Bonzer Words!: An Old Chalky Looks Back
...Meanwhile life in the classroom was a daily battle to stimulate and educate, or at least keep 40 larky lads occupied for the remaining weeks of their schooling before those not gaining apprenticeships were condemned to the local brickyard...
John Turner recalls his early days as a teacher.
In 1954, aged 23, I floated out of college on a cloud of expectation; I had survived a war-time of air raids, disrupted schooling, and food rationing, which, at 1oz cheese, 20ozs tea and jam, 4ozs bacon and butter, and 1lb meat a week, could never assuage my adolescent hunger.
I had served king and country defending the Suez Canal, then exchanged barrack rooms for similarly spartan accommodation in a smog bound gothic student hostel (smog was the sulphorous combination of coal smoke and fog which killed many Londoners).
Now I looked forward to married life and my first teaching post—at a starting wage of £35 a month. But we were setting up home with a double income and no kids, so, 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven'. Then came baby No.1, and the need for more living space than my parents could provide. But how, especially now my wife could no longer teach? We couldn't afford a larger flat, and a mortgage on my meagre wage was out of the question—or so I thought.
Meanwhile life in the classroom was a daily battle to stimulate and educate, or at least keep 40 larky lads occupied for the remaining weeks of their schooling before those not gaining apprenticeships were condemned to the local brickyard.
The staff, like most, was a mixed bunch, part 'Wackford Squeers', part gentle incompetents, and I was the naive tenderfoot, rapidly learning by my mistakes. One incident brought home the school's link with its past—as I was marking exercise books, our secretary, a retired teacher, commented 'It was so much easier in my day—come four o'clock we just had to say "clean off your slates!" and that was it.'
My least favourite task at this time was supervising noisy gluttony, otherwise known as Dinner Duty. To some pupils it was the main meal of the day, to be consumed as quickly in order to get 'Second helpings', to others it was a raucous half-hour of fun with little regard to basic dining-room etiquette. When not on duty I ate on the staff's table and watched in awe as other teachers patrolled tables of peaceful politeness with quiet authority.
But I had more pressing problems—finding somewhere to live. Then one day as I scanned the housing section of the local paper, one advert hit me foursquare for it offered a four bed house WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF A 100% MORTGAGE! But what size mortgage could we hope for, and how could we pay the legal fees and the cost of removal? We needed advice, guidance and above all, a large slice of luck.
All of these came in a totally unexpected and unbelievable way. We arranged with the sellers, a lovely old couple, to view their house, and were assured by them afterwards that they would love us to be the new owners, and that their son, who was handling the sale, would contact us and help us overcome our financial difficulties. We left wondering if it could be true, and what was the catch?
In due course the Fiedwick's son arranged a mortgage and told us we could pay the balance to his parents by means of an interest free loan—'Repay it monthly, with whatever amount you can afford'.
And so we moved into 'our' house only to find it had a sitting tenant on the top floor—but this was no bad thing for it would help with the mortgage. However it gradually dawned on us that to keep solvent we'd have to let more rooms; we had two to spare, so without further ado, and totally inexperienced, we made our first mistake—we placed an advert in a shop window, and thereby entered the weird and disturbing world of bed-sit tenants.
© John Turner
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John writes for Bonzer!magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
