand in front of a group of large, volatile adolescents not accustomed to sitting still and listening, and attempt to engage their attention and get them to do as they are told. It is important to appear strong and fearless, even if it is an act.

Many years later, Mr Schofield, then in his eighties, came to hear me when I appeared on stage at the Strode Theatre in Street. I sat in the bar after my performance with his wife and family, and we reminisced. Eventually, the manager of the theatre had to ask us to leave. Before he left, I held my former teacher in my arms and acknowledged him as the great teacher he was. I wanted to repay that fondness and respect that he had showered on me. Sadly, Alan Schofield died the following year.

Some would say that there is no room in education for the eccentric teacher. I would disagree. Mr Firth (‘Theo') taught me history at ‘O' level and was one of those individuals who are out of the ordinary, idiosyncratic and do not always follow the various directives, but he had a profound impact upon me in my schooldays; he brought history to life for me. Eccentrics, in my experience, are less inhibited, more imaginative and often more childlike in their approach to life than we ‘ordinary' folk, and they do not care what other people think of them. As I walked into the playground on my first day at secondary school, there, standing like a great Eastern statue in the middle of the yard, was this barrel-bodied, balding man with little fluffy outcrops around his ears. He was wearing old black plimsolls and, instead of a belt, he had a piece of string fastened around the top of his baggy corduroy trousers. He looked like a character from Dickens. This was the much-feared Mr Theodore Firth.