I doubt that anyone will be surprised to learn that I was generally considered the most argumentative child that most of my Masters could remember teaching.
Just after I started Third Form, aged 13 I got into a stand-up row with the RE Master. I’d got on my high horse about something and he made the mistake of telling me I was wrong.
The rest of the Form gleefully watched the entertainment which was probably part of the reason for the red faced Master suddenly shouting “that’s it, McLachlan you’re on detention!”
Believe it or not that was my first one. Up until then I’d always managed to avoid detention by playing the “but I live miles away, Sir” card which got detention commuted to an essay on “why I shouldn’t…” or some such twaddle.
I tried that on the RE Master and failed, I was on detention for 45 minutes from the end of school bell and the journey home was my problem.
In the way that things seemed to happen to me it was gym and violin day so I had my satchel, my gym kit and my violin to carry. To make things worse it had been raining since lunch.
We weren’t on the phone at home and neither of my sisters would notice my absence from the coach. My after school activities were nothing to do with them and by the same token theirs were no concern of mine. The coach left at its usual time without me.
The final item on this list of woes was that I didn’t have any money on me for bus fare. I didn’t just have a long journey in front of me, it was a 7 mile walk.
Before anyone thinks ‘duty of care’ this was 1966 and I was 13. My duty was to be a well behaved schoolboy, if I failed in that duty I faced the consequences.
Finally allowed to leave I settled my satchel on my back, hoisted my gym kit over my left shoulder, settled my violin case in my right hand and started the walk home.
By the time I’d covered almost a mile I was soaked through to my skin, I didn’t have a raincoat with me. The rain was clearly set in for the night so there was no point in taking shelter, on I trudged.
Several cars went by sending waves of water over me that just added more misery and then one car’s brake lights went on, it stopped and the passenger door opened.
I knew every car in my home village and I’d never seen this one before. The driver was a complete stranger, a man of about Dad’s age. Delighted at the prospect of saving about 6 wet miles, I readily got in putting my luggage behind the seat.
He asked me where I lived and was appalled at how far I had to walk but he had a good laugh at my explanation. He said that he lived in Petworth but would run me to Lurgashall. I could have hugged him, he was going miles out of his way just to help a soggy kid.
At no point during the journey did anything untoward happen by word or deed and he didn’t just take me to the village, he got me to guide him right to my home. Thanking him fervently I retrieved my gear and got out of the car, obeying his instruction to just run for the house.
I breezed in through the back door to be met by a look of thunder on Mum’s face and was ordered to stand just where I was on the doormat and not drip water all over the place.
Mum went to get a towel then ordered me to strip naked and dry myself before taking one step further into the kitchen. Thankfully my sisters were all in other rooms so at least I didn’t have that embarrassment to deal with.
Once dry I was allowed to sit by the Rayburn, just wearing the towel and feeling vulnerable. Then the questions started.
Mum knew exactly what my extra-curricular activities were and always made sure that on those days I had bus fare so I could take the long journey via Petworth and reduce the walk home to a mere mile from Lane End.
Why had I missed the coach? There was no point in a lie so I admitted the argument with the RE Master and the subsequent detention which wasn’t as much of a problem as I’d expected.
If I’d been in detention why was I home so early? That was the killer question but again there was no point in lying, she knew perfectly well that I didn’t have any money. I timidly admitted that I’d accepted a lift from a complete stranger.
Mum went mad! Before I knew what was happening I’d lost my towel and was over her knee getting the thrashing of a lifetime.
After that, while I was still howling I got a long, loud lecture, Didn’t I realise what could happen to children who took lifts from strangers?
I tried rationalising that nothing bad had happened but was arguing from a hopeless position. I knew perfectly well that what I’d done had been stupid and irresponsible.
The plea that I was wet and cold cut no ice, not that I thought it would and I was abruptly dismissed to have a hot bath before coming back down for some tea.
After tea I did my violin practice and then sat at the kitchen table, as near to the Rayburn as I could get to do my prep. I didn’t even make it through one subject before a feverish headache started and Mum had to help me up to bed which was the end of my school week.
Dad was on late duty so I was well asleep by the time he got home. The next morning he came into my room and, ignoring the fact that I was ill gave me a fearful telling off. I thought I was in for another thrashing but Mum had clearly convinced him that she’d made me suitably penitent.
He did make it very clear that if I ever did anything like that again he’d deal with me, whether Mum had already done so or not. I was fairly sure that his big leather belt would be involved.
Not very long after that my bottom and that belt did become acquainted but not because I took a lift from a stranger, his threat worked on that score.
