Rock Ferry, Rock Ferry, Rah. Rah. Raaaah!

This entry was inspired by Silver Tiger's own blog entry, Avoiding the Ball

Rock Ferry Birkenhead, Wirral, September 1973. A poke in my back. A grunt.

Him: “Orrahunsel?”

Me (very politely – I had been brought up to be courteous and to never say Yer what?): “Sorry, could you repeat that please?”.

Him: “Orrahucken nunsel?”

Me: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand”

Him, trembling with the effort of not gobbing me there and then and wrestling with the difficulties of pronunciation: “Ave yer gorra fucken pencil yer fucken posh c*nt?”

All the while, our orthdontically-challenged form master, Mr. Snailsson, whose jumpers stank of maturing slobber, dribbled yeasty saliva onto his jumper from his ship’s prow incisors, slurping noisily as he attempted to arrest the flow. He was so preoccupied with this Canute-like effort that he never had time, or the inclination, to maintain discipline in his class. Bullying was rife. I suppose it was easier for him that way.

My home was two miles away from this now-demolished august seat of learning whose gates were at the end of Ravenswood Avenue, but it might as well have been in a different country. I suddenly realised that I was in Apache country – and would be for the next 6 years.

This was the introduction to the brutality and random violence that characterised my secondary school education – a brutality practised by schoolmates and the majority of teachers alike. I never quite understood how the school could forgive, nay adulate, the rebels and bullies, provided they were good at sports, yet despise the academic achievers if they weren’t. I sure as hell am glad that my children didn't have to run the guantlet of the English education system.

I hated sports. A PE teacher, let’s call him Mr Fiddling, tried to teach us how to do neck springs. I and many of my classmates, clumsy or otherwise, regarded this particular manoeuvre as life-threatening: either you did it correctly, or you were in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. After the class – after every class – this same PE teacher, would join his pupils in the shower lathering his wedding tackle extravagantly while exhorting us to keep our manhoods clean. His bits must have been squeaky clean, considering that he gave at least 2 PE classes a day. What happened to this pervert? Nothing, that I know of. Remember this was the Jimmy Savile era.  

This Mr Fiddling, along with another two sports teachers one that we shall call Mr. Brian (what else?) Ewer and a certain Mr. R.N. “Wogga” Williams (real name,.Thankfully he’s dead and I hope it was a particularly painful death) beat up a rather belligerent student and then claimed self-defence. Yeah, right. BTW, Ewer is a good pseudonym as a ewer can also be called a crock and as our American cousins know, crocks are usually full of shit.

The school sport was rugger. God, I hate that word. I hate the “sport” even more. Not wanting to achieve a set of false teeth before the age of 18 and preferring to keep all of my bones intact, I would collapse scrums, fumble balls, run away from people whom I should tackle, etc. On one occasion Mr. Ewer asked me if I was a coward. I answered without hesitation that I was. This led to me being banished to the library and ignominiously stripped of the “privilege” of practising any sports for the rest of my time in the school. You can imagine the depths of my anguish, dear reader. This final “punishment” however did not come before I had received several unwarranted kickings – one to unconsciousness – on the rugby field.

Another teacher, known as Spadger, actually did get tried and condemned for kiddie fiddling in the local swimming baths where he was a volunteer instructor. In his defence, he had the hypocritical impertinence to state that he had never betrayed the sacred trust placed upon him as a teacher and that he had never fiddled with any of his pupils at work. I'm sure that that was a reilef to our parents, who I think never got to hear of Mr Fiddling's soapy exhibitionism. 

Discipline was based on physical violence and humiliation – preferably both. I remember at the age of 18 (in other words I was now an adult) being punched on the arm with such violence by my form master (an ex-Regimental boxing champion) that the whole of my upper arm was purple for over a week. From that moment on I refused to be the victim of physical punishment and as a result got sent home.

Curiously enough, most of these Fascists had fought in WWII. Recently I have begun to wonder on which side and if, indeed, they had washed up at RFHS via Argentina or Brazil.

There was, however, light among the darkness. The languages teachers tended to be younger and more human. And, thanks to the English Literature teachers, my love of English in all its forms was fed and encouraged. I would like to give all of them a heartfelt thanks, while I belatedly celebrate the demolition of Rock Ferry High School.