As we neared the end of our last year at primary school, we were taken to a religious retreat out in the Peak District to meet the teachers who would be welcoming us into our new secondary school come Autumn.
So there we were, 30 sweaty children and 1 exasperated member of staff, crammed into a school mini bus so old that whenever we turned a corner I expected parts of it to fall off into the road.
The metal structure of our chariot was no longer held together by feats of modern engineering, but by decades’ worth of discarded chewing gum.
It was a humid July day, and the journey seemed to last forever, especially for poor Mr G, who was sitting next to David. David, who’d been sporting a struggling moustache since his 9th birthday, was notorious in our class for 2 things- his horrific body odour, which could fell small mammals from a distance, and his travel sickness.
We’re not just talking about a little nausea here. David could spend an entire journey, no matter the length, vomiting copiously. The boy was like the Niagara Falls of vomit. When we went to Switzerland a few years later, the only time he stopped was when we were on the ferry, which ironically was when the rest of us took over from him. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Where were we? Ah, yes, the bus to the retreat.
Luckily the journey was only a couple of hours, but even our loudest renditions of No Limit and Boom!(Shake The Room) couldn’t drown out the angry velociraptor cry that was David heaving into a bucket a few seats away, and by the time we emerged, we were all bathed in the acrid notes of his stomach acid. It was a huge relief to spill out of that tin can on wheels and take a deep lungful of fresh, Derbyshire air.
Outside of the centre, a squat little building made of the stone from a nearby quarry, and sporting several hand carved crucifixes, were the staff from the secondary school. They made a move towards us, but then saw Mr G stagger off the bus holding the bucket of puke at arm’s length, and thought better of it.
I saw one of them, a tall, stocky bald man with a heavy ginger moustache, try to hide a smirk. His eyes twinkled wickedly, and I crossed my fingers that he would be my tutor, rather than one of the other, more serious-looking adults awaiting us.
He wasn’t, as it transpired, but he did end up leading my group that afternoon, and teaching me RE for the next 5 years.
His name was Mr D, and his family was Ukranian. The first thing he did was set us a challenge to see if anyone could guess how his surname was spelt. No one could, it was a mass of consonants that had no business being next to each other in the same word, and he roared with laughter at every failed attempt.
Next he showed us 2 magic tricks, tricks that I saw repeated every year until we graduated.
Despite them being very simple, Mr D performed them with such conviction and showmanship, that even when we were 16 and about to go off to college, we would all still be enthralled.
The first was that he would pretend to thread a needle, pass the thread through his upper lip, and pull until one side of his lip curled up towards his nose, wincing all the while. Oh, how we gasped!
The second was to pretend to remove the top of his thumb, but still have it wiggling around as he held it up for us to see. We were gobsmacked! What was this sorcery?!
For 10 year old me, whose dad had never demonstrated any talent for magic tricks (unless you count disappearing with our mum’s Maintenance Payments) this was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen, and Mr D instantly became my favourite teacher, further endearing himself to me by being one of the sweetest, kindest men I’ve ever met.
His wife also worked for our school, and every year on her birthday, he would embarrass her by making a grand romantic gesture…one year he serenaded her during our whole-school assembly, another year he had a huge bouquet of flowers sent into her classroom while she was in the middle of giving some miscreant or other a good dressing-down. Hard to keep your authority when you’re blushing and trying not to smile.
He never shouted at us, I remember him telling us once that he believed there was always a reason for every bad behaviour, and that it was his job to get to the bottom of it, and help that person, not yell at them and make it worse.
I had never liked religion, but he made his classes relevant to our lives and experiences, looking at things from a more humanitarian viewpoint. He engaged us in debates, made us examine our beliefs and our place in the world, and every summer, just before we broke up for the holidays, he’d let us watch The Lion King instead of studying.
He was legendary in our school for his wacky ways. On formal occasions he would turn up wearing a bowtie that span around and flashed different coloured lights. He and his best teacher friends would perform brilliant comedy sketches, and I have a video somewhere of him taking part in a Blues Brothers parody that had us all in stitches.
