by Michael Sharpe
Miss Siddley's Introduction
Good morning, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Elizabeth, although most people call me Betty, but at the school where I work I am Miss Siddley. The story you are about to read is about how, with a little help from some students, I restored discipline and order to Lakeside Grammar School back in the Sixties.
I had joined the School in 1961 as School Secretary. I was twenty-eight at the time and had just survived a very unpleasant divorce and I shall always be grateful to the Headmaster, Mr Arthur Robinson, for taking a chance on appointing a divorcee at a time when this status was still considered scandalous in many quarters. It wasn't only a lack of alternative opportunities which caused me to accept the post for I will admit that Mr Robertson was a very attractive man. He spoke well, had the presence expected of the headmaster of a grammar school and he was devastatingly handsome with his greying hair swept back from a high, noble forehead and, best of all, the profile of a Greek God.
Unfortunately, it turned out that there was very little else beyond the profile and very little behind that high forehead, but I would remain fond of him until the very end. A weak and vacillating man, he left the running of the school to a horrible brute, his deputy head, 'Bully' Bailey.
You may have heard that Bailey had run a tight ship, that he was hard but fair, that above all in his hands the school was a well-drilled establishment: nothing could be further from the truth. The man was an uncontrolled tyrant and a drunkard to boot, and the school wasn't run on order and discipline but on terror and chaos. He flew into rages at the slightest provocation and lashed out in all directions with his fists and the cane he carried with him at all times like a caricature of Wackford Squeers, from Charles Dickens novel, Nicholas Nickelby. When he collapsed at his desk in an apoplectic fit provoked by a very clever boy called Gerald Wills and died on the spot, his face bloated and purple, his body twitching obscenely and spittle foaming from his mouth, he did the school one huge favour.
The school and its headmaster staggered along for the rest of the year numbed by the freedom afforded it by the demise of its insane oppressor much like, I suppose, the Soviet Union in the months after the death of Stalin. The air of sluggish enervation was blown away by the arrival as Deputy Head of Dr Blanch, a dedicated, intelligent woman, who with her sense of mission, combined with a very firm hand, imbued within the school a welcome sense of order and discipline which provided a climate where learning and creativity could flourish.
Then, after three short years of incandescent brilliance, she married and became Dr Beecham then left to take on the Headship of Palatine School. Almost immediately, with the wheel back in the hands of the dithering, ineffective Arthur Robinson, the school once again was a rudderless ship, a vessel without a compass or, worse than that, a vessel so close to the magnetic pull of the North Pole that its compass ran haywire. In one short term, Lakeside Grammar School for Boys had slid into chaos and anarchy, ruled, if ruled at all, by self-interested opportunistic teachers and rebellious, bullying schoolboys.
Boys like Biffer Billings!
To save the school I had to act when the opportunity arose and, assisted by a feisty young lady, I succeeded and returned Lakeside to its rightful position amongst the foremost centres of secondary education in the county. This is the story of how I started out on that path and it is told, in their own words, by several participants in the adventure. We shall begin with one young schoolboy, Ronnie Wrigglesworth.
Ronnie's Story
I never thought that I would have said this, but I was missing Dr Blanch (I still can't think of her as Dr Beecham). She was the deputy head at Lakeside Grammar School when I first started. In fact, she started the very same day as I did as a first-year sprog. She was a tartar, it had to be said, but when she left, I could see that she was exactly what was needed at our school.
We had already heard rumours that she was a hard case. One of the horror stories circulating was that at her previous school she had spanked all the boys in one class on their bare bottoms, and in front of the girls too! That was chilling and I, for one, didn't believe it but, I reasoned, these sorts of tales usually have a germ of truth behind them. It was also suspected that in the previous term when she was at our school with a watching brief, she had already tried out her techniques on some of the older boys, but, again, I'm not so sure. Of course, none of this concerned me or so I believed. I was the brightest boy in my primary school and I was sure to be among the brightest in the grammar school. I was very well behaved, too, and never even had my legs smacked and not many boys, or girls for that matter, could say that: I know my sister Janice couldn't.
So, I had nothing to worry about, or so I thought. Dr Blanch opened her career with what can only be called a reign of terror. I know from personal experience because, owing to a set of unfortunate events and confusion for which I wasn't responsible, I was one of the earliest (if not the first) victims, even though it wasn't my fault. I know that I've repeated myself there but it needs saying twice and I'm still bitter about it. I had been caught running in the corridor, that much was true, but only because Mr Calderwood had pointed me in the direction of a short cut and told me to "Run along before you're late for the afternoon bell."
