I was going to write an entry about how, in retrospect, my High School was an astonishingly violent environment. However, I am conscious that my recent entries have not always been conducive to cheery smiles and happy countenances. So here instead is an account of a happy moment. However, I have to start with some violence.
Each teacher in my school had his or her own approach to discipline. I like to imagine that they spent their lunch breaks huddled together in the staff room – air unbreathable with cigarette fumes – arguing the point until their lips turned blue from oxygen deprivation and someone had to open a window. Some relied, hilariously, on our innate sense of fairplay and desire to learn. Others believed, equally naively, that humiliation was the key apparently failing to realise that their actions simply conferred hero status on their supposed “victims”. There was one teacher, however, with whom no-one was prepared to mess: Mr D.
Mr D wore spectacles with thick black frames from which his psychopath’s eyes would shine menacingly. He sported a black moustache and invariably had on a black corduroy jacket which was adorned, each day, with a fresh carnation. He had absorbed his lessons on discipline from the Mafia. All infringements, however minor,  were dealt with by means of the instantaneous infliction of extreme pain. He had the job of overseeing the morning exodus from School Assembly and would select each day a victim at random who would be suspended in the air from the tuft of hair that grows immediately above a schoolboy’s ears. As the boy selected swung next to us, face red with pain, we would shuffle out mouthing prayers of thanks to the Lord that we had escaped for another day.
Mr D’s principal job was teaching Biology. He would stride around the classroom declaiming as we took dictation. His style of teaching was, putting matters as mildly as I decently can,  idiosyncratic. For instance my recollection of his lesson on “human reproduction” has him beginning thus:
“Now, you loathsome little boys, no doubt you have all feverishly frotted your pathetic little members to the point of discharge. Now it is time to find out what they are actually for.”
One had the feeling in class that one was at his disciplinary mercy. As he toured the classroom he would carry with him a horse crop. From time to time, he would bring it down sharply on the desk in front you with a startling “thwap”. The key, we learned,  was not to flinch as that would result in your fingers being caught by the crop and stinging for hours.
One afternoon I was sat in his classroom learning about chlorophyll and my mind wandered. I began to doodle on my rough book. I have always loved to draw and it takes real effort to stop myself covering any piece of paper left in front of me with squiggles. As I was putting my finishing touches to my latest work, I felt a horsecrop on my shoulder and Mr D bellowed into my ear: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING BOY?”. Mr D had a powerful voice. I once saw him shout so loudly at a first year student that had been tricked into sitting on Mr D’s BMW motorcycle by some evil older boys, that the boy appeared to be blown clean off the bike.
“ARE YOU DRAWING?!”
I had what lawyers call a “settled expectation of death”. I was hopelessly guilty and too scared even to imagine what he had in store for me.
“COME WITH ME!”
He set off for the small office that led from the classroom. As all the blood in my system had drained to my feet I could only shuffle past the rows of white faced classmates, their mouths hanging open. I caught the eye of a friend who winced sympathetically but his gaze made it clear that there was nothing he could do for me. I was dead already. That a man perfectly at ease concussing a boy with a steel ruler in the classrooom appeared to feel it necessary to take me into his office to punish me had to mean that whatever was in store for me shot clean off the top of the disciplinary scale.
I walked into his office and found him stood with his back to me removing a book from his well-stocked shelves.
 “So you like to draw?”
My mouth was completely dry. I could only nod. He turned to watch my head bob up and down.
“Sit down there”
What punishments could be inflicted while I was sitting? He put a book down in front of me.
“Do you know who John Constable is?”
“Er .. he painted the ‘Haywain'”
“Exactly. Good boy. This is a facsimile copy of his sketchbooks.”
I forced my eyes to focus and there it was: a beautifully bound copy of Constable’s sketchbooks. I noticed that the other 100 or so volumes on his shelves were all books devoted to great artists.
“I’ll leave you here to look through these while I go back and teach the rest of those soulless little morons about photosynthesis.”
He smiled at me and walked back out to calm the whispers and reassert control.
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Acknowledgment: This post arose as a result of having read Brother Lawrence’s excellent post on his gym teacher. Click on the “Snarky Franciscan” in my blogroll to read it.
that was so well written, my heart was thumping right til the end.
Yay! UCC you survived the 20 Six debacle.
This is exactly the type of thing that got me interested in Psychology. Yes, funny isn’t it? Everyone – EVERYONE – even those people like teachers who weem so utterly one-dimensional operate entirely differently in different contexts. My favourite example is the Area Manager who had branch staff quaking in their boots and running for cover whenever he came to visit. The worst punishment of all was being asked a question by teh Area Manager, because your manager would be wincing in pain, trying to keep control of his own bladder, hoping against hope you were going to articulate whatever trivial piece of company policy he wished to extract, in terms that were satisfactory.
But the illusion was shattered when I overhheard him take a call from his loving wife. It was all high-pitched screeching from the receiver and the Area Manager saying ‘Yes, dear, right away dear. Of course I wouldn’t mind doing that. No problem. Will get onto it right away.’
He replaced the receiver gingerly, then looked up to notice me completely in earshot of the whole conversation. He smiled. He was never horrible to me ever again. In fact, we got on absolutely fine from that moment on – and I never said a word about it to any of my colleagues, let alone my weak-bladdered boss. Sweet. xx
Great story – and brilliantly written as usual 🙂
Funny how teaching used to be the traditional profession for psychopaths – and no, his love of art does not excuse his bullying and cruelty.
