Can Do Better

Preface

As a Headmaster, or indeed a former Headmaster, it is important to maintain one’s dignity. It is essential at all costs to avoid being laughed at. George Orwell had the same problem when he was working as a sub-divisional policeman in Burma, and it drove him to shooting an elephant.
There is a widely held assumption that headmasters must be clever and knowledgeable, an assumption which in my case is entirely misplaced.
Years ago, I took our dog to the vets. Medicine was prescribed, a cheque duly completed and I sat in the packed waiting room whilst the receipt was prepared. Imagine my horror when the vet came dancing into the waiting room, waving the cheque in the air and shouting with glee, “He’s a Headmaster and he can’t spell veterinary.”
To some extent the fear of exposure has haunted me all my life, so it was very challenging in later years when I kept finding myself caught short in places where there were no decent options for dealing with the problem, not even a convenient bush! The situation was so acute that I was reduced to seeing the doctor.
I explained the problem. He was inclined to shrug it off. “We’re old men, David! What else can you expect?”
When it came to the examination, upon which I insisted, I could understand why he had been so reluctant to undertake further investigation.
He removed his gloved hand, and I could tell from his expression that all was not well. This was undoubtedly prostate cancer.
Various procedures followed including a biopsy carried out by a locum who seemed to take an unreasonable delight in the seriousness of the diagnosis. “Goodness me, Mr Chaplin, this is very bad! Oh dear, this is very bad indeed!”
In the event I was passed on to a truly wonderful oncologist who has managed to keep me alive and well for over ten years with a clever combination of drugs and radiotherapy.
For all that, it has been difficult not to be drawn into thinking about one’s own mortality, to take stock, especially when friends and relations around you are falling prey to illness.
I know without question what has mattered to me most in my life – my wife and family.
But what of the rest of it …



Chapter 1
Early Days

It was not an auspicious beginning. I was born the youngest of six children, undoubtedly the runt of the litter. As soon as I was old enough to be called names I was known as Spindles. I was almost certainly a mistake, but my mother doted on me and spoilt me. Consequently, my father disliked me. This was entirely understandable. Apart from anything else, I was an annoying child. His dislike mainly manifested itself in his behaving as though I didn’t exist, but there were moments of more pointed cruelty which he would pass off as jokes. One of these was to forget, “accidentally”, to serve me at the meal table. I found this hard to handle and usually ran out of the room in tears.
Occasionally he would wallop me, much to my mother’s dismay. My sister tells me that once it was because I put a peg on my nose, which seems a little harsh. Perhaps he was just a little too old and irritable to cope with a young child.
In those days there was a popular cartoon series called the Gambols which portrayed the daily life of a chaotic family. It is fair to say that our home life was gambolic. Our address was number 32 Park Lane, but this was Norwich, not London, and our house was altogether less grand than the address might have led you to believe. It was a relatively small house for eight people, and we lived somewhat on top of each other.
We had a dog called Clover who used to eat coal and chase her tail furiously round the kitchen.
There was what might loosely be described as a conservatory. This was impenetrable as it was full of junk and numerous piles of back numbers of Punch and the National Geographic which no-one appeared to have read.
Furniture and fittings were basic. My parents did not feel the need for lampshades, bookshelves, curtains or carpets. The only water heater we had was a geyser in the bathroom, and this regularly threatened to explode. All the laundry went through the mangle on Monday morning.
The front garden consisted of gravel and weeds and the back garden was what an estate agent might have described as “mature”. It was an uncultivated mess. However, it boasted a splendid chestnut tree in which we were able make camps and from which we could throw rotten plums at Mr Woodcock’s combinations which hung on the line in the neighbouring garden.
There were two standard punishments: “Dire Disgrace” confined you to your bedroom for a couple of hours, and “Durance Vile” to the cellar. In fairness to my parents, the second of these was generally issued as a threat and was rarely implemented, not even when Mrs Woodcock complained about the state of her husband’s underwear.
We had a wireless and my father liked to listen to The Archers each evening. During this fifteen-minute period silence was required. My youngest sister was (and still is) very talkative and found this difficult. My father once broke a plate over her head for interrupting the everyday story of countryfolk.

