Chapter 1

How many times have you seen similar headlines: ‘Teacher arrested for illicit affair with pupil’? It happens a lot these days, mostly because of social media. The pupil feels the need to boast and someone who shouldn’t know gets involved, either through the post or the fact the idiot took pictures. That I reckon is 95% of the reason, the other 5% is sheer bad luck and somebody stumbling on you in a compromising situation.

It was easier in the past; no one felt the need to tell the world and their dog. Providing you were bloody damned careful it was possible to enjoy the forbidden fruit of older teen pupils without the media mob or parents hauling you out with waving torches and pitchforks to tar and feather you (if you were lucky).

My name is Howard, it’s not my real name of course, none of the names in this account are real, there’s still a chance that one of my conquests might take it into her head to cause a stir. After all, look at the current witch-hunt in UK society over celebrity molesters.

Not that I’m a celebrity, no. I’m just an ordinary school-teacher, or school-master-cum-tutor as they were then known. I taught at St Winifred’s private Boarding School for girls and boys and the period I’m relating to you was the 1960s, a time of great social change.

I taught Mathematics up to sixth form levels and beyond. I say taught, I’m retired and about the most I can do now is move from a bed in a rest home to a chair in the lounge of the said rest home. Still, the body may be worn out, but the mind remains as sharp as a tack.

It wasn’t my first job, but the pay and perks were by far superior to the public sector teaching roles my colleagues mostly aimed for. I had free room and board, a comparable wage and the joy of working with some of the brightest and best of the academic system. Not that it was easy, the pupils were pushed hard and the staff were expected to produce results, though the grapevine amongst teachers said there were problems along that line.

The school, for all it was a mixed gender intake, was also strictly segregated. The pupils were only allowed to mix during properly organised and supervised social events, save only the mandatory dance classes that taught them the basics for the social events. Other than that, the two sexes did not mix and rarely saw one another, even the break time quads being on opposite sides of the linked wings. Everything that could be done, was done to prevent any sort of scandal. In this day and age it might look a little over the top, but, that’s the way it was in certain schools back then.

On Friday I arrived driving my pride and joy, a nearly new Triumph Herald convertible, and parked in a vacant slot, not too close to the linking wing where the school offices were, along with the assembly hall, gym and a joint cafeteria which, I later saw, was separated by a barrier, right through the middle, blocking the view across of either sex.

First impressions they say are important. If so, the impression I made on the receptionist must have been dire as her contempt for the young (25-year-old) man standing politely in front of her was almost palpable.

“And what may I do for you ... sir?” she eventually asked.

“I have an appointment with Mrs Goodfried, the headmistress, at 10 sharp,” I replied politely, handing over the letter of my appointment as Maths teacher and for a preliminary induction.

“I have nothing here,” she almost sneered, tapping an appointment book with a single digit.

“Then may I suggest you check with Mrs Goodfried?” I replied.

“It’s Miss Goodfried! And I’m not to disturb her unless it’s urgent,” she huffed.

I checked my letter and it definitely said Mrs, but decided not to push the matter.

“Then I’ll wait until she’s free,” I replied and moved to one of the vacant seats near reception, but in plain view of the office area.

I could tell the receptionist was not happy, but, short of calling the police, could not have me immediately removed from the premises. I merely sat for ten minutes until a woman of indeterminate middle age stuck her head out of one of the offices and looked me over.

“Are you Mr Howard?” she asked in precise tones.

“I am indeed,” I replied inclining my head, not wishing to get off onto the wrong foot by correcting her on my name.

“Well, come on in. You’re late,” she replied beckoning me into the office, the sign telling me that it was the office of Mrs Goodfried, Headmistress.

“I’m afraid your receptionist decided that as I wasn’t in the book I was persona non grata,” I apologised.

Mrs Goodfried frowned, looked in the direction of the receptionist and clearly decided that that issue was something for later.

“Well, Mr Howard. You come highly recommended by the appointments committee, though I’m afraid I missed that interview due to ill health. Hence I decided in lieu of that to see for myself what they had foisted upon me,” she started, looking very closely at me.

“I can assure you that my qualifications and references are all in order,” I replied.

“Yes, my issue is that you are rather young to be working here, not your somewhat admirable qualifications,” she stated.

“You’ll forgive me if I fail to see how this would affect my teaching methods and standards,” I replied, frowning slightly.

“The problem is the girls. I would by far prefer an older teacher to prevent them from being attracted by your youth and distracted from their studies,” she finally added with a frown of her own.

“I believe I can cope and would be willing to accept a provisional appointment subject to review say after the first term. At that point it should be obvious to scrutiny if I am succeeding,” I replied, my heart sinking slightly.

“I believe I can find that acceptable,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Finding a replacement at this late stage would be difficult anyway.”

At this point I realised I was going to have to come across as God’s gift to maths to get my appointment approved beyond the first term, but still felt grateful to at least have a roof over my head, rather than have to move back in with my parents and the inevitable questions and squabbles over my ex-fiancée.

Mrs Goodfried pressed a button on her desk and a second door to the office opened and a young(ish) woman stuck her head into the office.

“Jennifer, could you assist Mr Howard to move into the vacant rooms in the Lumley wing and provide him with the information necessary to find his way to his classrooms, offices and the staffroom?” the headmistress requested.

“Of course, Mrs Goodfried,” Jennifer replied in pleasant tones. “Please follow me, Mr Howard. Do you have a car?”

“Yes ... er,” I began.

“Please, you can call me Jennifer, everyone else on the staff does,” she replied with a smile.

“It’s Howard, Howard Smith, not Mr Howard,” I chuckled. “But I wasn’t going to correct Mrs Goodfried on that, not when she was looking for an excuse to dismiss me before I’d even started.”

