Submitted Article 8 : Time Heals All Wounds
It’s kind of weird that time heals all wounds, and I’d almost forgotten how much I disliked QE Boys, I’d forgotten about most of the teachers... but I can still remember the entire register for class 1H, which was called by Mr Kelly. I don’t think he had a first name, and he didn’t think we did either. Allen, Bowen, Cheddie, Coggin, Copeland...
Our form room was next to Mr Fitch’s office, to the left of which was the outside walkway which led between the main building and one entrance to the newer building (did it have a name? I don’t remember). He’d walk along, always a few minutes after we’d entered in the morning, and come in, invariably complaining about the noise. "I don’t believe it!" he’d shout. "What is wrong with you people?" "I could hear you from those steps!" It took some time before we decided which steps he meant. He probably meant the ones directly outside the open window. Of course he could hear us.
Our year was lucky enough to have Mr Fitch as Year Head. Mr Fitch and Mr Houston headed a lower school year for two years - so when one headed, say, the first year, the other would take the second. Mr Houston was not a very nice man, in fitting with the school’s ideology, so it was some surprise to all concerned that Mr Fitch was very nice. You could talk to him. He had a large fish tank in his office, filled with Tetra neons, and if you’d forgotten your lunch money, would happily lend it to you - writing it on a blackboard in his office. Once a week, he’d take a group of boys to his home village - where, apparently, people left their keys in their cars in case they were in someone’s way and needed moving - and they’d all go for a bike ride. I never went. I was going to go with Chris Gardner, but didn’t. I can’t remember why. You forget these things.
He used to have original punishments for those who had been really naughty. He used to use 1H’s form room to write what was required of those doing lines, and his favourite was "My inability to comprehend the simplest of instructions had rendered me susceptible to this tedious form of punishment." No one who ever had to write that out had any idea what it meant, but it was long and you weren’t allowed to leave gaps.
He also used to make people stand outside his office door and count the bricks. He knew how many there were, because so many had done it before.
One other thing about Mr Fitch which I’m sure all boys who had him as their year head will remember... he used to have a dash of some alcohol or other in his morning coffee.
When Carl Sugden first arrived at QE Boys in about 1990, we all thought he was the height of coolness. Sporting spikey hair - which we kids weren’t allowed - he was asked, on entering through the front door, why he was late for lessons. The science teacher - whose name escapes me, but I remember had a dog called Merlin - thought Sugden was a sixth-former.
The dog, incidentally, used to completely ignore boys who petted it as it lay in the entrance passageway that preceded one of science labs, but would be able to hear its master’s call from anywhere in the building and would instantly walk to heel.
Perhaps one of the most amusing incidents was when we asked him what his first name was. I think it’s an unwritten law, passed down through the generations, that children have to ask their teachers what their first name is. Richard Wells asked if it was Percy. This was probably the funniest thing Richard had ever said, as he was known to be the class clown. I was the one who always started debates with Sugden. Of course, I usually lost, because I didn’t know what I was talking about, but had fun trying.
Shortly after I dropped history in favour of Mr Dhondy’s geography, Sugden decided that he could get promoted by conforming to the school’s ethos of being unreasonably strict. By being a b*****d, he conformed easily to the school’s ideal, and he soon found himself unliked, but with a larger pay packet.
Other teachers I remember include German language teacher Frau Scott - who went on to marry business studies teacher Mr Poole - and Miss Karamalakis, who taught biology. Helen Karamalakis introduced me to the joys of hospital radio, as she had a show on Radio North Mid, the kookily named station at North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton.
As I entered the fourth year - now renamed year 10 - the school decided that the homework diaries were to be replaced with Filofaxes for the fourth and fifth years. You could either buy your own Filofax from a stationer’s, or accept one of the garishly coloured ones that WHSmith couldn’t sell and were pleased to be able to sell on to the school. On principal, I decided to get one of the red, yellow and green Filofaxes from the school, and immediately decorated it with a Terminator 2 sticker which I’d won in a goodie bag on Capital Radio. For this I was refused a precious lunch pass, which would allow me out to Barnet High Street - but not into McDonald’s, which had allegedly banned boys from the school. We caused trouble, or bought too many apple pies, or something.
By the way, does that fat bloke who runs the ice cream van still drive into the first year play area - red square - and sell salmonella in a bun for the kids who didn’t buy proper lunch, and ice cream and 5p lollies to those who did?
Sometimes I wonder what happened to the teachers who I thought were b*****ds. I have friends who are loveliest people in the world, but happily admit to being evil when they’re at work. We all decided the Mr Kelly had no friends, and this explained why he brought a thermos of tea with him into the canteen - sorry, refectory - at morning break time.
Elliot Herman
1988-94 (I think)