From an early age I liked dressing up. From time to time, I would don a white wigwam and preach to my youngest sister and her dolls from halfway up the stairs. I also did a passable imitation of Laurel and Hardy who were popular then.
Park Lane had a life of its own. On the other side from the elderly Woodcocks were the Clarks. They had three children. Karen, the eldest, was a large girl who used to canter round the garden pretending to be a horse, making whooping noises and whipping her thighs. I liked to watch her through a crack in the fence.
The Winters lived beyond the Woodcocks. Mary Winter was very beautiful in a wistful sort of way. The other Mary, Mary Hill, lived at the end of the lane. She was loud, red-haired and naughty.
There were two ladies on the lane who were mad. One, a Miss Legotty, used to push an empty pushchair up and down the street singing hymns and the other, Mrs Daniel, used to enter her house (number 10) not through the door but rather by climbing through the front window. Rumour had it that all the furniture in her house was upside down, but I am not sure that this was ever verified.
Opposite our house was Denbigh Hill which boasted six shops, a pub and a brothel. There was also a fishmongers which was run by a man who I like to think was called Mr Pilchard, although I have a feeling his real name was Punchard. He was very slow and red in the face on account of his predilection for alcohol. Occasionally he used to take me on his rounds in the back of his van with the fish. My parents ought to have worried about this on a number of counts. Perhaps they never knew about it, although I must have smelt fishy on my return.
Most years we had a family holiday, but never outside Norfolk. One year we stayed in a cottage in Bunwell and were tasked to look after the hens. Despite his addiction to The Archers, my dad was not a countryman. Each day a few of the hens died, so that by the time of our departure after two weeks there was none left. This cast a shadow over the holiday. It did not lighten the mood that my elder brother very nearly drowned attempting to cross the pond in a metal oil drum.
For several years in succession, we stayed at Henstead Farm. This was run by a Polish opera singer called Mr Vaskovitch. He used to sing Nessun Dorma as he milked the cows, which they seemed to enjoy, but much of the farm was run down and derelict. Mrs Vaskovitch had a shrill voice, and I can still hear her calling for Andre, their little boy. Andre always seemed to be missing. I have happy memories of running free on the farm.
My mother was called Ethel and was affectionately known as Eth. She was born in Scarborough and her father ran a draper’s shop there. He had died long before I was born but I knew from my mother that he was a kind and gentle man. This is borne out by the few sepia photographs we have of him. His favourite pastime was fly-fishing. I would have loved to have known him.
My mother studied at Scarborough School of Art: she was a very skilled water colourist and calligrapher, producing a series of landscapes, illuminated texts and Christmas cards that were a great delight for her family and friends. I felt she was her happiest when she was painting: she used to half whistle little tunes.
Mum devoted her entire life to the care of her house, her husband and her children. Like her father, she was kind and gentle, but was also inclined to worry and fret. She did not socialise much, and as the children left home, she became increasingly frustrated by the emptiness and narrowness of her life.
Mum enjoyed reading and was particularly devoted to the writings of the famous Methodist preacher, Dr Leslie Weatherhead.
My eldest sister was much like her mum and suffered from nerves to the extent that for quite some time she was unable to face going to school. My youngest sister, the chatty one, had a similar, if much briefer, period of school phobia, but it is likely that this was copycat behaviour because she did not seem to lack confidence. In fact, she was quite forthright, and I remember her exacting terrible punishments on her dolls. My middle sister was the happy-go-lucky one, although she always claims that she was neglected because of being in the middle.
My father was a frustrated artist. He was an immensely gifted craftsman working in a wide range of materials, and he had a vivid, if slightly macabre, imagination. His father had started his working life as a glass blower, but later did better for himself and his family by becoming an insurance superintendent. He was said to be a stern and strict man who expected to be obeyed by his children. He felt that his son would never earn a decent living as an artist so insisted that he study architecture. Dad did as he was told.
He had been born and bred in Yorkshire but he was forced to move to Norwich in the recession in the mid-Thirties to find work. Here he prospered and was able to set up his own practice. He came to specialise in cheap housing and crematoria, the first possibly leading to the second. I suppose he earned a good living, but he was not a big spender: his only indulgence was fast cars. At one stage he had a TR2 which was racing green and made a lot of noise.
Dad made considerable sacrifices to see all six of his children through private school, the three boys boarding from the age of thirteen. I suspect he was especially pleased to see me off to boarding school.