I was taken to Dr Blanch's office where she put me over her knee and spanked my bottom. She spanked me hard, too, and my bottom was very red for ages even though the spanking was on the seat of my trousers. It was the only spanking I'd ever been given and the injustice of it all still rankles. Nobody else knows about this except my cousin Louise who was looking after us while Mum was poorly in hospital. I might have been Dr Blanch's first victim at Lakeside but I certainly wasn't the last and I was soon in good company. Not a day went by during that first term without at least one boy being sent to her office to emerge with a very sore bottom. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my best friend, Simon, was the only boy, certainly in my class, to avoid a spanking.
This wasn't because he was better behaved than me or cleverer, either. He wasn't nearly as clever as me but that, I guess, is my downfall. I was probably, make that certainly, the cleverest boy in my year and people were jealous of me. My sister, Janice, says that it's because nobody likes a swot but I'm not a swot I'm just naturally gifted. Anyway, what would she know? She wasn't exactly the brightest shilling in the meter: I often said that I'd got her share of the brains when we came out. We're twins, you see, and it's always been recognised that I am the smarter one although Simon says that Janice is more cunning.
Dr Blanch was with us for three years and once she had established herself as a no-nonsense cookie, she eased up a little but still maintained enough order and discipline to make going to school a pleasure for well-behaved boys like Simon and myself. Then suddenly she was gone to greener pastures, leaving us good guys to the mercy of our bumbling headmaster, Mr Robertson, who hadn't a clue, and bully boys like Biffer Billings who ran rings around him. And that is where the story starts.
There I was, standing by the bus stop waiting for the Number 23 and chatting to my best mate, Simon, when, out of nowhere, I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. It was a large hand, with big, scarred knuckles bristling with thick ginger hairs. I looked at Simon and saw that he had on his shoulder the twin, or rather a mirror image, of the hand resting on mine: and, just like me, he had a look of horror on his face. A large brutal head interposed itself between us, with a mouth twisted into a hideous smile. Loose, fleshy lips parted to reveal a mouth like a neglected graveyard full of yellow tombstones leaning in every direction.
"You lads want to help me out?" a low voice croaked. "Or would you prefer a biffing?"
This was Biffer Billings, and what the heck he was doing at our school, I'll never fathom. It wasn't that he was thick, I'll give him that, but his brainwork was a sort of low animal cunning rather than the more intellectual reasoning required to pass your eleven-plus and get to the grammar school. Personally, I leaned towards the view that when his Auntie Gloria was cleaning the offices of the Local Education Authority, she was vacuuming up more than the carpets, if you take my meaning.
"The thing is, lads," Biffer said and gripped our shoulders tightly, his steely fingers boring into the ligaments and sinews, "I'm running a bit short on the tobacco front. I'm OK for the weekend but I shall need a packet of twenty for next week. I'll give you 'til dinner time, Monday."
"Look, Biffer," said Simon, "why don't we just give you the money and you can go to Jugson's and buy your own ciggies?"
"It don't work like that, Si boy. I don't want charity. I want two fine upstanding lads like you pair to have a chance to help an old chum. Besides, I've a soft spot for Old Ma Jugson and I don't want to cause her no trouble, see. So, I'll see you Monday dinner with a packet of twenty or it'll be a biffing. Got it?" He signed off with a single knuckle jabbing Simon in the centre of his forehead.
We watched him slouch away, hands in his pockets and his shoulders rolling from side to side. Biffer was in the year ahead of us and specialised in terrorising younger boys, particularly the smart ones like me, and Simon, of course. He'd always been like that but before Dr Blanch moved on, he had to be sneaky with it. She would have striped his backside with six of the best. Her replacement, Mr Calderwood was a pussy cat, almost as soppy as our headmaster, and Biffer could strut around brazenly. Someone needed to put him in his place.
"He can sod off, as far as I'm concerned," I said to Simon just as soon as I was certain Biffer couldn't hear me.
"Yeah, me too," Simon agreed although he didn't sound any more confident than I did.
We kept up the pretence of defiance for most of the weekend, bolstering each other's nerve with promises of more and more lurid, and improbable, retaliations should Biffer cause trouble the following week. By Sunday our bravado was wearing a bit thin and after we left church after evensong it had vanished altogether.
"What are we going to do, Ron?" Simon asked, the gloom of his voice casting a dark shadow on an otherwise pleasant evening.
"We're going to get biffed," I answered with the same lack of spirit, "unless I can use the superior Wrigglesworth intellect to baffle him with argument."
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