September 1969

Getting a paper round never appealed to me. Getting up for school was hard enough. But my old mate Paul Parker was earning good money after school delivering the Evening Post and when he suggested I do the same, I was tempted. The earnings were variable but for comparable hours, a wage above my International Stores’ fifteen bob a week was practically guaranteed. And it’d leave Saturday’s free for going to football again. That was the clincher. I went to see Paul’s boss, a gruff old bloke who issued the papers from his home on Boughton Close. ‘Start on Monday,’ he said. 

Yes!

At school…

As a Catholic at Upbury I was well used to sitting out RE lessons but now Mister Fisk was my form teacher, I’d become a ghost pupil who didn’t belong in his own classroom.

As always I skipped assembly on Tuesdays and Thursdays to recite dreary Catholic prayers in a half filled classroom with Mister Carroll. A new addition to the flock was first year Gerard Carroll. He wasn’t related to Sir but another Gerard at Upbury was bound to attract my curiosity. I saw a timid, fresh faced kid who looked as confused as I’d been at the beginning of my first year. I wondered if I should have a word with him and mark his card, but I decided not to bother. Gerard the Second would just have to work things out for himself, as Gerard the First had.

 As in the third year, the sexes divided for Science lessons, with the boys reporting to Mister Carroll’s lab. Poor Mister Carroll worked his socks of trying to teach us Science, but nothing stuck better than an anecdote he told about a former pupil named Christopher Balls.

“I was sitting on a train, marking a pile of homework, when I came to a paper submitted by Christopher Balls. When I finished marking it, I wrote his surname in a corner at the top of the sheet, as I’d done with all the others. Well you should have seen the face of the woman next to me when she saw me write Balls on that paper.”

Mister Carroll smiled as the classroom filled with laughter. Then it was on with the lesson. Good old Mister Carroll. He was alright, even if I didn’t like the subject he taught. At least he gave us a laugh sometimes, unlike Mister Berger, whose Science lessons in the lower school had been an absolute misery.

Teachers ate with pupils at dinner time. A good thing in the main, as it surely was on the day Miss Chalkley dined at our table. I’d never had any dealings with our headmistress and I was surprised and impressed that she knew my name when politely asking for the salt.

Of all the teachers to get stuck with on a dinner table, permanently, I got Mister Berger. It seemed I’d been cursed. Dinner times would never be the same once ‘Please pass me the sodium chloride,’ became a catchphrase but with Mister Berger showing a side to him I’d never seen in a science class, it wasn’t half as bad as I expected.

‘Logan Sword – what a splendid name that boy has,’ Mister Berger observed one day when a new boy, a fourth year with a fast growing reputation, passed our table on the way to the serving hatch.

I couldn’t disagree, but as the same boy was reputed to deliver a splendid smack in the mouth, I considered it wise not to pass comment, either for or against.

I left my job at the International Stores that Saturday…

I felt a bit sad when we assembled at the back of the shop, just before six. Everyone went away happy on Saturday nights; Mister Sullens, Mrs Brown the supervisor, and the girls; Pat, Margaret, Liz, Janet and Sue. This Saturday was no different but there’d be no ‘see you next week’ from me. I’d miss them all, especially Sue, who’d tried so hard to bring me out of my shell.

As always, nobody moved until Mister Sullens said so. A meticulous man, he’d busy himself till the last second before dismissing everyone with a ‘right, off you go ladies’ that sufficed for me too. But not this evening, instead, he joined the waiting throng. I guessed something was going on when he ushered Sue forward.

‘We’ve brought you a little present,’ said Sue, as she handed me a boxed tie and a huge block of Cadbury’s.

Overcome with surprise, gratitude and an awful lot of embarrassment, I was stuck for words. 

‘I-I don’t know what to say… thank you,’ was as much as I could manage, as my face burned up.

‘Aww, he’s shy,’ was the last thing I needed to hear amidst all the giggles, but it was true. Caught in the spotlight with those young ladies smiling at me, I didn’t know where to look. I’d have melted on the spot if Mister Sullens hadn’t come to the rescue.

‘Right, off you go ladies.’