Around this time as well, a decision seems to have been made to cancel the production of South Pacific. Cook’s diary refers to some form workshop production, which appeared to be in the form of the major songs only… This meant more resources for the drama group but the diary records only a microscopic increase in the amount of money being spent on the project.
We were lucky enough to find some notes that Mr Raven made relating to the Sweeney Todd production. These seem to have been to aid the examiners in grading the aptitude of the drama candidates and its interesting to note both his optimistic appraisal and careful wording of the way work progressed.
Meanwhile, despite evidence to the contrary, the drama group was proving they were perfectly capable of delivering a performance without the aid of Cook, Johnson and Powell. The diary records the triumphal return of the official drama group contingent from the first performance segment of their exam.
Cook's diary for Friday 16th May 1980...
The drama group returned from the first part of their drama exam in triumph. Their rendition of TS Eliot’s The Hollow Men, judging from the way they are behaving, it looks as though they succeeded in coming up with an excellent performance. Their costumes for the recitation appeared to be sheets and Steve speculates rather too much about what Beverley might have been wearing beneath hers (Almost as much as Stuart, although Stuart makes more of an effort to find out.) I expect this will provoke another careful drawing in pencil or pen. To be fair, Steve is a talented artist, but all his models are drawn from pages of, well lets call them art magazines and whereas the bodies tend to be different. The heads all tend to be pretty young brunette. I wonder if Mark pens drawings of blondes in his bedroom.
Mid-morning: Beverley steals my badge and tie and proclaims herself the head boy. I can see no reason to attempt to regain my position. If she wants to be head boy, good luck to her, but I think Steve would be a bit disappointed if she gained weight and developed a desire to go out and get drunk every night.
Later: I am surprised to learn that we have a Past Pupils Association. A sort of old boy and girl organization for those previous members of the school that Orme feels should be allowed to be part of the association.
They have organized a trip to Brighton, and we are invited - more to make up the numbers than in any recognition of our senior status or even the fact that we are older than many of the past pupils who will be attending. Of course in typical Gaynesford style I learn this when a couple of old pupils Mr Larwood and Mr Pottle appear to pay their fares. Mark and Steve and I pay our deposits and ponder the possibilities of a trip to the south coast.
Editors note. Readers will not be surprised to learn that the Past Pupils Association possessed a complicated membership rationale. One can understand why a skilled player of the game like Helen Orme would want to keep the association under control. Membership of the association was excluded to any pupil. She however have made a mistake in choosing as her champion Trevor Coldman who was an equally experienced player of the academic game. We were fortunate enough to find a memo Mrs Orme sent to her head of sixth form and newly appointed Past Pupils Association liaison.
Click on image for full size version.
This diktat would have removed around 60% of the PPA's potential membership. Our research suggests that in the main the membership of the "Old Gaynesfordians" (1) was pretty much self-selecting with the majority of ex-pupils only too glad to escape the school and scathing of any suggestions that they might return on a social basis.
It says a lot about the obsessive nature of Cook that close to 30 years after the events and deriving from a conversation had with Mrs and Mrs Thomas senior over lunch in Eastbourne in March 2008 he added this section to the original diary entry...
Rita (Thomas) and Bill appeared not to be great fans of Mrs Orme. Listening to Rita talking over lunch it was fairly clear that Helen Orme positively discouraged any enterprise that did not have a direct financial benefit to the school in addition if my common-law mother in law is to be believed a certain degree of callowness.1. A more logical appellation but one which was not taken up due the inability of many ex-pupils and staff to pronounce it.
Rita recounted a school band trip to Croydon, it must have been some kind of competition from what I could make out. Another chance for the Gaynesford to perform an acoustic smash and grab operation on the audience. During the trip back to the coach one of the pupils was run over and although not badly injured was in need of an ambulance. In the coach Orme waited impatiently while Rita who worked for the police at the time ministered to the young victim.
Eventually Mrs Orme sent Mrs Lines to ask when Rita and another parent were returning to the coach because they were holding everyone else up. My mother in law was understandably extremely miffed about this and it soured any further relations between the Thomas clan and Mrs Orme. I struggle with the notion that even Helen Orme would not have been worried about the fate of one of her charges, if only because she would have felt the need to be up to speed when the time came to report the incident to the child's parents. And surely even in GHS this would have occurred immediately!
Both the Thomas' were clear that Gaynesford's parent/teacher association was hamstrung in its dealing with the wider world by the actions of Mrs Orme whose only thoughts were to glean more money for the school using jumble sales and any other methods. Suggestions that things could be given away to kids whose parents did not have much money were greeted with indifference at best and often hostility. Given that GHS was a depressed school in a depressed area on a depressed council estate its no stretch of the imagination to assume that many of the children may have come from low income families. I certainly did and do not for one moment believe myself to be unique. Steve and Mark came from middle class families but I got the impression some of the sixth formers were not too flush.
I have to confess a sense of surprise and disappointment because although it suited the mood of the moment to portray Helen Orme as a hopeless drunk, I had always secretly believed her to be a player of the game – who else would they dare send to Gaynesford. It would have been nice to think we had someone who was cunning and duplicitous at least. But sadly I now suspect that we in our naïve enthusiasm managed to describe Mrs Orme as exactly what she was...
SUNDAY 18th MAY 1980.
Todd minus four days and counting: The sojourn from 'Todd' turns out to be all too brief and once again I am at the hall rehearsing...
Todd notes:
- Beverley failed to appear which did not help matters.
- We have been rehearsing the fight scenes and I am absolutely hopeless at this sort of thing. I have never thrown a punch in my life preferring the various forms of “win-do.”