Love
I don’t know where your mother got these ideas about strange men in cars from, it certainly was not currency of the time in our house or amongst my friends in Birmingham! Mind you, a similar thing never happened to me because we lived on a dawn to dusk high-frequency bus route. There was always another bus!
But 45 minute detention? Ours were two hours on a Saturday afternoon because we had school on Saturday mornings. Still, I’m pretty sure that if a boy in our Third Year had said what you did he’d have got the cane for it.
(oh and sure, you still could get change from a penny!)
There had been a couple of quite nasty cases of abduction within West Sussex that Mum was very aware of and, although I didn’t know it then she was still deeply afraid that my biological Father would try to snatch me having failed in his custody bid.
You have to remember that we had a progressive Headmaster who was determined to make the cane obsolete except for the most extreme offences. Talking back to a Master no longer counted as a caning offence.
Our detentions were always immediate and equivalent to 1 period per offence. the rural nature of the catchment area made Saturday detention impractical on several levels and there was no such thing as Saturday school for us beyond playing on School teams and things like that.
Abductions? Kidnap? Wow! You were living the sort of world Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about which we all lapped up as fiction!
We didn’t have a deal of caning either – but openly questioning a Master like that would have brought a sharp intake of breath from the rest of the form and an instruction to go and get a stick and ‘the book’ without any doubt.
It’s interesting that going to a school which was nearly in the centre of a city meant that public transport ran pretty frequently and for all the hours of the day. That’s possibly why many boys attended school for extended hours and, for some years, on six days a week.
Sadly there’s a dark side th the rural idyll that all too few people know about. The abductions were very big news locally but thankfully didn’t come to a grisly end, whether or not other things happened will probably never be known.
My Mum’s fear over father trying to snatch me were very real and started the moment she finally filed for divorce when I was 9. He didn’t give a damn’ about the girls but felt he had a right to his only son. Perhaps if I’d known about that I might not have behaved quite so foolishly but Mum didn’t admit it until I was 16.
I know a lot of boys who went to city schools with good transport had school on Saturdays but it really wouldn’t have worked in Sussex. I had an hours coach travel at either end of the day as it was.
I’m probably going to do a post about MGS, it was an odd school with a very unusual Headmaster who had some radical ideas. One thing he did was remove the right of all teachers to administer the cane, he was the only one who did it and it happened in his office not in front of the class.
If you had attended Collyers you would have found that Saturday morning detention occurred if you earned more than 3 merit marks. Merit marks is an odd term but it was explained as something one earned and was not necessarily to be associated with pleasant success. They were awarded by masters for various transgressions and the tally was kept centrally in the headmaster’s office. Once the dreaded 3 was reached a saturday attendance was required. Masters were required to come in to supervise and were never too happy with this duty! The headmaster had some bizarre pet hates. One of these was ditch-jumping. The school playing field had a series of drainage ditches around them with little bridges across them. Jumping the ditches was supposed to dislodge earth etc and so could block them. Many a merit mark was given for this offence!
Bagthorpe
I doubt I’d have fared too well at Collyers after all then. On a tally system like that I’d probably have had very few Saturdays to myself for my entire time at school.
Boys jumping over ditches is such a cruel pet hate, it almost seems like a way to keep the merit marks clocking up.
Malcolm
Also you might have come to the attention of the geography master who a few years after I left appeared in the court for indecent assault. How naive we were in those days! We (or at least I)didn’t realise that when he put his arm around you and rubbed your nipple as you worked away at writing in your text book he wasn’t just checking up on your work. Fortunately it did not happen to me, being rather scrawny. But one particular boy who he must have found attractive was subjected to this treatment and then ordered for some fake reason or other to stand up in class. This enabled the master to see what effect his ministrations had had on the boy. And however much the boy leaned over it was not difficult to see. The class usually snickered at his embarassment but no one ever said anything. Clearly, one day, it came to light. If I remember correctly it did not result in prison. He was generous with merit marks also.
Ulp! I had quite enough problems with that in my home village and believe me when I say that scrawny boys are as likely to attract unwelcome attention as any other!
We really were, for the most part, terribly naive weren’t we? My Form Master, when I was a First Former, was found in delecto flagrente with a boarder. The next day we suddenly acquired a temporary Form Master and quite cheerfully accepted the official story that he’d been “taken ill” and probably wouldn’t be coming back. That actually proved to be a turning point for me because the man who took over as Form and English Master became one of the most important people in my life, for all the right reasons. He was the one who persuaded me to shoot for the top and do S Level English Lit as well as A level, best thing I ever did.