Nicknames

Peter ‘Burty’ Burtenshaw had a rather obvious and widely used nickname, though why he should call Philip Spice ‘Spic,’ I do not know. Not much better was the name he gave 2A2’s Kevin Garlick – Gherkin. 

Some nicknames were funny. Some were cruel, others inane. For reasons of their own, somebody gave Matthew Hewison the nickname Gaffer. I didn’t understand that one either.

Toni Walters came up with a cracker when she christened Brian Lodge – one of the class fatties – Splodge. Everyone liked that one, except Brian, perhaps.

Most nicknames originated from Brian Lack and Raymond Wright, whose credits included…

Toni Walters – Winnie Walters.

Diane Jarrett – Goofy Jarrett.

Vicki Crook – Crotchet.

Richard Pascall – the fattest kid in 2A1 and our whole year – Fat Skull.

Ann Howe – Ann got the short straw and a lot of unwarranted ridicule when they dubbed her Aggie.

Another person on the receiving end of a lot of ridicule was the adenoidal Trevor Hickson. Or-dur wasn’t a nickname, as such, but Trevor endured many cries of Or-dur in dopey exaggeration of his nasal voice. Trevor, of all people, once had the misfortune to be taking a turn at standing up and reading to the class when fate delivered a passage that contained the word ‘Adieu.’ The class was in uproar.

As for me, Paul Obee found it funny to call me Bert, after the Bert Lynch character in Z Cars. I might have been amused too, if I hadn’t heard it throughout junior school. Roman Candle was another name I got called, being 2A1’s lone Catholic. And, as the tallest, skinniest kid in the class, I sometimes got tagged with the name of a certain character in The Beano, too. Very unimaginative, I thought.

Clodpoll was probably the unkindest nickname of the lot, as it typified the total lack of respect given to Mister Clark-Lowes. New to the school and possibly new to teaching, Mister Clark-Lowes had taken over our English lessons at the start of the spring term.  Mild mannered and bespectacled, everything about this young teacher said novice, from his bumbling manner to the leather patches on his jacket elbows. No protection at all against a class ready to test him. As hard as he tried, Mister Clark-Lowes struggled from the outset. When raising his voice didn’t work, he just got flustered.

2A1 wasn’t the most difficult class to control, nor should we have been, but Clodpoll’s weaknesses were there for all to see. Our English lessons started badly and got progressively worse as he struggled to maintain order. The crunch came on the day Toni Walters and Elaine Drury were messing about with a fountain pen on the front row. Exasperated by their lack of attention, Mister Clark-Lowes boiled over. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he said, as he snatched at the fountain pen. Toni snorted with laughter as a jet of ink squirted the teacher’s white shirt, an accident that had everyone in stitches. The young teacher’s despair was complete. Was that the defining moment of his teaching career? Who knows? He disappeared that summer, never to be seen again.

Elaine Drury: “Correction Gerard, just to own up it was me not Toni who squirted the ink! I couldn't resist that dirty deed. I well remember the look of horror as he saw the blue ink splashes on his shirt and me sitting there trying to make out I didn't do it.”