- We worked for several hours, but the absence of Beverley hampered our efforts not least because it the Johanna Oakley scene that are currently the weakest.
- Ashok has decided that his character needs to be more culturally realistic and now we have "Abdul Muhammed Haq" in the cast.
MONDAY 19th MAY 1980.
Todd minus three days and counting: There is something not quite right about the atmosphere in the school. As Mark and I arrive we both sense that something is not what it should be. To quote Steve “there is hassle in the air.” On the other hand our opening night is Thursday. Stuart makes inquiries and it seems that the traditional inter-year war is scheduled to break out. Gaynesford being Gaynesford, when there is not another school to fight, we fight ourselves just for the practice.
Naturally, the riot kicks off at first break. The raw edge of nerves is beginning to show. Normally we would ignore the havoc being wrought in the corridors and hide in the common room but this time it gets in the way of practicing our lines and there is a collective baring of teeth amongst the sixth formers.
Editors note. Its worth bearing in mind that the cast of 'Tod' constituted more than half of the sixth form contingent hence Cook's suggestion that they formed the bulk of the form is no totally inaccurate.
After Break things seem to die down and the members of the cast cautiously make our way back stage were we are scheduled to move all the old theatrical crap out of the way and replace it with our own theatrical crap. Rave assists us by bringing his entire class with him. We immediately conscript them to help.
Dinner break: We are just starting to think that we might get away with it, when Stuart returns from what I believed to be a trip to the toilet with the news that the riot was about to recommence and may be best to get under cover. We make it back to the common room just before mayhem kicks off in the corridors. I have no idea what the issue is, nor indeed do I particularly care, but it is now seriously getting in the way of our rehearsals. This annoys me sufficiently that when Graham appears seeking recruits for a raiding party on the rioters I join them at the head of what I foolishly believe to be a team of prefects.
Seconds later realize that I am alone the prefects behind me wisely decide to turn left the first chance they get and leave it to the staff.
The playing fields: I don’t think I had been in this part of the school for close to three years, but there is little time to view the scenery. I find myself at the front of a group of staff heading for what looks like several hundred of the little darlings sitting on the playing field. The staff doesn’t seem to have a plan of action other than walking out and telling the pupils to return. When this fails, General Graham is nonplussed as to what to do next.
Unluckily for us the pupils have their strategy and as we stand there the rioters change from a sit-in to a run away. They rise as one and charge towards us. It's too late to run away – beside most of them would be faster than I am – and I fully expect someone to put the boot in or even worse as they passed. I stand still and wait. The riot passes me by and I am more than a little surprised not to be knocked to the ground. Feeling I had done my bit, I retire at a none too steady gait to the common room where I am offered a mug of sweet coffee by a sympathetic Diane. The riot continued...
During a lull in hostilities Mrs Graham and Paul Samuels, one of the fifth years can be clearly heard outside the common room arguing with one another. Paul we quickly learn has been identified as the ringleader of the rioters and singled out for the usual speech asking if the pupil would behave this way at home. Pat Graham is surprised when Paul answers in the affirmative and rightly concludes that Mr Samuels is taking the piss.
A procession of sixth formers using the lull to scuttle back to the relative safety of the sixth form centre masks the conversation and it is finished before we can eavesdrop again. I never find out the outcome of the conversation but receive a request via Stuart to author an apology letter address to Helen Orme. I consider saying no, but then decide that an apology will irritate Graham far more than any action that Samuels might take. Besides I can take the piss a little while doing it. Under normal circumstances the excitement and dare I say drama of the riot would have occupied our attention for some time, but with Todd only three days away, it is soon forgotten as we once more plunge into the script.
The fact of the matter is that we simply have not learnt the lines. Like Mark and Steve when I started to do this, it was as a favour to the drama group and I adopted a kind of “I’ll help out if I have time in my busy schedule” attitude to the work. But having said I would do this, I now realise - and realise more than a little late - that I will actually have to go on stage.
Raven had taken the unusual step of mounting the work shop production in front a live audience, two live audiences in fact. At some point a decision- and no one had told me or any other member of the cast - had been made to stage the show to the pupils of the school. One showing on the first day for the First, Second and Third Year pupils with a second show for the Fourth, Fifth and those members of the Sixth not on stage. One can assume that amidst the younger pupils would be the examiners who would declare whether or not the show had passed their scrutiny. This news did nothing to improve their nervousness.
TUESDAY 20th MAY 1980.
Two days to go! We rehearsed Sweeney Todd for twelve hours today, breaking only for food and the occasional crap. Hmm…occasional crap, yes that about sums it up.
WEDNESDAY 21st MAY 1980.
One day left… Stuart bought the blank pistol needed for the show into school today. Being Stuart he decided there would be no harm in taking a few pot shots at the pupils during break. He charges over to the windows in the common room opens one and proceeds to fire several shots into the playground.
Even in Gaynesford, rapid gunfire usually provoked some form of comment and in this case it was from our dear headmistress. Mrs Orme stormed into the sixth form centre less than chuffed that small arms fire was coming from the room. She threatened to cancel the performance of Sweeney Todd is this sort of thing continued but was clearly surprised to be greeted by a combination of disinterest and this close to the actual performance a degree of hope. What had seemed like a good laugh a few months ago is rapidly becoming a source of panic.
Editors note. Readers will note that whereas in this day and age, the police might have been called and armed officers responded to the incident, in South London in the early 1980s it warranted no more than a annoyed tirade from the headmistress.
When Orme departs, Mark offers the thought that she might have actually been worried about us since there was always a possibility that faced with gunfire from the sixth form, some of the other pupils might have fired back!
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