Builders started work on the new sixth form centre today. The cost of the work will be some £8000.The plan is to convert two of the classrooms in to a combined recreational and study area for the sixth formers. The two classes will be separated by what at first sight appears to be a gazebo wall. A door with windows either side of it, its a bit of an odd set up but does enable anyone coming into the common room part, which seems to be the entrance, to see anyone in the study room which may have been the intention. I am impressed, the space of two class rooms is far more than I had thought possible for the new centre.
It had not escaped the attention of some of the brighter sixth formers that the location puts the SFC (Sixth Form Centre) as close as possible to Helen Orme’s office. Every privilege comes with a price.
Later: Managed to salvage what could have been a nasty situation today. I was watching the break time world go by from a window on the upper level of the foyer when Tracy Piner appeared, under full sail and clearly agitating for membership of the not-a happy-bunny-club, she buttonholed me and launched into the tale with little in the way of preamble. With Piner this was always a bad sign. I'm told that Beverley had been caught skivving (Ignoring that portion of her prefect role that required a direct contact with the pupils, in this she and the other were not dissimilar to the staff - Editors) by Piner and told to go on duty. She was ordered to her duty station, but instead Beverley sought out Steve and offered to patrol with him, Steve unsurprisingly countermanded Piner’s order and Piner promptly went ballistic. Following the rules she sought me out to bring Steve to order.
Oh fuck!
Editors note: To fully understand Cook’s concerns its worth re-visiting the power structure that existed in the school’s byzantine prefect hierarchy. Both Steve and Mark had been senior prefects for several years. Given that, Steve Johnson would have been aware that he had seniority on Piner in terms of both age and years as a perfect and therefore had every right to make decisions about the placement of perfects, the role of the deputy would allow that however it is clear that Steve’s decision was based exclusively on the chance afforded to be with Simmons and Piner was well aware of that. She would also have been aware that under normal circumstances Johnson did not interfere or take much interest in prefect matters. Interestingly Cook was not made a perfect until the sixth form and somehow became head boy the following year and on that basis his standing was pretty limited however the head boy was perceived by tradition to be top of the pyramid.
Cook’s diary continues…
I get to Steve as soon as possible.
“What’s going on with you and Bev?” I ask, unwisely as it turns out.
“What about me an’ Bev?” asks Steve. He is very defensive.
“Piner is throwing a wobbly upstairs, she claims you countermanded her order to Beverley.”
“She walked with me, she was on duty!” he grins
“You don’t have the authority!” I say realising as I do that it is a really dumb thing to say
“So what the point, if I can't have some kind of authority. If I can't organise the prefects I resign.” Steve announces dramatically and hurls his badge to the floor and stomps off t
o the library, doubtless to be consoled by a grateful Beverley or thinking about it, maybe not.Mark appears behind me like the proprietor of the costume shop in an episode of Mr Ben. “Steve quit?” he asks, I nod.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Dunno!” I respond displaying the sage-like qualities that marked the GHS head boy.
“ Well I reckon you have about thirty seconds to figure it out - I just saw Piner heading for Graham’s office!”
***
Diary continues: If there is a record for running up two flights of stairs, I made a good attempt to break it and catch Piner as she about to knock on the door of the deputy’s office. “Tracy,” I (puff), “ glad I saw you, I need your (wheeze) advice.” Piner is bright enough to look suspicious but foolish enough to halt knocking on the door and listen to what I have to say.Editors notes: Our researchers noted that given the speed and venom of his response to Cook, it might well have been Steve’s intention to sabotage some aspect of the perfect force’s duties to prove his solidarity with the rank and file members. We can assume that Cook would not want to be seen openly backing Piner against his friends and in any event would have been aware that Johnson's passion for the fair Ms Simmonds would override everything else up to and including commonsense.
“We may have a problem.” I announce dramatically.
“Yes, I know. Simmons has resigned.” I groan inwardly, two down and around eighteen to follow, I think to myself.
“Steve has also quit.” I volunteer.
“I’ll tell Mrs Graham.” She raises her hand to knock at the door.
“Half a mo,” I am thinking wildly by now and then out of nowhere inspiration strikes “we are the heads of school, right?” Tracy nods cautiously quite rightly suspecting that I am up to something.
“Johnson and Simmons were in the wrong, but if we are going to fire a senior and a deputy head, we had better be sure about our reasons…”
Tracy opens her mouth to speak. “And make recommendations about their replacements.” I continue.
