196 A Pinch and a Punch

The last posting, about a childhood friend of mine being slapped, has brought a strong reaction from some people about the physical punishment of children and of corporal punishment in schools which was not prohibited by law in England until 1986.  Surprisingly, it was allowed in Welsh schools until as recently as 2022. 

Of course, slapping or physically punishing a child in any way, is and was, an awful thing to do but it was a common punishment while I was at school and when I began teaching. 

While at school, I was slapped once by a teacher and during my 37-year teaching career, once and only once, did I make physical contact with a pupil.

In my first year as a pupil at Lowestoft Grammar School, I was taught English by the Head of Department, Mr Baker.  I was 11 years old when, during a lesson, a girl handed me a piece of paper with the word MENSTRUATION  written on it in bold, red capital letters.

“What does that mean?” she asked.  I had no idea.

“Ask Mr Baker,” she suggested and thinking nothing of it, I went over to Mr Baker and handed him the paper.

“What does this word mean, sir?” I asked him.

SLAP!

The girl and her friend were sniggering.  I still remember the girl’s name and I have a rough idea of where she lives.  If revenge is a dish best served cold, 66 years should be long enough.

I have a friend who told me that in the 1960s, when he was at a grammar school in southwest Wales, he was caned.  Someone reported to the Headmaster of his school that when he and his girlfriend were on their way home from school, they were “snogging at a bus stop”.  

Their crime?  They were both in school uniform.  How times have changed.

My very first teaching job was at a boys’ secondary modern school.  As  I wrote in an earlier post, I had never intended to be a teacher and I only went into teaching because the 1969 strawberry crop failed and I was laid off two months earlier than I expected by the Birds Eye Frozen Foods factory in Lowestoft. (CLICK TO SEE)

I knew it was going to be a tough place to teach because I had been playing cricket for two seasons with a teacher at that school and he had told me many stories about assaults on pupils by staff and vice versa.

So, it was with some trepidation that I started there on September 9th,1969.

At 8.15, I went to the Headmaster’s office and met my Head of Department and Mr McNab, the Headmaster.  

“Assert yourself right from the start,” I was told.  “The first chance or reason you have, thump one of them good and hard.  Show them you’re not someone to be messed with.”  

I went to my first class.  35 boys about 14 years old, were in a noisy throng outside the locked classroom.  As I tried to unlock the door, I was impeded and jostled by a large, thuggy looking boy who then made derogatory comments about my jacket.

As I bent over to unlock the door, he pushed my arm so that the key missed the keyhole.  Boys laughed and jeered.  I turned to face the boy and pushed him away as hard as I could, making contact on his upper arm.

“I’m going to tell Mr McNab what you did,” he yelled at me and stormed off.   I thought that I’d better go and put my side of things and so I followed him.  

I was behind the boy in a corridor towards the Head’s office, thinking that this was probably not the ideal way to begin a teaching career, especially as I hadn’t even set foot in a classroom yet, when we saw Mr McNab walking towards us.

McNab was a Glaswegian with an accent so rough that knives could be sharpened on it and 20 years earlier, he had boxed for the army in the Combined Services Championship.

“This teacher just punched me,” the boy wailed.

“Was it a punch or a push?” asked Mr McNab.

“A punch,” said the boy.

Then, McNab punched him in the chest so hard that he sent him flying, knocking him to the ground.  He ended up sitting on the corridor floor, looking up at the Head with a look of shocked surprise and some apprehension.

“Was it like that?” asked Mr McNab.

“Yes,” mumbled the boy.

“Well, that was a push.”

195 What's in a Name?

I am a member of a Facebook group called “Lowestoft Football Teams and Memories”.  From the age of about 15 until I left Lowestoft to go to Durham University, I played for a team called Lowestoft Corinthians in the Lowestoft and District League and now, 60 years on, I occasionally see a reference to people whom I played with or against.  

Yesterday, a photo was posted of the 1969 Oulton Broad side that played in the final of the Suffolk Senior Cup and in it are four people I knew very well.

On the left of the front row is “W Churchill” and he was in my year at school.  If asked to guess what the “W” initial stands for, you might suggest William or perhaps Walter.

Of course, you would be wrong.  His name was Winston.  He was born just over a year after the end of the second world war and his parents were either incredibly patriotic or astoundingly unimaginative, naming him after our wartime leader.

I have one undying memory of W Churchill.  One day, when we were 11, Winnie, Roger Hill and I spent an afternoon in Oulton Broad swimming pool, where my friends were almost every day during the school summer holiday.  

The pool was adjacent to Everitt Park and to get from the pool to the park either involved a fairly long circuitous walk, or a strictly forbidden,10 second climb over a high wall.  If you were caught climbing over the wall, you could expect an aggressive interrogation and lecture from the tough and very belligerent Park Keeper.  That afternoon, the three of us climbed over the wall.

As soon as we landed, we were confronted by the Park Keeper and his equally unpleasant assistant.  We three small boys were herded into a corner formed by the pool wall and a shed.  The grilling began.  He started with me.

“What’s your name?”

“Terry Wilton”

“Yours?”

“Roger Hill”

“And what’s your name?”

“Winston Churchill.”

SLAP!

“Don’t take the piss out of me, son.”

The sound of Winnie’s face being slapped was echoing all around the park.

His parents had a lot to answer for.