He was the life and soul of every party, always smiling and joking, but he could cut quite an imposing figure, too. He had been a keen rugby player in his youth, and he was well-built, solid.
I only have one memory of him showing that side of his character, but it was enough to stay with me for all these years.
We had a long-standing rivalry with the school next door to us, which often led to violence. After our exams, they finally built a fence between the 2, and altered the length of the school day to avoid any interaction, but back then, kids from the other school would regularly walk onto our football pitch, armed with tree branches or bike chains, and go to war.
On that particular day, a gang of about 20 of them were lined up at the edges of the field when we came out at break. Waiting. A wall of testosterone-in-training, hair gelled, cracking their knuckles, hawking and spitting. One of them extinguished his cigarette on the palm of his own hand without flinching, his palm a fleshy ashtray. A clear signal to all of us that he was a force to be reckoned with. A cry went up as the first of our lads spotted them “Get off our field, wankers!” Our boys started towards them, slow but determined.
Someone ran inside the school shouting ‘Fight!!!!’
A few members of staff came out and tried to break things up, but neither side was going to back down. Reputations were at stake. The staff looked at each other, not really wanting to get in the middle of it. I heard Mrs H mutter something about police before turning on her heel and sprinting back into the school.
The 2 groups of boys were close to each other now, and what felt like the entire school was gathered at the far side of the field, clutching at each other and shouting. Some encouragement “G’won! Give ‘em wha’ for!” and some pleading “Dooooonnnn’t, Jack, he’ll batter yer! Mum’ll go mental if ye get blood on yer shirt again!”
Suddenly, a hush fell over the crowd.
Our boys, picking up on it, turned around, and immediately started to back away.
Striding right into the middle of the fray, wearing a long black coat, was Mr D, flanked by 2 other large members of staff. The 3 of them wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Reservoir Dogs montage at that moment. Flint-faced and furious, the 3 continued to walk towards the mass of teenage thugs. The air crackled with tension.
The Human Ashtray started to jeer “Worra yer gonna do, old man?” but caught a sharp elbow in the ribs from his friend, who had seen the murderous look in the ‘old man’s’ eye.
Now, I don’t think for a second that those 3 men would’ve actually done anything to those stupid boys, but right then, they sure looked as though their intention was to tear them apart and scatter the pieces. Mr D especially, committing as much to his role as Righteous Fury as he always had to Resident Magician.
For a moment, the boys from next door hesitated. Then, they scarpered, disappearing faster than a lizard through a crack in the wall.
The whole school broke into applause. “Back to class!” Mr D bellowed, scowling, but I’m pretty sure I caught a glimmer of amused pride hidden underneath. Old man, indeed!
Nerd that I’ve always been, and largely uncomfortable in the company of other children, I grew to view Mr D as a sort of friend. He spoke to me like an adult, respected my opinions, and was hugely supportive of me throughout secondary school.
When I graduated, I presented him with a framed poem I’d written, printed on this beautiful paper that a friend had sent over specially from America. I figured he would think I was a suck-up, and that it would likely end up in the bin at some point, but I’ve always felt it was important to tell people when they have an impact on you. So I took a deep breath, tapped him on the shoulder, and handed him the gaudily gift-wrapped present. I didn’t wait around for him to open it, too embarrassed in case he hated it.
Exactly 15 years later, quite by chance, I ended up being employed as a Cover Supervisor back at my old secondary school. I’d signed the contract, and was on my way out of the door when suddenly I was lifted off my feet and crushed into a humongous hug.
The headmaster had mentioned in the staffroom that he’d just employed an ex-student, and the second he’d heard my name, Mr D had left his cup of tea and come literally running down the corridor to find me.
He swung me around like a rag doll, then planted me back down and grinned at me. “Welcome back!” he said. I couldn’t really believe that after all the thousands of children he’d taught during a nearly 40 year career, that he would remember me. But not only did he remember, he still had several pieces of my classwork, including the first thing I wrote way back in Year 7…and that cringeworthy poem, in pride of place above the desk in his office, nestled in among his own children’s graduation photographs.