Last night at Swallow Bookworms we were discussing Lynn Truss'* Eats Shoots and Leaves which of course reminded us of English lessons at school. Four of us (all the product of girls' grammar schools) admitted to loving English grammar lessons, and two of us fell to reminiscing about Reg Waite. Now I will not say that he was the most exciting English teacher in the history of education, but he was almost certainly both the most thorough and the most courtly. I remember right at the beginning of the autumn term of my third year (now called year 9) one of the girls rushed to the classroom door to open it for Mr. Waite, and he told us that now we were no longer children, but young ladies he would hold the door for us. Imagine the boost that gave to a class of lumpy, spotty 13 year olds. When, five years later, the school closed and its buildings metamorphosed into the lower school of a mixed comprehensive, he retired to the part-time occupation of playing the organ at the crematorium.
Anyway, this long introduction brings me to today's poem which I wrote when I was in the sixth form and Mr. Waite told us to write a classical sonnet for our homework. Although a very nice man, Mr. Waite was not a teacher to give high marks, but he gave me ten out of ten for this one! I later entered it in a competition and won joint first prize with it.
TO A SCHOOLMASTER
On the problem of having to write poetry to order
Sir, when thou craved’st a sonnet from my pen
You knew not what you asked; for night by night
I have lain sleepless, yearning for the light
Of inspiration; but it came not then.
Yet, in the middle of assembly when
My wand’ring fancy strayed, an idea bright!
But when, alas, I sat me down to write
It fled from me and would not come again.
I waited for that vision to return;
The weeks rolled by, the end of term drew near.
My friends all wrote their poems; I alone
No single line of feeble verse could turn.
There’s nothing left for me to do I fear
But copy one of Milton’s least well known.
I'm afraid that the rather discreditable truth is that, far from being able to turn no single line of feeble verse, I wrote the final version of several of the sonnets submitted by other girls who had ideas but couldn't get the hang of the form. No doubt they had helped me out with Latin or French homework in the past.
While on the subject of school - and back with the doggerel - here is another prize winner (a second place, I think) from the same year. I was a bit premature here because the school didn't actually close until 1973.
ON THE DEMISE OF THE
CLEETHORPES GIRLS GRAMMAR SCHOOL
1972
Now fifty years ago our school
Was a feminine society
Which sought young ladies to instil
With standards of propriety,
Madge, and Dot, and Marjorie came
Arrayed in panama hats and serge,
And lady graduates tutored them
To conquer each unseemly urge.
'No walking on the sacred quad!'
These tweed clad spinsters sternly taught,
'Don't lounge! No eating in the street!
Harbour a fond respect for sport!
The years rolled by, but little changed
Till war's transfiguring hand once more
Swept that close little world away:
Nothing could ever be as before,
Doreen, Shirley, Joyce, and Jean
Construed and parsed and learned by day;
But evening found them - dressed to kill -
Dancing the wartime night away,
A year of innovation strange -
A man to teach the sixth-form sees,
Though, since he's curate of Old Clee,
A decent cassock hides his knees,
Eleven plus and G.C.E.
Replace the old examinations,
No longer will the pupils be
Selected from the upper stations,
The years roll on: more pupils come,
And more until the black day when
They build huts on the sacred quad
And - heavens! - half the staff are men!
But still time's restless hand's at work
On Sharon, Karen, and Michelle:
They must go comprehensive now
And to the old school say farewell.
No sentiment! In seventy-two
We can't indulge in sad regret,
But we look warmly back on you,
You gave us much. We won't forget!
*"Truss'" - I omit the third s despite the lady's own views in in deference to what we were taught by Mr. Waite.
