h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S Part2

For my second year at Queen Elizabeth's, as has been said, I was transferred to the scholarship class, where I was introduced to several new masters. I was especially glad to get a new French master, Mr. Stevens, and to see the back of the hated Pick. Steve, as we called him, was a dry old stick, who played the double-base in the school orchestra. It was bad luck that I even had to get off on the wrong foot with him. I had developed a sullen and defiant attitude with people like Pick, who made it clear they despised me. I suppose, until I got to know the new man, I had retained this attitude for my new French master. In time, I came to realise what a good chap Steve was, and to appreciate his sense of humour and fairness. Unfortunately, with a new class he would always like to leave no-one in any doubt as to whom was boss.
We all had to provide our own text-books at this school, which one would carry from class to class. Most boys had a satchel for this purpose, but Mother had provided me with an attache case that she already had. Being thicker and wider than a satchel, this took up rather more room on my desk. On his first spell with us, Steve came stalking along the rows of pupils, casting a stern eye over each of us and our belongings. I was in the front row, and therefore one of the first to attract Steve. With a mighty sweep of his arm he knocked my case off the desk, and across the floor, where it slid into a corner. Looking up, as I hoped, fearlessly into his eye, I told him: 'Sir, my mother had to pay for that case!' There was a few seconds of utter silence, while the class waited for bloodshed. The master disappointed them; after a moment's hesitation, he quietly told me to pick up the case and keep it on the floor in future.
Toward the end of our first lesson, when he thought we had been suitably impressed with the disciplinarian side of him, he decided to relax, and show us another facet of his temperament. Working his way round the class, he asked each of us what our favourite musical instruments were. Having no radio at that time, I knew little of these things, so when my turn came round, I said; 'Please, Sir, I haven't got a favourite instrument yet, but my mother likes the organ best.' I think Steve must have later regretted his spontaneous reaction of - 'She would!'
After that first period, I began to settle down with old Steve, and found he treated me no worse than anyone else. Then, during a subsequent lesson, I had another unfortunate setback with him that was none of my fault. 'We're going to have a test this morning, to see how much each of you knows!' he announced, as he dished out strips of lined paper to each of us. He uncovered the blackboard, which had twenty questions written on it.
Sitting in the row behind me, was 'Bonnet' (Ronald Hatt), one of the brighter of the scholarship boys, who had come top in the previous year's French class. Steve read out the questions one by one, and with what envy it was that out of the corner of my eye I saw Bonnet write down the answers. My row of blanks got ever longer, until (I still remember the number) we came to the sixteenth question. Then I actually knew the answer, and made a flamboyant show of writing it down.
By a coincidence, this was the first question to which Bonnet did not know the answer, and having seen me write, he whispered across to ask me what it was. Unfortunately, I have never been able to whisper quietly; after I proudly passed on the required information to my fellow pupil, Steve's head slowly turned in my direction, and in a doom laden voice he intoned, 'Bring your paper here, boy!' Looking at my long list of ignorance with disgust, he called for Hatt to bring his.
With his sixteen correct answers, what was Steve to think? 'You cribbed that one from Hatt, didn't you Baynes?' In vain I hoped that my neighbour would confess, as I protested that I had known the answer to that one question. Of course, the master did not believe me, and, bitterly resentful, I gathered an 'impot' of two hundred lines.
Steve had his own teaching methods, and these included reciting over and over again the vocabularies and rules that, being a bit of a poet, he had arranged metrically. In spite of my inauspicious start, he bore me no malice, and I gradually settled down well with my new French master. What was more, I found I could learn under him, and even began to enjoy his lessons. By the end of my first year in this form, I had climbed from No 28 in class to No 3.
When I was twelve, I also began to be looked at with a less jaundiced eye by Murray the sports master, because I showed signs of developing into a rugger man. I could have done with a bit more weight, though, since I was always small for my age. It was a game that suited me very well, providing, as it did, an ideal and legitimate outlet for energy and aggression. We played cricket in summer, (I was pretty useless at that), then rugby football and cross-country running in the wintertime.
There was also the ancient game of fives, but as there were only two courts, this was confined to the fifth and sixth forms. The sport is played against three walls, somewhat in the manner of squash, but the semi-hard leather-encased ball is hit with the gloved hand, instead of a with racquet. It was Wednesday afternoons that were devoted to sport; we did ordinary school work on Saturday mornings, and had these afternoons free; so in fact we worked a five and a half day week.
