11. DIFFERENT HORIZONS

      Plympton Grammar School

So much happened between twelve and sixteen that was very important for the development of my particular temperament. All is impermanent, that is certain, and Plympton Grammar School as it was, has disappeared in name and slowly in memory. It is becoming just an historical landmark in memory when it was so much more.

When we arrived, male teachers were returning from the war. They were fantastic dedicated teachers with their new experiences to join those who had maintained the school while they were away. Mr Hele was Headmaster for the boys and Miss Horrell Headmistress for the girls.

Miss Horrell was memorable, a large-framed tough teacher who at one point in the practice sessions for the many school plays I was involved in grasped me by the ear until I could finally pronounce the word "inexorable" correctly.

It was in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and I was playing Graciano, who was angry at Shylock and his refusal to forget the debt of a pound of flesh:

          O, be thou damn'd inexorable dog!

And for thy life let justice be accus'd.

Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,

To hold opinion with Pythagoras,

That souls of animals infuse themselves

Into the trunks of men:

I have forgotten every other word that I spoke in the play but that comment has remained with me for over sixty-five years and with it a love of Shakespeare that has never dwindled. There are so many poems that I hold dear due to her great appreciation of literature and the English language.

Then there was Miss "Aunt" Jane who transmitted a love of the magic of Mathematics while Mr "Archie" Lockett, with his  inventive presentation and understanding of History, made Ancient History more alive than any virtual presentation, for you were there in your mind without the slightest visual aid.

Mr Moisy had an impressive relaxed style that was contagious.

These teachers made learning fun. The only one I fell foul of was Mr Harris, the French teacher.

As an impromptu prank, I tied the strings of the window to the door so that he couldn't enter the class when it was his turn to teach. I was sent out of the class, quite rightly, but we never hit it off as it seemed to me that he favored the girls.

We had an hour and sometimes more homework every night and sometimes I forgot, but remedied the omission on the way to school on the bus with the help of my friends. Yes, homework was taken seriously and the results counted for points. Every week in every subject there were exams and the first three students in the class were sent to the headmaster to get his signature. For three signatures you had a Wednesday afternoon off from school.

In my whole time at school I seldom missed a signature and it was clear that almost always it was girls who accompanied me.

I had the great advantage of a personal tutor, Mr McGrath, three times a week for an hour, in addition to homework in Mathematics and English. Mr McGrath was dedicated teacher at Plymouth College. He spoke splendid English and influenced my speech greatly. He helped me with my Maths, but his great contribution to my life was that he taught me how to write correctly with order and style. He, his wife and one of his sons, Michael, lived next door. His eldest son was an officer in India and seldom visited, while Peter the second son was a policeman up north.

I worked hard and learned well and was always prepared for the next lessons at school. Not once did he help me with my homework, which was never that hard, really.

It is true that the lessons consumed time from getting as early as possible down to the fields, where there was always a pickup game going on. There we played with a real football, while in the large playground at school we had to make due with a tennis ball. It also served for another game called Tag, in which you had to hit everyone with a tennis ball. The first one you hit became your ally. Then you could throw the ball to him and then run and try to corner someone as a further ally and so on. You could fist the ball away in defense but nothing more.

So you see the days at Plympton held no pressure and I learned how to be at least theoretically an "English Gentleman".

As I said earlier, my personal revolution was brewing on the home front. I began to loathe my father's way of speaking. It was not his Devon accent, it was his continual attempt to use words that he did not understand correctly. The fault is called malapropism.

A malapropism is the substitution of a word for another with a similar sound, in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but often creates a comic effect.  For example Constable Dogberry in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing in Act 3 declares "Comparisons are odorous," instead of using "odious".

It should be clear to everyone out there that all my father's errors were innocent and well-intentioned and that I was becoming, slowly at least in his direction, a foolish snob. Of course I did not see it at all and felt constantly embarrassed.

He really just wanted to be good, as good in everything as I was becoming. I should have helped. I did not. With his malapropisms he was noble and I was not.

What I would like the reader to see is that even when the conditions are almost perfect for natural and correct advances, my predisposition in this case was to eventually take over my father as head of the family, clan and tribe. This tendency is then converted into an Identity investment that has terrible weight.