Out of the Woods But Not Over the Hill (15 page)

I was saddened to read that a new school has been built with every conceivable electronic resource and energy-saving device, but without a playground, for, as the head teacher remarked, in the twenty-first century, better use could be made of the space and anyway, playgrounds are not really necessary in ‘a learning centre'. Then there is the head teacher of the infant school who has done away with the play area in the infant classroom to concentrate on more formal teaching approaches. It is regrettable that the ‘home corner', where children can dress up, get into role, practise talking, reading, writing and acting out parts, is regarded by some as merely decorating the margins of the serious business of study.

Play, as Wilderspin was at great pains to stress, is of great importance for the developing child. He knew, as good teachers do today, nearly 150 years after his death, that play develops the imagination, promotes creativity, thinking, fruitful talk, co-operation and much, much more.

In one infant school, I met a stocky six-year-old boy dressed in a large blue apron, standing outside his little café in the home corner. I seated myself at the small melamine table and looked at a blank piece of paper, at the top of which was written, in bold lettering: menu. The little boy sidled up, and stared at me intently. I looked up.

‘What's it to be?' he asked.

‘Oh,' I said, taking on the role of a customer, ‘I think I'll just have something to drink.'

The boy disappeared, and returned a moment later with a small, empty, plastic beaker, which he placed before me. Then he watched intently as I drank the imaginary liquid, licked my lips and exclaimed: ‘That was the nicest cup of tea I have had in a long while.'

‘It's an 'arf o' bitter,' he told me bluntly, and walked off.

It would have brought a smile, I am sure, to Samuel Wilderspin.

With Onions

I was teaching a class of eleven-year-olds in a Dales primary school. I was using a selection of stuffed animals – badger, mole, rabbit, stoat and fox cub – as stimuli and hoped that, by the end of the morning, the children would have produced some short, interesting descriptive poems. I spent a good ten minutes talking about the creatures but it soon became clear that these children, mostly from farming backgrounds, knew a whole lot more about them than me.

The previous week I had taught the same lesson in a school in Harrogate, and the children had produced rather trite and sentimental pieces of verse about little, soft-furred moles, adorable little dormice, gambolling rabbits or playful squirrels. The poems the children wrote in the Dales primary school that morning were very different – blunt, realistic descriptions of the animals that they knew so much about. They clearly did not need stuffed animals to prompt them. There were images of ‘fierce, sharp-toothed badgers', ‘crows which picked at the dead animals on the road', ‘fat, black rats that hid in the hay' and ‘red foxes creeping behind the hen coop'. Thomas's effort was quite clearly the best:

 

On a frosty morning, my granddad

Takes his Jill to catch rabbits.

She has a little blue collar and a silver bell,

Tiny red eyes and creamy fur,

And she trembles in his hands.

 

‘Thomas lives on the farm at the top of the dale,' explained his teacher, as we headed in the direction of the school hall for lunch. ‘Like most farming children, he's been brought up to be unsentimental about animals. They are on the farm for a purpose, not as pets, and any creature which affects their livelihood is regarded as a pest. You should hear what he's got to say about foxes.' She paused for a moment, before adding:

‘Thomas has a great deal to say for himself, hasn't he?'

At lunch, I sat between Thomas and an angelic-looking little girl. The boy surveyed me. ‘Meat and tatey pie for lunch,' he said, rubbing his hands. ‘My favourite.' He stared at me for a moment. ‘I reckon you won't be 'aving any.'

‘Why is that?' I asked, intrigued.

‘You're probably one of those vegetarians. Me granddad doesn't like vegetarians. He says they take the meat out of his mouth. “There's nothing better than a good bit o' beef on your plate or a nice bit o' pork on your fork.” That's what my granddad says. He doesn't like vegetarians, my granddad.'

Before I could inform Thomas that I was not, in fact, a vegetarian, the little angel sitting next to me whispered shyly, ‘I like rabbits.'

‘So do I,' I replied.

‘My daddy likes rabbits too.'

‘Does he?'

‘And my mummy likes rabbits.'

‘That's nice.'

She took a mouthful of meat and potato pie before adding quietly, ‘They taste really good with onions.'

 

Sent to the Head Teacher

You again, Farringdon!

Yes, sir
.

Can't you stay out of trouble?

I try, sir.

Well, you don't try very hard, do you?

I suppose not, sir.

Three times this week you have been sent to my room.

That's right, sir
.

For getting into trouble.

Yes, sir
.

You're a nuisance, Farringdon.

Yes, sir.

A teachers' nightmare!

Yes, sir.

A difficult, disruptive, disobedient boy.

Yes, sir.

A naughty, wayward, badly behaved young man.

Yes, sir.

A trouble, a torment, the bane of my life!

If you say so, sir.

I do, Farringdon! I do!

Yes, sir.

And when I leave next week, Farringdon.

Yes, sir?

I shall not be sorry if I never ever see you again!

I see, sir.

Well, what is it this time?

I've brought you a leaving card, sir
–
to wish you good luck in your new job.