By sheer luck I have managed to come up with the one thing that would halt her march to the deputy head. The chance to recommend a new senior prefect would be too good to miss
“Of course,” I add quickly, “I want your help in choosing the new deputy head boy.”Hook, line and sinker! Tracy wanders off mentally composing her list and leaves me to wonder what I hell I do now?
***
I find Steve in the green rooms, inspiration strikes. He is writing something. The fact that its one of our English essay books in no way implies that what he is doing is in anything connected with our English “A” levels
“Shame!”
I allow the one word to hang in the air.
“What?” asks Steve at length and without any apparent interest.
“About Bev.”
“What about her?” asks my friend his interest now piqued.
“Well. She’s quit hasn’t she.” Steve nods clearly he knew this.
“That means she’ll be in the shit as far as Graham and the others are concerned - so that’s the play out the window.”
“Play, what play?”
“Oh Raven had her lined up for a starring role in the Christmas play. No chance of that now! Shame! Once Graham finds out, they’ll crucify the poor girl. Really put the boot in, keep her out of that show and maybe some others. Probably show up on her record and stuff like that.” I add in an offhand fashion designed to suggest conversation and nothing more.
“You have to do something!” says Steve already astride his white knight charger and anticipating galloping to the rescue.
“Too late now. Now that you’ve resigned as well - of course if you said it was just a mistake, then there would be no need for Beverley to resign either.” I wait.
“Do it!” commands Sir Stephen of Valour from somewhere in the middle the battlefield of righteous indignation. I nod and wander off.
One down and one to go.
***
Beverley will be a bit trickier, for one thing, I don’t know her all that well. We did do that play together a couple of years ago, so she is not a complete stranger, but she and I don't speak much if you discount the flirtation stuff designed more to embarrass then to have any basis in reality. I have no idea what her opinion of events will be and moreover if she gives a stuff about the gallant chavalier hanging around waiting his chance - probably not thinking about it.I soon find her in one of the green rooms behind the stage. Another venue where the sixth form is forced to carry out its clandestine study practices.
“Hello Bev, how are I you?” I ask.
“I’m fed up!” I assume she means it, Beverley’s normal dialogue with me - what little there is of it consists of lots of coy semi-flirting. She normally calls me Uncle Ronnie for reasons about which I have no idea. She is barely two years younger than I am yet makes me feel as though there is a decade between us.
“Shame about Steve isn’t it?” I offer.
“What about him?” Beverley’s interest is several degrees of frost compared to Sir Stephen of Gaynesford, but she asks the question at least.
“Chucked it all in, deputy head boy, the whole kit and caboodle.” I reply careful not to specify the caboodle’s content. “Of course Pat Graham is delighted.” I continue when this gambit is met with silence, “Its what she wanted all the time. It’s why I was made head boy over his head. Graham doesn’t like him and wants him out. Thinks he’s a disruptive influence.” I wonder briefly if I have gone too far, calling SMJ disruptive in the face of the attentions of people like Burrowes and Jones could trigger even the usually disabled Simmons bullshit detector.
“She’s as big a bitch a Piner!” declares Steve’s love goddess with more venom that I would have though possible. Not for the first time it dawns on me that somewhere underneath the girlie outfits prentence and coyness is a fair bit of steel. “Trouble is," I continue" he resigned to support you, now if it turned out that you had not resigned, he could back off and Graham would be well pissed off!”
“Can we do that?” she enquired.
“Course we can, just claim it was a misunderstanding in the heat of the moment. Beverley looks pleased and I leave before she can find any holes on the argument.
Next its time to see my opposite number once more.I find Tracy in the dining room with some of her cronies. Apparently this is where they study. As I enter the room, I am struck by the fact that this is what they are doing.There is none of the anarchic behaviour of the study groups in either the green rooms or the library, but plenty of signs of actual learning going on, for Gaynesford this is remarkable.
I sit down opposite Tracy noticing the piece of paper on the table. It is difficult to read upside down but appears to be two lists of names.
“Its okay, good news. Neither Beverley or Steve is resigning.” I announce.
Piner does not sound pleased with my good news.
“Mrs Graham needs to be told that they tried to resign.” Counters my opposite number in a slightly annoyed and angry voice.
“Might look bad for us, if we do.” Piner looks puzzled. “She may think we went behind her back and were up to something!”
