04 Village Teacher (30 page)

She put down a tray of North Yorkshire County Council glass tumblers filled with ice-cold home-made lemonade on the old pine table in the entrance hall. We all gathered round, grateful for the welcome refreshment.

‘Thanks, Vera,’ said John Grainger. ‘I’m parched.’ He put down his razor-sharp tenon saw, picked up two drinks and handed one to Anne.

She sipped hers gratefully and then stepped back to
admire
our work. ‘If they close us down after all this, it would break my heart,’ she said.

There was a subdued acknowledgement and we knew that Anne had echoed all our thoughts. We needed something to lift our spirits.

It was Wednesday morning, 3 June, and high summer was upon us. School was closed for the spring bank holiday and a PTA working party had met to put up the new shelving in our library resource area. It had proved hot work. We were keen to finish because the next day we were leaving for our outdoor activities weekend in the Yorkshire Dales.

‘Thanks, John,’ said Sue Phillips. ‘We couldn’t have done this without you.’

John Grainger had taken a day off work to share his considerable expertise with us and the fitted pine shelving looked perfect for our book collection. He nodded modestly and Anne squeezed his hand.

‘How about some fresh air?’ said Dan Hunter.

‘Good idea,’ said Jo. They had arrived in their ‘F’ registered Wolseley Hornet and were proud of their first car, bought for the princely sum of £300. Married life seemed to be suiting them, I mused.

We took our drinks out to the playground and the welcome shade of the horse-chestnut trees. Beth had come along to help before leaving to spend a few days in Hampshire while I was in the Yorkshire Dales. She looked relaxed in her summer safari-style shirt with fashionable epaulettes and her Jaeger long-length shorts. Her legs were already tanned and her hair looked lighter in the summer sun.

We watched the busy comings and goings of thrushes, blackbirds, blue tits, coal tits and the occasional green-finch in the nearby hedgerow next to the cobbled school drive. It was a hive of activity alongside the stillness of the empty playground. We leant against the school wall and sipped our lemonade in silent reverie. There was a Victorian permanence to our beautiful little village school and, in the morning sunlight, the walls were like amber honey.

Anne Grainger walked over to join us. ‘I love school at this time of the year,’ she said quietly.

‘Hmmm,’ I murmured, ‘I know what you mean – all the outdoor activities, summer fairs and sports days … Good times, Anne.’

Beth looked at the two of us curiously and then stared up at the high arched windows and the silent gothic bell tower.

Suddenly the spell was broken. Jo Hunter, with the energy of youth, hurried back towards the school entrance. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s classify those non-fiction books.’

Valerie Flint gave us a knowing smile and followed on. With the help of some of the parents, she wrote Dewey decimal numbers on small white labels and stuck them on the spine of each book, while Jo began stacking the books on our new shelves. By lunchtime the job was completed but it was noticeable there were many gaps in our collection and there was a stark shortage of history, geography and poetry books. Our recent appeal for second-hand books had resulted in a good response from the villagers but there were few up-to-date reference
books
. We needed more but, after buying the shelving and the storage units, there were no spare funds.

After everyone had departed, Beth and I locked up the school and wandered out into the High Street. Nora Pratt had put a few tables and chairs outside her coffee shop and Petula Dudley-Palmer was sitting there with Elisabeth Amelia and Victoria Alice. They were eating ice cream from tall glasses.

‘Oh, look, Jack,’ said Beth, ‘a knickerbocker glory. I’ve not had one of those in years.’

When we walked in, Nora was counting the plastic spoons and, on the juke-box, Leo Sayer was singing ‘More Than I Can Say’.

‘Hello, Nora,’ I said. ‘Two knickerbocker glories, please.’

She scooped various flavours of ice cream into two tall glasses, placed a cherry on top of each and served them accompanied by long spoons.

‘Alexander the Gweat would never wun into battle without a knickerbocker glowy,’ said Nora.

‘Really? I didn’t know that,’ I said, while Beth gave me a wide-eyed stare.

‘Ah were weally good at histowy, Mr Sheffield,’ said Nora proudly.

I was always fascinated by the eclectic world of Nora Pratt.