“It’ll remain our secret. I’m afraid you’re Mr Howard whether you like it or not now,” she replied with a smile.

We reached the car and I picked up my two cases before locking it again.

“All right to remain parked there?” I asked.

“Oh yes, just don’t park in front of the main doors to the offices and you should be fine,” she replied as I followed her shapely rear, which was encased in an almost ankle-length skirt, into a secondary door and up a flight of stairs, cautiously noting that she wore a wedding band.

“This is the Lumley block. Only staff are allowed on these stairs, the girls use the central stairwell,” she informed me.

“Girls?” I queried.

“Yes, Lumley block is the girls’ wing,” she added. “I suspect that’s why old prune face wasn’t too happy with you.”

“Ye Gods, I’m never going to be retained at the end of term,” I sighed.

“I shouldn’t worry, just avoid a scandal and I suspect she’ll forget all about you within a few days,” Jennifer replied with a sunny grin.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. She ties herself up in knots in a stupid boundary dispute between the school governors and the farm next door which takes all her time. Neither side wants to go to court, but neither side will cede in the dispute, so there’s constant letter writing to each other, the local MP and the local paper,” Jennifer explained.

“Oh, right,” I nodded.

“This is your room. It’s got a nice view, but it’s a bit small. A cleaner will change the bed linen once a week and dust, but any mess you make over and beyond what she considers normal will be reported ... so don’t. You have a kettle, but if you bring food here, make sure it’s cleared away. Meals are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the canteen,” she explained.

“Right,” I acknowledged as I dropped my cases and she then led me to what she indicated would be one of my classrooms.

Fortunately it was only one level down and had an office attached where presumably I could store stationary and mark papers. The classroom was typical of its type, rows of desks with attached chairs and an inkwell on the desk; though Jennifer commented that the pupils used fountain pens now.

“This is the girls’ math room,” she explained. “The boys’ one is in the Raby wing in exactly the same position.”

“I take it I have to go to the ground floor and climb the opposite stairwell?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s the only connection,” she replied with a knowing smile. “If you need supplies, you can ring me on extension 02,” she added pointing to the phone in the corner of the room. “It’s 9 to get the operator, but don’t, the harpy on the front desk will report you, unless it’s a medical emergency.”

“Right,” I chuckled.

Jennifer took me over to the other wing and showed me the classroom and office there as well as handing me a schedule for the classes I would take, which, other than Friday, meant I was in one wing or the other. Fridays, she explained, were set aside for individual tuition. I had to make my own schedule for that, just make sure if it was with one of the girls I had another as chaperone.

After that we went back to the central section where she pointed out the way to the cafeteria and on to the staff common room on the ground floor where I was introduced to the rest of the staff.

The room was full and I was obviously the youngest. Jennifer, whom I put at ten years my senior, being the next youngest by quite a margin. I had a knack for faces and names which helped, but most were eminently forgettable and the entire room with one notable exception other than Jennifer felt like God’s waiting room. The exception was Rupert, whom Jennifer introduced as her husband and the English Literature teacher. He was a tall dapper man in his mid-forties, balding with a ludicrous comb-over and a thin pencil moustache; he was also, as a colloquial saying goes, ‘so camp you could set up tents on him’.

He greeted me with a ‘hello’ in a pronounced lisp and a very limp-wristed handshake, completely blanking his wife. He did invite me for tea in his cottage on the grounds, but I politely declined as I was fairly sure that Jennifer would not be in attendance. I may have been wrong of course, but I believed at the time, and later had it confirmed, that Jennifer was his ‘beard’ as a later description put it.

I decided then and there, that unless I had a very real need to be in the common room, I would avoid it like the plague, not because of Rupert, but because it simply sucked the life out of anyone who spent any time there.

After that, Jennifer bade me a cheery farewell and went back to her duties whilst I returned to my room to unpack before heading down to the cafeteria for lunch.

It was here that I found I’d been designated a table with other tutors and teachers on the girls’ side, presumably to ensure that the correct decorum was maintained. Not knowing the etiquette, I simply followed the lead of one of the other teachers, a Susan Hatchett who clearly didn’t like my presence anywhere near her, yet looked at a few of the older girls with longing eyes. I went to my seat at the head of my assigned table and stood there as a whistle blew and the girls (and boys presumably) were marched in, form room by form room, to the tables set aside for them, or rather some of them, I’d gathered from Jennifer that not all the pupils had arrived as yet, there were several day-stay as well as week-day-stay pupils. Term would begin on the Monday, so I had Saturday and Sunday to try and entertain myself in and prepare an initial lesson plan.

The girls, all aged about eleven or twelve, stood at their chairs at my table and were joined by an older girl wearing a prefect’s badge. Grace was said by Frank Parsons to the muted hubbub of a grace from the other side of the partition. Once done, there was a soft chime from near a serving hatch and all sat save the prefects who went off to the hatch to begin serving the food. Despite the clear regimentation, the food itself was reasonably good (for its time) and was served up quickly as the girls on my table all looked surreptitiously at me.

“You can call me Mr Howard,” I introduced myself. “And I don’t bite,” I finished with a chuckle as a low buzz of conversation began.

“Teresa,” the prefect introduced herself. “Um, what are you here to teach?”

“Oh sorry, should have said. I’m the maths tutor,” I replied.

“Oh...” came a buzz of conversation from the table as the girls then cautiously introduced themselves and I placed their names into memory.

“Are you sixth form, Teresa?” I asked, looking her over and seeing a pretty blonde blue-eyed young lady.

“Yes, rank has its responsibilities,” she replied with a slight smile.

“Like serving lunch,” I chuckled.

“Yes,” she said with a broader smile. “But only lunch, Trinny and Angela do breakfast and dinner respectively.”

“And the reward?” I asked.