Friends in Adversity

By Peter Brown

I arrived at Maynard's Grammar School in 1959, shortly after my eleventh birthday. It was a Direct Grant school obliged to take a quarter of its pupils from state primaries. Competition to go there was intense, and I was the first boy in living memory to do so from King's Road junior, in a working-class area of town which had been bombed in the war and was now covered with prefab housing. That I did so was largely due to the head teacher, a jovial, fat Welshman named Evans, who arrived when I was eight. Before then, the school was bedlam, under a woman head who could not cope. Mr. Evans never raised his voice, but everyone feared his look, and they feared his anger after he gave the toughest boy six of the best, then marched him straight back into class, red-faced and sobbing, to apologize to the teacher. He never needed to use the cane again after that.

Soon the classrooms were orderly and the odd pupil began to pass the eleven-plus, although pitifully few, since families were poor, uninterested in education, and wanted their children at work and bringing home a wage packet as soon as possible. Mr. Evans convinced me that I had a future among the beribboned blazers of the grammar school and talked my parents round when they would have preferred me to learn more 'practical' things and leave school at fifteen, as my eldest brother was about to do. Even so, when I passed the examination with marks high enough for Maynard's and survived the interview, they were appalled by the cost of the uniform and declared it could not possibly be afforded. But then we had a stroke of luck. My father won a small sum on the football pools, and, with that year's family holiday also sacrificed, I went off to Maynard's in my expensive cap and blazer.

Sensibly, Maynard's insisted that new boys sit at their desks in alphabetical order for the first term so that the staff could learn and remember our names. As I was Brown, I shared a desk with Connor. He had the wild rebellious name but I had the hair. Red hair recurred in our family every second generation - no-one knew why - and it had descended on me. Apart from that, I was a freckled nondescript. Connor had Byronic good looks, with black hair, fine features, and a pale complexion. I admired him. He had poise and used facial expression when other boys would have needed words. He was well-spoken and, on the surface, very polite, although he addressed teachers with a nonchalance that bordered on insolence.

My fawning admiration for Connor was not returned. He had come to Maynard's from a prep school and soon found out that I was from a down at heel state primary. At lunch the first day I committed a social faux pas in beginning to eat before Grace had been said; the other boys at my table tittered and the well bred Connor looked daggers at me. He began sniffing with upturned nose as we arrived to sit together in class, as though I smelled, and, when obliged to address me, called me 'oik'. His prep school friends followed suit, and by the third day I could not appear in the playground without a chant of 'Oik, Oik, Oik' beginning.

At Break that afternoon I could stand it no longer and rushed at Connor, my fists flying. The two of us fell over and rolled on the ground until a pair of muscular hands grabbed our respective blazer collars and we were pulled to our feet by Collins, a sixth-form prefect, who informed us that we would be reported. During the last lesson of the day the blow fell when Collins came into class with the message that we were to report to the headmaster directly after school. There were sniggers and a subdued chorus of 'whack, whack, whack' until Mr Jackson told us to calm down and get on with our work.

The patient man behind the desk was about forty-five. His face was deeply suntanned after the summer holidays, and he had twinkling blue eyes with thick brown hair and a moustache. He wore a pepper-and-salt suit. He asked what we meant by coming before him looking like that, and ordered Connor to straighten his tie and both of us to pull our stockings up. Then he asked what the fight was about and who started it. When we both answered 'Don't know, sir', he said:
'What sort of answer is that? You had a fight but you don't know what it was about? Sometimes I wonder how people like you pass your eleven-plus and get here. Very well, then, I'll ask a simpler question. Who struck the first blow?'

There was no way out of that, so I answered, 'Me, sir'.
'I'm very disappointed in you, Brown. I know Mr. Evans very well and he has told me a lot about you. He said you were very self-disciplined, and you must be. It can't be easy to study and do homework amid all your brothers and sisters in that prefab. And I know you've had little encouragement from your parents. But now you get here you forget all that self-discipline and begin brawling like a costermonger. Connor, did you give Brown any reason to attack you?'
He shook his head and said 'No, sir'.
'You know what this means, Brown. It means you have to be punished, and punished very severely. I will not allow the new boys to believe that they can get away with brawling in the playground, so you will have to be given a lesson and made an example of. You will receive six strokes of the cane. Have you anything to say?'

My mouth was so dry that I could only whisper: 'No, sir'.
'Not even to say you're sorry?'
'I'm very sorry, sir.'
'So you should be. This is not what is known as a 'caning school', Brown. Being caned here is a disgrace and will count as a big black mark against your name. What are your parents going to think, when they made such sacrifices to let you come here? What is Mr. Evans going to think? How many were in your primary school class?'
'Thirty-four, sir.'
'How many passed their eleven-plus?'
'Four, sir.'
How many boys?'
'Just me, sir.'
'I know what Mr. Evans called you the day you left. He called you a beacon, a light to let every boy at King's Road know that they could do it and follow you. What sort of beacon have you turned out to be?'

By now I was close to tears, so it was almost a relief when he got up, came round the desk, and picked up a cane from the umbrella stand. He was well over six feet and towered over me.
'Bend over that armchair.'
I had never received any corporal punishment beyond the odd smack. My heart seemed to be giving great leaps and bounds, as though it was about to burst from my chest, and I felt like bolting from the room, but I did as I was ordered. I got right over the chair and pressed my face into the cushion in the hope of muffling any cries. I felt the headmaster turn back the tail of my blazer and tap his springy cane lightly across the tighly stretched seat of my grey worsted shorts. There was a pause - a dead silence which seemed interminable - and then I heard a whistling noise as the cane scythed through the air towards my trembling backside.

There was a loud 'thwack!' that echoed about the room like a pistol shot and I felt a sharp searing pain that almost knocked the breath out of my puny body.
Stroke number two landed and the burning pain was doubled and redoubled. I wondered how I could possibly get through the six without blubbing like a baby. That would make a wonderful tale for Connor to tell his gang!

Then all of a sudden I heard a shrill, anguished voice pleading: 'Please don't do it, sir. It was my fault. I made him hit me.'
All Connor's poise and nonchalance were gone and he sounded like what he was, a deeply upset small boy. Then he burst into tears. The Head told me to get up, then put his arm round Connor's shoulders, produced a handkerchief, and helped him dry his eyes and pull himself together. Then he said:
'I'm strongly inclined to divide the punishment and give you three strokes each, but I think you're more than half-way to being friends. So why don't you shake hands and make it up?'
I turned to Connor, held out my hand, and said: 'I'm sorry I hit you, Connor.' He took it and replied:
'I'm sorry I called you names.'

The Headmaster said: 'If you're going to be friends you'd better learn one another's Christian names.'
'I'm Peter.'
'I'm David.'
'So now for your punishment. Do you know what the judgement of Solomon was?' David shook his head, but I replied: 'Yes, sir.'
'I'm glad there's someone here who knows his Bible. You can tell Connor where to find it. I want you to write me an essay about it. Do it together. Perhaps you can meet over the weekend and work on it. I want you to tell me why Solomon was so wise. Bring it to me at morning Break on Monday. I shall look forward to reading it. Now run along home.'
And so the patient man behind the desk went back to his paperwork and I left his study with my backside still tingling a little from those two strokes of the cane. Before leaving for home I was looking forward to having a chat with my brand new schoolfriend.