‘The Wonder Years'

 

 

The Magic of Childhood

To Be a Child

Young children are a delight. The small child knows nothing of skin colour, rank, status, religion, money and the many other things that are at the root of envy and discord. For the little one, everything in the world is fresh, colourful and exciting. Smile at a small child and invariably the smile is returned.

After forty years in education, as a teacher and school inspector, I have met countless numbers of children and been genuinely entertained, amused and, on occasions, greatly moved by them.

I recall the small child of six, with hair like a bristly lavatory brush, who mused, ‘Have you ever thought that, when I'm twenty-one, you'll probably be dead?', and the child emerging from the infant school, informing the VIPs there to see the Nativity play that: ‘It's off! Virgin Mary's got nits!'

There was the little angel with her dolly clutched to her chest, who told me when I approached her in the infant classroom, to: ‘Go away! I'm breast feeding.' There was the four-year-old I came across in the nursery department at an infant school, inside a huge cardboard box. ‘Brmm, brmm, brmm,' he went, and the box moved from side to side. I peered over the top and asked the child: ‘Are you in your racing car?'

‘No,' he replied seriously, ‘I'm in a cardboard box.'

In a small primary school, I commented on the writing of a seven-year-old girl.

‘Your writing is very neat and tidy at the top of the page,' I observed, ‘but it goes all squiggly at the bottom.'

‘I know,' replied the child, looking up. ‘This pen's got a life of its own.'

‘I know how to mek babies,' a young boy of nine informed me when I visited a school in Swaledale.

‘Really?' I sighed.

‘Do you know how to mek babies?' he asked.

‘I do,' I replied.

‘Well, how do you mek babies?'

‘You go first,' I told him.

‘I knock off the “y” and put “ies”.'

I was inspecting a primary school in Wensleydale, and thought I would test a youngster on his number work. We looked out of the classroom window at the spectacular panorama before us.

‘How many sheep can you see in that field?' I asked.

‘All of 'em,' he replied.

Young children are nothing if not honest, and their honesty is invariably disarming and comical. At a time in the world where everything seems so gloomy and depressing and there is constant conflict and violence, the words of small children lift our spirits, they help us to feel good about ourselves and others and they make us optimistic for the future.

Out of the Mouths

I recently became a grandfather for the second time. Nina, my daughter-in-law, gave birth to a bonny little girl with large round eyes and a captivating smile. Her parents were intending to call the baby Scarlett. What a relief it was for me when they decided on the name Megan. Scarlett Phinn sounds to me like a disease of tropical fish. When I became a grandfather for the first time, my preferred name for the baby boy was Sebastian. Perhaps understandably, it was not my son and daughter-in-law's. ‘One unusual name in the family is quite enough,' said my son Richard. I once heard Lord Sebastian Coe speaking at a dinner and he confided in the audience that: ‘When you grow up in Sheffield with a name like Sebastian, you have to learn to run.' Well, what about being brought up in Rotherham with a name like Gervase? I could tell him a few tales.

Anyway, here I am in my sixties, a grandfather, and like a child myself. I have so many things planned for little Harry John Gervase and Megan Rose. We will walk along the beach at Bridlington, paddling in the sea, getting sand between their little toes. We will explore rock pools for crabs, collect shells and bits of smooth coloured sea glass, eat sticky candyfloss and feed the screeching seagulls on the harbour wall. They will snuggle up with Grandpa for a bedtime story, help Granny make gingerbread men, squeal with delight at the pantomime and do all the other things little ones so love to do. Everything for them will be bright and new and exciting.

Of course, my little grandchildren will also make the shrewdest observations as they grow older, as all young children tend to do: ‘Grandpa, your face needs ironing', ‘Oh, I do like the smell of old age', ‘Daddy, that fat lady needs to go on a diet.' And they will confound me with the most difficult questions that innocent children frequently ask: ‘Why are holes empty?', ‘Why are bananas bent?', ‘Why do you have to talk to God with your eyes closed?', ‘Grandpa, who will fetch the fish and chips when you're dead?', ‘Why can't
we
walk and wee at the same time like cows do?', ‘Grandpa, why are there more idiots on the road when Daddy's driving?'

When Princess Diana visited the North, crowds came to see her. She knew young children well and had a great empathy with them. Seeing, among the children thronging to give her flowers, a rather sad little boy with hair like a lavatory brush and a small green candle appearing from a crusty nostril, she went straight to him. He was holding a single wilting bloom. She singled him out and, bending low, took the flower and ruffled the child's hair affectionately. ‘And have you had the day off school to see me?' she asked the child, giving him one of her stunning smiles. ‘No,' he replied bluntly, ‘I've been sent home with nits!'

Something Colourful

I do like bright colours. Red, in particular, is such a cheerful, uplifting hue. Young children also like bright colours. One only has to see their paintings, so full of bold reds, vivid greens and bright blues, to appreciate this.

In an infant school, I once encountered a serious-faced little girl with more paint on herself than on the large piece of paper in front of her. She had drawn what I thought was a snake. The long, multicoloured creature curled and twisted across the page like a writhing serpent from a fairy story. It was a small masterpiece, with intricate patterning and delightful detail.