Chapter 2
School

I am grateful to my father for his generosity although in my case I do not think he had good value from his investment as I do not think I benefited much from the schooling. I was smart enough to get by, but not remotely academic. Not that the schools did much to fire the imagination, to stimulate intellectual curiosity and a love of learning.
The masters at my prep school were an odd collection: Colonel W taught history and was so old that he was said to be the only teacher in the country on a war pension as a result of a wound from a bow and arrow; Mr S was bearded and taught English. Rumour had it that he used to beat his stepdaughter with a belt – I find this unlikely now as he was, in my experience, a remarkably mild and gentle man; Mr W taught Latin and was so energetic that he spat when he spoke. We kept our distance. Mr J taught French, I think, and had a lime green Riley 1.5 which I rather admired. He used to take me on my own to Snetterton motor racing some weekends. I have disliked motor-racing ever since.
Finally, there was a bearded maths teacher whose name I have forgotten. He used to throw the board duster at us from time to time for no obvious reason. This was good for our reflexes. He had also devised a punishment of quite extraordinary ingenuity. The offender was required to bend down with his head below the mantelpiece in the classroom. He then had to stick his hands out in front of his body and the teacher would dangle a ruler just above them. To bring the punishment to an end you had to catch the ruler just as it was released. This was made more difficult as the teacher would whack your bottom simultaneously with the release of the ruler, causing you to miss the ruler and bang your head on the mantelpiece above.
I don’t remember any lady teachers.
The headmaster was an austere and distant figure whom I only ever met over a good caning. One of my more vivid recollections is standing outside his door, feeling very small and waiting to be summoned. This happened several times and the odd thing was that I never really understood what I had done wrong.
The other punishment which I incurred with remarkable regularity was the Labour Squad. This involved raking up leaves in the headmaster’s garden on a Saturday morning for a couple of hours and would doubtless provoke outrage were it to be implemented now. I don’t think it did me any harm: as a matter of fact, I have developed rather a liking for gardening.
I suppose it was about a mile from home to school and from an early age I would cycle. I even cycled home for lunch each day. I remember cycling into the back of a car once and discovering when I got home that the bicycle had broken in two. This upset me considerably, but not as much as it upset my father.
I became very familiar with the ride, but I still remember becoming hopelessly lost in the smog. It was so dense that a bus could only move if someone walked a yard or so in front to check that the way was clear.
My early schooldays were not particularly happy, but nor were they traumatic. We began most days by marching in platoons round the schoolyard. I am not sure why we did this, but I quite enjoyed being deliberately out of step. Bullying was common. There was a boy called de Jong, who was nicknamed Pongo Jongo and who was hunted during morning break. Golding had it right, I am afraid. Conveniently, I cannot remember whether I joined in or not. Most of my memories of the school are hazy.
I think I might have been teased a bit myself. Being the youngest child, I was mainly clothed and kitted out with hand-me-downs. My sisters all attended the Norwich High School where the uniform was a sickly green. Remarkably, it seems they even insisted on green knickers. Sadly, I inherited several pairs. When changing for games the other boys pointed at me with glee and exclaimed, “Those are knickers! He’s got green knickers on!” This was followed by peals of gleeful laughter. Limply I would insist they were not knickers, but I knew in my heart of hearts that they were.
We had boxing at school. Nobody taught us how to box: it was merely a question of hit or be hit. I think I was quite good at being hit.
My school reports have a distinctive theme. At the end of one term the Headmaster wrote: “I still expect him to do much better and I am proposing to put him on my personal report list for next term to find out why so many members of staff are dissatisfied with him.”
From the reading of subsequent reports it appears that putting me on the “personal report list” failed to generate any improvement.
I was sent off to boarding school at the age of thirteen and here I was genuinely miserable. Being useless at sport at a boys-only school is a massive disadvantage and being a sickly child, I spent a lot of time in the sanatorium. At least there was female company there and a motherly matron.
My housemaster was a chain-smoking, bachelor musician who appeared to have no interest in the well-being of the boys under his care. I once asked him if I could go home for a weekend as it was my sister’s birthday. He curled his lip, exhaled a mouthful of smoke, and declared, “You are a baby, Chaplin, aren’t you? Grow up!” I supposed that meant no.
I lived in the shadow of my two brothers. The elder was the star of the family. He won the top scholarship to the boarding school, thus paving the way for his two brothers to follow, and subsequently read English at Cambridge. He went on to study architecture and then joined my father’s practice. This possibly proved to be a mistake,
The younger brother made his mark at the school in a different way: he was a leading light in the combined cadet force. He was so important that on parade he marched ahead of the school band throwing a stick in the air. I think he might even have worn a bear skin. He also attracted admiration as an intrepid mountaineer.
…