Open Writing

This is the – what you might call – hidden meaning of the first name “Hilda”, which was borne by the headmistress of my primary school. Very appropriate in her case. Miss Hilda Best (not her real surname).

The school was a big old Victorian heap, crumbling at the edges and already “condemned” when I started there in the early Sixties. It was to stand for a good few years after I left, eventually to be replaced by an airy modern structure. But in my day, a place of stinky bogs and stone corridors.

I have often wondered if Miss Best was the inspiration for Roald Dahl’s Miss Trunchbull, the character in his book “Matilda”. If not his inspiration, then perhaps the illustrator’s, as when I bought the book for a friend’s child and flipped through it before wrapping it up, I howled with laughter at the resemblance.

Picture this – mousy hair parted in the middle, plaited and wound in earphone affairs around her ears. Very 1930s-shaped glasses with pale brown plastic rims. A capacious bosom which perhaps could be more aptly described as a “frontage”. She had not grasped the concept of a good foundation garment, as her frontage sort of drooped to somewhere around waist level. Perhaps she tucked it into the waistband of her skirt instead, the better to control it?

Her wardrobe varied little from day to day. I imagine she bought job-lots of cream Vyella blouses with Peter Pan collars, and baggy mid-calf tweed skirts, from a specialist emporium for old frumps. Poking beneath her hemline was a pair of spindly legs, clad invariably in thick lisle stockings, and boat-like clumpy brogues to finish off the ensemble.

She had comedy false teeth. I have never seen anything like them, before or since. Orange gums and yellow fangs. Long yellow fangs. I am convinced she had them made specially: “Give me some hideous teeth, Mr Fang-Fixer. I have CHILDREN to scare!” They were a little loose in their moorings too, and every time she took us for the weekly singing lesson I prayed they would be expelled at speed from her gaping mouth. No such luck; life is full of disappointments.

This was going to be a comedy piece, but I can find nothing to laugh at in the way she often behaved, as you will see.

The school’s catchment area included bog-standard “respectable” working class streets like the one where I lived, but also crumbling, damp slum houses, long overdue for demolition. The kids who lived in them were nearly all ragged, thin, dishevelled and dirty. I could tell they were going hungry too – the school dinners were awful and those of us lucky enough to be well fed at home used to pick listlessly at our platefuls, trying to pretend we had eaten some; but the ragged kids wolfed them down and went up for second – and third – helpings. Those poor kids! I already had something of a social conscience before I went to that school, but it was honed sharp during the time I was there. The school did all right by me – I was bright, well turned out and well behaved. Lucky old me. But I had eyes, ears and a heart.

If ever kids needed a school to drag them out of the mire and help them make something of their lives, those kids did. They deserved the best from school – but they got the worst. I still feel angry when I think about it. They were Miss Best’s scapegoats, assigned automatically to the C stream on arrival and punished twice as much as anyone else. Written off. God, it makes me want to spit.

We used to have to queue up for dinner in a corridor leading past Miss Best’s office. The rule was “no talking” but of course, there was always a buzz of conversation. Miss Best used to burst out of her office, seize the nearest ragged kid, roll up his (it was nearly always his) sleeve and deal out five or six hefty slaps. Then she’d shoot back into her office like a demonic Jack-in-the-box. The slapped kid would be crying, and the kid who really had been making all the noise would be smirking. I would be seething and muttering imprecations under my breath.

Then came the day when she did something I can only describe as evil. There was one kid whom she particularly disliked – I will call him Freddie. Freddie was poor, but had a bit of spirit left in him. She couldn’t bear this, of course.

One of her little ways was to descend on a class at random, terrifying the teacher and the kids, in order to keep her finger on the pulse of school life – or so she said. In Freddie’s class an art lesson was in progress. She got it into her head that Freddie’s painting was rubbish and that he had done bad work on purpose. The old bitch traipsed him into every class in the school, making him hold up this piece of art, while she lambasted him and invited each class to join in the fun. When she reached our class I felt sick to my stomach as Freddie was wilting, mortified by this time. I could see nothing in that painting to warrant treatment of this kind. I was no plaster saint; Freddie and I had had a few run-ins, but this was beyond all sense and reason.

Eventually (so I heard), Freddie had had enough and bolted for it, running out of the school, destination unknown. For God’s sake! He could have run into the road and got run over. Miss Best got out her car and chased after him, I presume scouring the streets until she spotted him. Which she did. I happened to be looking out of the window when they arrived back and I will never forget the defeated shuffle that was Freddie making his way back into school, head down and propelled from behind by the wicked old harridan. I also heard that another teacher, not known for his kindness and charity normally, felt moved to say “Don’t punish him any more – he’s been punished enough”. Punished for what? Being poor?

I really hope that Freddie made good, and is now a millionaire businessman. Or even that he made good in a less spectacular way and is a happy husband and father. No thanks to the school if he did.

On a lighter note, another sparky, lively kid called – I will call him – Pat, got one over on the old hellion in a big way. Pat did all the things we would have liked to do, but didn’t dare, such as altering the words of the songs we learnt in the singing lesson (“Oh Shenandoah, I long to HEAR you” was too tame, apparently), and whose party trick was to take a deep breath and declaim “rubberjohnnyrubberjohhnyrubberjohnny…” until he ran out of puff.

One day the old bat was interfering in a maths lesson in Pat’s class, taking the kids for “mental arithmetic”. For me, “mental torture” was a better description as I could not, and still can’t, do maths. At the end of the lesson, a snivelling little wretch put her hand up and asked: “Miss Best, why are you so good at mental arithmetic?”

Miss Best (the vain old cat) sort of bridled and preened herself then replied: “I think I’ll let the class answer that one.” Soon hands were shooting up and replies popping out, such as “Because you’re so clever,” or “Because you’re so quick.” At last Pat’s hand was waving about and she pointed to him: “Yes, Pat?” She should have known better.

“Because you ARE mental!” said our hero – who inevitably got his ears boxed for his pains. He considered it well worth the sore lug-holes, as he was the hero of the school when it got out.

Miss Best has been pushing up the daisies for some years now, having lived to a ripe old age.

I can’t help recalling these words: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”