The Third Year

‘Look after David.’

‘Yes Mam.’

Mam’s concern for my brother on his first day at Upbury was only to be expected and my responsibly doubled when Michael Reagan, Dave’s mate, turned up at our door under orders from his father. ‘Meet up with the Lynch brothers. The older one knows the way.’

Mister Reagan was well informed, as he would be, being a member of the Rainham Mark Social Club like my dad.

Dave looked very smart in his new school uniform, even with my old satchel. Mam had intended to buy him one and surely would have, if I hadn’t been quick to pounce with a bare faced lie that spared me the shame of going into the upper school with a bloody satchel.

‘He can have mine. I don’t need a satchel anymore.’

Satchels were a bit namby-pamby for the third year, I thought, and I was more than satisfied with its replacement – a vinyl pouchy thing from Woolworths. Cheap and cheerful, certainly, but unquestionably more grown up. 

    

On Sturdee Avenue I stared intently from the bus as we neared Barnsole Road. The Lynch family might have moved to a house on Harold Avenue if Mam hadn’t taken a dislike to the Georgian windows in those houses, and I wanted to see for myself. Sure enough, Mam was right about the little panes of glass, but a move to Harold Avenue would have been much closer to the football ground, school and the High Street. 

     

After strolling up the alleys to Marborough Road, I pointed Dave and his mate to the lower school entrance. Mission accomplished.

 

Going through the upper school gate for the first time was strange. I’d rarely been on that side of the school and it was an eye-opener to see how many kids arrived on bikes. All the excitement and anticipation of a new term was there, but in new surroundings, I was wary. From top dogs on the sunny side of the school we were now in the shadow of the main building and bottom of the pile again. The second years I’d kept my distance from in the first year were fourth years now, and no less intimidating. And they weren’t even the oldest.

‘Who cut your hair, your mum?’ asked Clive Ward.

The cheeky git knew damn well who’d cut my hair, but it didn’t stop him asking the same question he always asked. I didn’t want long hair like his anyway.

Mister Porter was our 3A1 form teacher. A bespectacled man of around thirty to forty, I wondered if he was new to Upbury as I’d not noticed him before. Burty and I were quick to weigh him up when he marched us into school and up the staircase by the lab.

‘Come on you two, no dilly dallying.’

He definitely wasn’t a soft touch, but he didn’t sound like a tyrant either. Me and Burty laughed and quickened our step, and claimed two desks together when we arrived at our new classroom on the upper floor of the main block, right next door to Mrs Sharp’s, overlooking the lower school playground. As was customary on the first day, the first task after registration was to copy a new timetable from the blackboard, something like this… 

Mister Porter informed us that as an English teacher, he would take us for English lessons. Too bad he didn’t teach maths as well, as Maths with Cyril Rye was the destiny of everyone in the A1 stream and now we were upper school pupils, our time nigh.

As always there were some new faces, some familiar, some not.  Andrew ‘Beak’ Collins was one of three kids promoted from A2, but a greater surprise was seeing a new kid in our classroom.

Who the bloody hell’s he?

The gloriously named Davinderpal Singh Kooner stuck out like a sore thumb, and not just because he wore a turban.

Kooner? That can’t be his name, surely?

Davinder’s presence on the front row caused quite a stir. Black pupils at Upbury were thin on the ground and fewer still wore turbans, but this one did.

Blimey!

As nice as it was to return to our old classroom for Mrs Sharp’s French lesson, it was odd to see everything had been turned ninety degrees. With her desk backed against the corridor wall and our old desks facing her, in rows, we found ourselves sitting with our backs to the window. Mrs Sharp seemed pleased to see us again. We were pleased to see her too, the boys ridiculously so, when she parked her bum on the front of her desk and her skirt started inching up.

Once a French lesson was underway it was expected that everyone should speak in French and address each other by our French names, but Mrs Sharp came unstuck when it came to naming our new classmate and lapsed into English to ask the class for help. ‘Can anyone think of a name we can call Davinder?’

A French name for Davinderpal Singh Kooner was beyond everyone but Raymond Wright, who was quick to raise a hand.

‘Chantez, Miss!’

The class burst out laughing.

‘Très Bien Raymond!’ said a delighted Mrs Sharp. Raymond’s suggestion was perfect. From thereon Davinder was Chantez, the French verb for sing.