The git.
I had a maths teacher once who proudly sported a navy blue tie with a little red dagger on it. Apparently it was the tie for the Vasectomy Society. Yes, you heard.
His name was Mr Alcock.
Yes it was.
Great story. Someday, I shall have to blog about our biology teacher. Secondary school is just full of blogging material.
I had a teacher who used to delight in walloping us with rulers. He once told me that an interest in theatre meant I was “of the greek persuasion”. If I’d known what he meant I might have pointed out how funny that sounded coming from Homer ‘homo’ Roberson, as the kids called him. Since you asked, I’ve been slack at my blogspot account but have been a little busier at http://www.20six.co.uk/bore
I feel a little guilty about Mr D. First off you need to remeber that I am pretty long in the tooth and there was little or no talk in those days of corporal punishment being degrading or inhuman. Mt father made a point at parents evenings of encouraging my teachers to hit me if they felt I “needed” it. With one exception none of them ever did.
When I grew up a little he taught a group of us Art History. During the course of one of the lessons he told us he hated the school and the “small-minded” disciplinarians who ran it. He said he dressed flambotantly to annoy the head of the junior school and that away from the school he wore jeans like “any normal human being”. I was sceptical and wished he’d find a better way of lampooning authority than inflicting pain on its victims. But as the term wore on it was clear that he was a genuinely inspirational teacher. I for one was inspired. I loved the subject.
Halfway through the year he went missing and was ultimately found dead by his own hand. His widow contacted the school and told us that he had wanted each of us in his Art History class to take a book from his collection for our own. I have a volume of Delacroix’s letters to this day. Mark, if you are still reading this nonsense – what did you take?
Loved it…am bowing to you and your writing skillzzzz Moobs! 🙂
School…arrgggghhhh…cannot even think of my gym teacher who shaved his legs and had plugs for hair on his head. I was such a smartass…I asked him one day if he the plugs were made out of his leg hair. Um…he sent me to the principals office within seconds.
The principal was trying not to laugh…
America…freedom of speech at it’s finest! 😉
That really had me engaged! Great story. Did you ever tell your classmates that Mr. D was really an OK guy…sometimes? Or was that just you between you two?
Bro. Moobs,
You brought back memories of Sister Lea and her dreaded squat thrusts in the back of the room, along with Sister Ellen and her ‘ruler of pain’ across the knuckles. Aww, 6th grade in a Catholic-ran elementary school.
Moobs, great story, but what an amazing postscript too.
Excellent post, Moobs! Loved it. So well written… it’s like you’re funny and serious and insightful and contemplative and vindictive and funny and serious AND you can write and like, ohmygod!
Seriously, loved the post.
ohmygash.
Wow, I totally thought he was going to kill you. Well, not literally, as you’re here today to write this, but wow was I nervous for you. Glad you didn’t get a whippin’! Great great story.
First time reader/commenter. That was so well written. I could almost hear Mr. D’s voice in my head and picture the whole thing while reading it! Hey I guess if he rode a motorcycle, he couldn’t be all bad, right?
Jen – You star. What was the punishment?
MotR – I did tell people. THey were awed as, indeed, was I.
Wenchy – Did you have to put a picture of a Nun doing squat thrusts into my head?
KE – thanks – did you have an inspirational teacher?
KC – contemplative, vindictive and funny – that’s the trifecta right there! Time to retire.
LB – though I did once get hit on the arse with a slipper by our metalwork teacher. I was more bemused than hurt.
Maniac – thanks and welcome. Lot’s of good stuff on your blog. Mind if I blogroll you?
I vividly remember Mr D brandishing his umbrella at a (very irritating) first-year boy whom he had plucked out of the line and “sharing with him” the story of Edward II’s end. I also remember the headmaster (who treated him very badly by some accounts) interrupting our art history lessons to ask him for help with his (later unpublished and very boring) book on Blake. That Mr D gave him any help at all I’ve always remembered as an extraordinary act of grace on his part. Strong memories of the funeral too – and the trip on the back of his bike on the way home from the Soames museum. Oh, the book from his library, which I still have, is a biography of Camille Pissarro.
MOobs…my punishment for above comment and actions…I had to do Saturday detention. 8 hours of silence and HELL! Think Breakfast Club…but WITH.NO.TALKING.AT.ALL! But it was worth it…
I can merely echo the sentiments of those above. Great story.
Moobs, i was thinking…did you conveniently leave out the part where he made you take your pants off? or maybe that book was originally in his pants and you had to retrieve it?
I have tried reading this several times, to no avail. (Children pulling at my leg to feed them and all.) But I’m glad to FINALLY get around to saying BEAUTIFULLY-WRITTEN, as always, Moobs. Everything Kevin said and more.
Wow, the writing, as usual stunning… Sorry, I can’t get the phrase ‘feverishly frotted’ out of my head.
The most voilent thing that happened in my high school was Mr H, the geogrpahy teacher (also called ‘The Monk’ because of an unfortunate hair arrangement), threw a hardbacked text book at my friend Adam, to dicourage any further whispering… Unfortuantely it hit Adam knocking him off his chair and then smacking his head on the desk behind. Mr H’s face changed from anger to horror as he rushed to Adam and fell to the floor to check for cuts, bruises and his future… He took 4 years off work after that incident.
i love your stories moobs … takes me back to school daze … way back