Tracy’s puzzlement ratchets up several more notches. “Yes, but you said!” she starts...
“Best left I think!”Piner sweeps the paper off the table and into her bag.Her cronies who have been following the conversation over the scratch of their biros look disappointed. I wonder if they had been lining up a younger friend for Beverley’s prefectship or some favoured male for the deputy role.
I leave the dining hall confident. This will work perfectly provided that Steve and Beverley didn’t talk to one another.
As things stood between them there was very little chance of that. Was there?
***
Editors notes: Our researchers considered that even had both Johnson and Simmons found themselves in the blackest books of the school, the practical outcome would have been minimal. For Beverley in particular would have had an unusual protector in the shape of her membership of the O level drama group. This group which had included several members of the current sixth form was slowly leaching members. Papers unearthed relating to that time, clearly showed that the sixth form drama group was sadly deficit in numbers and consisted of Diane Downham, Stuart Jones, Beverley Simmons, and Lee Burrowes, far less than needed to make any drama workshop production (a requirement of the qualification) succeed. Skilled players of the game - and here we mean Helen Orme rather than the drama teacher Tony Raven – well more than aware of the importance of drama in the school. They knew that in to back up the productions that occurred annually in the school, there would need to be pupils who could boast Drama as an examination qualification. Johnson on the other hand would have been equally shielded by his membership of that most exclusive of GHS club the A level student likely to actually get A levels and go onto higher education.
Meanwhile it was the Drama Group or rather the lack of the Drama Group which was exercising the man of Tony Raven, English teacher and thespian par ordinaire.
We have published below a reply to what appears to have been Raven’s fears about the future of the drama group.
From: Headmistress
To: T Raven, English, 10 December 1979
Re: Drama Group.
I agree that we have a problem; the examiners may well be surprised to attend a workshop production with four students playing fifteen roles especially since it would require the pupils to play several roles simultaneously. And I concur that this could be to the detriment of the O level students, however I expect my staff to find ways to surmount such difficulties.
Have you considered seeing if there are any other students who would be willing to assist their friends to claim their qualifications? I am sure that some members of the sixth form would have the time to spare.
Perhaps an approach to Ronald Cook and one or two of the other senior sixth formers may assist you. They could be asked to fill in some of the minor roles freeing the drama student to concentrate on the more demanding roles.I understand from Mrs Graham that they have some spare time so should be free to help.
Helen Orme, Headmistress
Editors notes. It requires no great knowledge of Gaynesford politics to translate this and even less to appreciate that from that moment on, Cook and company’s involvement with the drama group was assured. We sent the memo and our notes on Helen Orme to Mark Powell and asked for his comments. We have printed these below.
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2045 19:28.14 GMT
To: editors@unacceptable_terms.ac.uk
From: Mark Powell mvlp@Vnet.orgt
Reply-To: Mark Powell mvlp@Vnet.org
Subject: Helen Orme - Headmistress
Rumour had it that Helen had transferred to the UK direct from Australia where she had been rejected for running regimes so hash that even early twentieth century Catholic missions rejected them. She did however introduce a range of new measures; she changed the colour scheme of both blazers and tie for all ranks below sixth form; she made an attempt to have the form of address for female teachers changed from miss to ma’am - this proved abortive. She made strenuous attempts to enforce the left-hand rule for corridor traffic.
Obviously a big fan of Elsa Lancaster in The Bride of Frankenstein he styled her hair in the same way. Pile it up using lots of hair lacquer and Kiwi black (shoe polish). She sported a white streak in the middle of her hair, dubbed “The Mallen Streak” by Ron Cook in honour of an historical drama of the time. Possibly her most unsettling habit was the wearing of tight slacks which showed off her all too floppy matronly buttocks. I once witnessed Helen greet the sister of French teacher Miss Kassam who was visiting the school. She ushered the woman into her office with a hearty pat of the buttocks. This may have been the traditional greeting amongst Australian females of the time but I doubt it.
There were rumours that she drank, although I had no recollection of ever seeing her inebriated - although given her normal manner, it may have been hard to tell.
Mark Powell
Editors note. Meanwhile, Cook was to be the next victim of Cupid’s armour piercing arrows.
Pictures
1. Beverley Simmons aged 14.
2. Portrait of Beverley Simmons entitled "Before the haircut"1982 copyright Stephen Johnson.
3. Ashok and Beverly in the sixth form centre 1980.
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