We sat outside and Petula Dudley-Palmer lifted her Jodrell Bank sunglasses and glanced enviously at Beth’s suntanned legs. Then she looked down at her Kayser’s
15-denier
smooth knit ‘brevity-style’ tights, guaranteed to make your legs look like a Mediterranean sun-worshipper until they were sufficiently tanned, and sighed deeply.

She had recently taken delivery from Torquay of a full-size Alpha Caribbean UVA sunbed. With its fast-tanning, six-inch Wotan tubes it was, she had told Geoffrey, a snip at £399 plus £12 delivery. However, she was still at the bright-red stage. It had also occurred to her that morning when she looked in the mirror that perhaps she shouldn’t have worn goggles as she now looked like a panda.

After our ice creams I drove Beth back to Morton and arranged to meet her that evening for a farewell drink in The Royal Oak before we went our separate ways.

When I returned to Bilbo Cottage, the telephone rang in the hall.

‘Hello. Jack Sheffield speaking.’

‘Jack, Richard Gomersall here, at County Hall.’

‘Oh hello, Richard. This is unexpected,’ I said.

‘Yes, well, we don’t get school holidays like you, Jack.’

I didn’t mention I had been in school all morning and was about to take a class of children on an outdoor education weekend.

‘So what can I do to help?’ I asked.

‘Actually, Jack, I’m just following up our earlier conversation and I wondered if you had given the Scarborough headship any further thought.’

‘I’m still considering it, Richard,’ I said, stalling for time, ‘and obviously appreciate your advice and support.’ I felt
I
was suddenly turning into a politician. The truth was I didn’t know which way to turn.

‘I understand, Jack, and, clearly, there’s no pressure here, just a polite enquiry at this stage. You’ve obviously been earmarked as an up-and-coming headteacher who’s doing a good job in one of our small village schools.’

‘That’s kind of you to say so,’ I said cautiously.

‘Fine. Let’s leave it at that for the time being, Jack … and good luck in these uncertain times.’

‘Yes, thank you,’ I said.

‘We’ll talk again.’

And the line went dead.

I didn’t mention the call to Beth when I met her in The Royal Oak. She had been shopping in York and had other things on her mind.

‘Jack, I’ve bought a Betamax video recorder. It’s brilliant, you’ll love it. It’s got over three hours’ recording time and a three-day timer.’

Secretly, I would have preferred Beth to have saved her money for our wedding but I said nothing. In any case, she had changed into a sundress with narrow straps and a jade fabric belt and looked so beautiful. State-of-the-art video recorders held no interest for me.

‘I’ll miss you,’ I said simply.

She sipped her gin and tonic and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s only three days.’

Her hair tumbled over her suntanned shoulders and I just stared at her.

‘And three nights,’ I said with a wry grin.

Then she leant forward and took off my Buddy Holly
spectacles
. ‘Perhaps we ought to get you some new wire-rimmed spectacles,’ she said, ‘and maybe one of those black executive briefcases.’

‘I’m happy as I am, Beth,’ I said, retrieving my spectacles, ‘and my old leather satchel has a few years left in it yet.’

‘If you become a head of a big school, Jack, you’ll need to look the part.’

I leant back in my chair and stared out of the bay window across the village green towards Ragley School. There were times when the life Beth seemed to want felt more than I could give her. Falling in love had been easy: what followed was proving more difficult.

On Thursday morning we boarded William Featherstone’s Reliance bus and set off from outside school amid waving parents for our educational holiday. As well as myself and my class, the party consisted of Anne and John Grainger and Jo and Dan Hunter.

We left York on the A59 road, drove through Harrogate and on to Skipton, the ‘Gateway to the Dales’. Then we headed north through a spectacular landscape of woods and waterfalls. I stared out of the window at the emerging panorama. Spread out before us, and shaped in the Ice Age, was a dale of carboniferous limestone, sandstone and shale. In the grazing land of the upland pastures lay isolated farmhouses and, beyond the hay meadows, the wild rugged moorland stretched out to the purple horizon. It was a perfect mix of natural and man-made beauty with its green fields criss-crossed with limestone walls. Sheep were everywhere on the distant canvas like
tiny
flecks of white paint flicked from a child’s stiff-bristle paintbrush.

Soon we were in the heart of beautiful Wharfedale, with its green fields dotted with yellow buttercups, rugged limestone cliffs and the desolate cries of the curlews. Sudden splashes of sunlight illuminated the wild pink roses running riot through the prickly hedgerows, while a silent confusion of moving shadows darkened the winding River Wharfe in the valley below.

