My Old School - Extract 6

Let me tell you a little about some of the teachers. First, Mr. H. Aged about 40ish he was a born again fundamentalist Christian, with the emphasis on the "mental" part of fundamental. If you wanted a political metaphor you'd call him a hard-line Stalinist Nazarene. He'd spent some time in Africa, at Thika, as a teacher/missionary, spreading the good word in between bouts of Geometry. Totally devoid of a sense of humour, as so many of his type are, he earned the soubriquet "Twiggy" in view of his stick-insect like appearance. He was a small, very weedy man with rodent like features and a harsh reedy voice which, when excited, took on a hysterical high-pitched quality. He was the type of man who in "civvie-street" would be an insignificant non-person who wouldn't say boo to a goose. This type of person rose to great heights in the Gestapo during the war and are usually portrayed as wearing long leather coats, American gangster hats and round silver-rimmed spectacles. This was Twiggy to a T. The Gestapo officer in 'Allo 'Allo is remarkably similar to the Twig. As this type rose to the heights in the Gestapo, so too they rose to the heights at my old school. For a few weeks after his arrival at the school, Mr. H acted the part of what he was, namely a pathetic wee weed. However, once he'd learned to use the various powers which were at his command, he began, hesitatingly at first, but with increasing assurance and ruthlessness, to emerge from the shadows and don his alter ego as a barking mad S.S. fruit cake. Where he had begun by shrinking into corridor walls hoping that nobody would notice him, he now began barking orders and his irritating fucking voice could be heard nagging in most locations in the school, where none of the other teachers (whom he still feared as they could tell him to F*** Off with impunity) were present. Where he used to be diffident in fulfilling the duties of the "Duty Master", he now revelled in applying the letter of the law with the peculiarly inflexible zeal of the committed fanatic. Where his evening prayer sessions had been conducted in a sensitive low-key way, consistent on the one hand with the putative religious basis of the school and, on the other, with the desire of the boys to get the charade over with as quickly as possible, they now became an old testament hell-fire and damnation ranting and raving, with El Twigo foaming at the mouth like a demented muppet. The particular trigger for these crazed ravings was one marvellously entertaining evening when Twiggy came into evening prayers clutching a copy of the New English Testament/Good news For Modern Man or some other nonsense of that sort. You know the sort of thing - the bible rendered into modern street language by a bunch of stoned hippies. It was utterly typical of Twiggy to think that by telling the hackneyed old biblical stories in more modern language that this would in some way inspire the remotest flicker of interest amongst the hardened cynics in this particular audience, which was in the main made up of Satan and all his hellish little demons. Well, that's slightly unfair, because, as it happened, considerable interest was aroused, but not in the way that Le Twig had anticipated. I can't remember what particular passage Twiggy read, but it was along the lines of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, viz, (in American accent) "God was rapping with Abraham one day when he said, ‘Abe, ya know me, man, I'm a jealous God. Hey man it's tough but there ya go. How's about you killing your boy, just like, ya know, to show me that ya still dig me man.’ Abe said ‘Ya gotta be putting me on man. I'm not into this. This is a real bummer, man’. At that point, Twiggy looks over the top of his glasses, barely able to suppress his excitement at ‘connecting with the kids’. Naturally, the reaction amongst the listening heathen was one of unbounded hilarity. Initially this expressed itself in tittering, then in half-strangled laughing and finally in loud guffawing. At first, Twiggy thought that these were good signs, indicating that he was getting through to his audience, that the new word of God was being spread. Then as the laughter became more general, some doubts began to circulate in his head. By the time he could see tears of laughter coursing down the cheeks of those in the front three rows, while those further back were either bent double or actually lying on the floor, then he properly concluded that, far from digging the "good news", the boys were pissing themselves laughing at, and not with, him. At this point the Twig's whole demeanour suffered a radical change. Instead of the mild-mannered Clark Kent figure smiling benignly while preaching the Lord's (modern) word, he transformed into a bizzaro superman, snarling the Old Testament scripture with particular reference to the hellish pain of burning sinners and unbelievers. The Beast completely overtook him as, through clenched teeth, he called on Jehovah to send down a sample of the unbearably fiery flames to consume the heathen in the School gymnasium (ie everyone except himself). "You're all going to burn in hell, you wicked little bastards" ranted Twiggy while we rocked with uncontrollable laughter. Because, of course, as soon as Twiggy started foaming at the mouth and declaiming in the style of a rabid lunatic, the already funny situation became even more hilarious. Twig's rantings were drowned in wholesale laughter. I personally thought that I was either going to die or at least need emergency medical attention. Mussolini once made a speech to an audience of Fascisti in which he announced that if God truly existed then He would strike the Duce dead right there and then. The bold Benito then stood back and waited in vain for the proof of the pudding. This was simply to prove that Mussolini was the ultimate authority and that there was no God. Of course, some say that God waited a few years before demonstrating that He was the Big Yin and that there was no Mussolini. In a similar way, but of course for the opposite purpose, God failed to show up at Twiggy's invitation. I'm still waiting for the divine retribution inspired by Twiggy on that memorable evening. It all ended with the Twiglet storming out of the gymnasium, New English Bible in hand, tail between his legs, while the boys hooted in derision. Ah, schooldays - the best days of your life.