As I settled down at the school in my second year, I decided to try my hand at indulging in business, as I saw several other boys were doing. During break, and in the lunch hour, entrepreneurs would wander round in the area of the mulberry tree selling various items, but mostly foreign postage stamps. These could be purchased by weight in stamp shops, and an ounce or two of stamps would go a long way when spread out attractively in a folder. At from four a penny upwards, the outlay could soon be recovered, and several hundred percent profit made, even if the unsold ones had to be jettisoned.
As I knew nothing about stamps, I looked round for ideas for a racket of my own; I was not long in finding one. Our school tuck shop was only open for very limited periods; it had a very poor selection of stock, and what was there was all sweet stuff. In the top form was a huge fellow named Dicky Dorword. He walked with a permanent stoop, acquired, I supposed, through being taller than normal door openings. I understood he had been in the top form for several years, and he looked older than the other boys. Dicky was a considerable asset to the school rugger team; what was more, he liked me, and used to get me to do little jobs for him. He had an appetite commensurate with his bulk, and as this could not be satisfied from the tuck shop, he regularly dispatched me to the nearest grocers, to purchase more substantial fare for him.
Since I was no longer having school lunches, I was sometimes given fourpence to buy a pie and a piece of cake in Williams Bros. I suppose that was when our mother had not had the time, or got up too late, to cut me sandwiches. Now, I had noticed that their stuff was cheaper than that in the High Barnet corner shop, where I usually purchased Dicky's fare, so I started saving hard to get my trading capital together. Not only did I save my weekly penny, but I retained half of my lunch money also, when I was given any. Within a month or so I was ready to start in business, and this was where I found my large attaché case handy.
Williams Bros. sold a slab cake called 'Tango' for fourpence a pound. This would cut into six good slices, fair value at a penny each. Their oblong 'Telfer' steak and kidney pies cost tuppence each, and I was sure I could get threepence for them. I told Dicky what I proposed doing, and, with his help I had no trouble in clearing my stock the first day, to the sixth formers; before long, I had gathered enough regular customers for me to have no hawking to do. There was, of course, a limit to the amount of stuff I could carry in with my school books. Nevertheless, with a third profit, I had over a hundred pounds saved in my Post Office account by the time I left school, about eighteen months later. This formed the nucleus around which I built the capital that would eventually enable me to start up in business on my own, when I came out of the army after the war.
In the scholarship form, we had a new form-master; he was the Ginger Harrison who has been mentioned earlier. He was one of the best masters I was ever under, even if he did have a temper, and I was very worried at the end of our first term together, when I had a misunderstanding with him. On the last day of term we were usually allowed to read anything we liked, as long as we remained quiet, while our master marked exam papers, or wrote out reports. On this occasion, someone had lent me his copy of 'Film Fun', or some similar comic, which I was reading away happily, chuckling without realising it, at the antics of something like 'Good Queen Bess & Her Merry Lads'. There was at the same time, apparently, an audible snigger coming from the row behind me, where the boys were sharing a joke.
Ginger looked up, and as mine was the first grinning face he saw, he said, 'Come on Baynes, share the joke! Tell us all what you were laughing about!' As I did not know what he was referring to, I protested that I hadn't been laughing. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that it had been some doubtful joke I was ashamed of that was involved, so he called me out in front of the class and tried to browbeat me into admitting I was lying. He would not believe me, whatever I said, so, after protesting my innocence once more, I stubbornly clammed up. He worked himself up into a fine old rage, all to no avail, and finished up by telling me he would have to think seriously about sending me to the head, a terrifying fate that had not so far befallen me.
There was a tall lad named Patterson sitting behind me, with whom I had not got on very well in the past; indeed, I'd once had a scrap with him beside the art-room. His father owned the garage half a mile up the road. He it was who had been sharing the joke, and done the laughing for which I had been carrying the can. When break-time came round, he stayed behind to confess to Ginger that I had not been involved. Our form-master came straight out into the playground to find me. He was too embarrassed to speak, so he just gave me a lopsided grin and ruffled my hair with his hand. I can see that grin yet; and after that, I was able to make friends with Patterson. Unfortunately Ginger Harrison was to die young.