We drove into the cobbled main square of Grassington village to eat our packed lunches and parked next to an ancient stone horse trough surmounted by an old iron water pump. The air was familiar, sharp and cold and the passing of years had not changed the small shops in this timeless community. As I ate my sandwiches, I smiled at the rickety sign outside Mervyn the Barber’s shop. It read, ‘
Gentleman’s Barber, Clogger, Tonsorial Artist, Antiquarian, Poet, Chiropodist, Phrenologist and Botanist
’.

‘Food tastes better ’ere, Mr Sheffield,’ said Cathy Cathcart with her familiar Stonehenge smile and zest for life. She had put a pickled gherkin in a marmalade sandwich and was munching on it happily. New experiences were always a treat for Cathy.

Meanwhile William walked sedately up the narrow main street to the Devonshire Arms to partake of a more traditional Ploughman’s lunch.

An hour later we were on our way again on the B6160 past the looming menace of Kilnsey Crag, the pretty village of Kettlewell and Aysgarth Falls. Finally our destination was in sight and the children were full of excitement. Here there were no traffic sounds,
only
birdsong, the whisper of the wind and the music of tumbling becks. Beyond, in the far distance, among limestone scars and gritstone crags, the brooding bulk of Addleborough lay like a sleeping giant. At its feet huddled the tall stone houses and winding cobbled streets of Askrigg village, centred round the thirteenth-century church of St Oswald. With its history of clock-making and hand-knitting, it already had its place in Yorkshire folklore but the television series
All Creatures Great and Small
had made it famous.

Askrigg Low Mill Residential Youth Centre was an old mill that had been superbly converted. Valerie Flint had told us it had won design awards for its innovative use of space and we soon realized it was the perfect base for a group of energetic children. After settling into our dormitories we set off up the steep hill to explore the village. Next to the cobbled marketplace and the stone market cross we found Skeldale House, the television home of James Herriot. A few paces further on was the King’s Arms, a popular William Younger’s public house known as the Drover’s Arms in the television series.

It was fun recognizing the locations and, after a huge evening meal of shepherd’s pie and fresh vegetables, we slept like logs under a starry Yorkshire sky.

Friday was a full and adventurous day. Across the river from Hawes village we scrabbled up the side of the beck until we reached the roaring waterfall of Hardraw Force, the highest single-drop waterfall in England. The bravest children, led by Darrell Topper and Katy Ollerenshaw,
clambered
fearlessly like mountain goats behind the cascading torrent while the others watched from a safe distance.

On the way back, we stopped in the beautiful village of Bainbridge, outside the white-fronted Rose and Crown Hotel. The children drank lemonade and played in the wooden stocks on the broad village green. Then the landlord invited us in to see the famous hunting horn hanging above the bar. He told the children that once this was a dense forest with deer and wild boar and that each evening, between Holy Rood and Shrovetide, the horn was blown to guide weary travellers to safety. Then, inevitably, the children took turns to blow it.

On school journeys, usually something happens that makes them memorable. Saturday was destined to be such a day.

Following a fascinating visit to the rope-makers in Hawes during the morning and a delicious fish-and-chips lunch in the marketplace, we drove through the high wild peaks up to Countersett, to the banks of Semerwater. The bearded, experienced warden of Low Mill was waiting for us with his huge trailer stacked high with two-person Canadian canoes. After a talk on safety, he gave everyone a life-jacket and we were off for a thrilling afternoon of canoe-racing. We took turns so that there was always an adult with a pupil in each canoe. Dan proved the most popular partner for the children as his boat always seemed to go the fastest and he rubbed it in by humming the theme tune from
Hawaii Five-O
as he raced past us. It was a group of happy, red-faced, slightly damp and very
tired
children who clambered back on to the bus for our return journey to Low Mill.

We were just outside Askrigg village when the unexpected happened. A dark-blue, open-top classic car with chromium wire wheels and a hugely powerful engine overtook us. The driver wore a checked flat cap and waved to William in acknowledgement for giving him space to pass. The lady next to him, with a silk headscarf to protect her hair in the stiff breeze, turned and smiled at the children.