Tom Brownes Schooldays

I awoke to the sound of Martha holding a conversation with whom I assumed to be Varne.

I got up only to discover that it was in fact Fing, not Varne who was talking to Martha, in an attempt to be let out into the garden.

'He can't go out', she explained, 'there are cats who have been out all night outside'. Fing looked at me with anger in his eyes and went off and pissed in Trotters toy bag to make himself feel better.

'Its for his own good', she said, and I recalled that Martha used to have a teacher who used to say exactly the same thing to her when she was a girl. Miss Herring, aka 'Cods eye' used to regularly cane Martha for her naughtiness, whilst adding 'I'm doing this for your own good'.

I asked Martha if it had done any good, and she replied no. So i enquired if the same principle applied to Fing.

'Its entirely different', she exclaimed! 'Its not like I'm about to cane his tiny paws is it?'

We then discussed Martha's schooldays and her different teachers at her secondary modern school.

There was delightful Mrs Money who taught needlework and writing. Unfortunately Martha showed no aptitude for needlework and was allowed to do gardening instead. This was until the day that Martha decided to get on the rotavator and drove into the gate by accident, cutting her leg open in the process.

There was perverted Mr Harris, who taught geography and took the hapless students on a field trip to Shropshire in an attempt to teach them cartography. They dropped the students off in the hills, only to find Marthas team lost. She got a caning for getting lost.

Mr McCabe the art teacher who wouldn't let the boys and girls talk to each other despite it being a mixed school.

Martha's belief of predestination stemmed from Mr Mangle, who would make the children meditate and close their eyes, all so that he could pick his nose in private.

And of course, the redoubtable Mrs Herring, who had thin vicious lips that were always pained a bright red, with short mannish hair and weak watery eyes.

I think my favourite reminiscence of the morning was about Georgina, who arrived at the school epileptic, but unannounced, so when she took her first fit in the dinner queue the other children ran screaming into the playground. One day she took a fit in Mrs Herrings class, and sat thrashing at her desk, only to have Mrs Herring call out 'Pull yourself together Georgina and pay attention!'