Starters

In a school where I used to teach in the 1970s (Stratford High School), I sometimes used what are called ‘starters’ to get pupils started in writing projects. These could be incomplete sentences which I would write on the blackboard for the pupils to choose from if they wished. They would use them to take off in any direction their mind took them. One of the best results came from a young Maori boy, Peta Nahi, who was the only one having difficulty starting as the rest were all heads down and away.

I went and sat with him.

‘I don’t know what to write about, Sir’, he said quietly.

I nodded. ‘Well, let’s see. What do you like doing, Peta?’

‘I like motorbikes; I draw pictures of them.’

‘That sounds great! You could draw your pictures in your book and write a little about each one.’

His eyes lit up and he smiled. ‘Yes I could,’ he said with some confidence.

‘And,’ I added, ‘you could make each page different. Say on one page you could draw a line from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner, draw your picture on one half and write about it on the other; and try to make each page different from the rest.’

I could see he was itching to start straight away, so I left him not really knowing what the result would be.
I was thrilled later as he handed in his work. He’d filled his exercise book with his drawings of motorbikes of all descriptions, starting on the front, from which he’d removed the usual exercise book cover and drawn a fine picture of a motorbike. The rest of the pages had similar drawings with notes, all different, displaying a wide knowledge of his subject. It was one of the best efforts a pupil ever produced. I was so happy for him that I asked his permission to show it to the headmaster, who came back a short time later to the classroom with me and commended Peta for his work…

The thing was, before Peta left my classroom one day, he handed me his exercise book and insisted that I have it to remember him by, and he wouldn’t let me refuse. I still have his book.

From that day on, I have liked to think that teachers, like parents, sow seeds in young minds, knowing that eventually fruition of one kind or another will result.

I wonder where he is today?

© Dennis Crompton 2014

Danger, hero

River Ribble at Church Deeps

I suppose we all have some place that has an air of mystery and darkness about it. Mine is a real place, somewhere along the River Ribble in Preston, Lancashire, at a place called (in the vernacular), ‘t’ Church Deeps’. It is a place where the river cuts in under the bank causing dangerous currents to flow and forming a place where unwary swimmers could become trapped.

The day I heard about this place was a pleasant enough day. I wasn’t swimming but a few hard souls were splashing about in the far from pleasantly warm water. It was then that I overheard someone talking about t’ Church Deeps. I have a certain inbuilt distrust of water, no matter how charming and inviting it might seem, and when I looked across to where t’ Church Deeps was, it looked very dark and sinister. A place I would never go near.

It was further said in my hearing that there was one particular chap (who happened to rear whippets) who had rescued a few people who had got into difficulties over at t’ Church Deeps. Also, that he had even brought one person out, several days after he had drowned there. Apparently the poor soul had been wedged in between some tree roots, and had not been able to free himself.

I went home and talked about it with my family. Nobody seemed particularly interested in my bit of news I seem to recall, but Dad felt it opportune to add his warning about the dangers of river swimming. He needn’t have worried as water and its environs has to reach a very high standard indeed before I’ll venture in.

Some years after this event I read in the paper of a fellow who had rescued a person in danger at t’ Church Deeps. I can even remember a photograph of him; there he was with a whippet at his heels. He was a very ordinary chap, but then again real heroes often are, aren’t they?

Dennis Crompton © 1998

Oh René !

Our present day computer knowledge-based internet age gives added impetus to our questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? And, what happens when we die? Suggestions there are a-plenty from accountants, judges, army officers – commissioned or otherwise, mystics, assorted reverends and well-intentioned folks from flocks of faithful of every colour and creed…

Yet, who am I to mock? Long before I’d arrived at the point of wondering what life was all about I’d learned the meaning of the phrase “Know your place!” Actually I realised that ‘Know’ had two meanings: the first meant “Shut up!” or “Speak when you’re spoken to!”; the other concerned really awkward questions about it, you know, puberty, contraceptives and male members. In fact it took some time before I realised that these ‘members’ did not belong to mens’ clubs. They concerned all males, and more pointedly, me personally. Various awkward words. assimilated naturally in or out of school, caused most of my problems because I knew how to say them but was ignorant of what they meant and when not to use them. At first they brought only looks of mild disapproval. Later they were accompanied by a clout round the ear’ole or the toe of a boot aimed at my behind.

So, I learned that these questions were better raised when nicer grown-ups were present, then their reception, and the subsequent reply to them, had the chance of  being softened by a seemingly good-natured laugh or smile. Yet even when I grew older, I never knew whether to blush or duck when I raised those questions again. Like most youth of those times, learning about me and my body meant I was doomed to a world of frustration, humiliation and continued mystery.

If the innocence we are supposed to possess was given in order that it might be lost, my loss would have taken place while I was in the British Army. Not that the sergeant in the Education Corp who took us for a series of lectures was any help. His embarrassment was obvious as he mumbled things about condoms, and screened slides of terrible diseases with horrible names that were just waiting to pounce on the likes of us. But I did admire the way he sidestepped questions that belligerent lads from the cities threw at him, until I realised they were the same questions as mine. As usual, they remained unanswered.

Enlightenment came at a training camp in North Wales with an advertisement in a local paper for a certain booklet by a “René Mac”, or some such name. I blushed as I read, “Sex and the young man,” followed by a short list of words that sent my pulse racing. You would not believe how quickly I made up my mind, with my letter and postal note in the mail the very same day. Perhaps a few of my close mates noticed me breathing more quickly when he parcel in plain brown paper was passed to me at mail call the following week.

Opening it later on my own, my eyes at last told the rest of me what I needed to know. It was such a relief reading that explanation in black and white. I mean, there’s no denying things in black and white, is there? As I read them, I was sure I’d known instinctively what they’d said would happen, wouldn’t happen, as regards my sight. I’ve worn spectacles since I was seven and my eyesight’s just fine. You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve been on much friendlier terms with myself since then.

However, where ignorance is bliss it can be folly to be wise. I wasn’t wise when it came to know who to trust. Twenty-four hours had elapsed before I let one of my mates into the secret of René’ booklet. The following day it had disappeared from under my pillow, never to be seen again. At least, not by my eyes. The teacher in me now suggests it probably did the rounds, passing through many hands and minds, bringing enlightenment before it finally disintegrated. The thought also encourages me to think more highly of myself whenever René surfaces in my mind. Indeed in my musings of late (regarding what happens at the end...) I’ve begun to visualise myself seated in the reserved section of Cloud Nine. I entertain the belief that if the higher level of Cloud Seven exists, I may well have the hope of being invited there in due course. I dream on.

Dennis Crompton © 2000

Oddities

 
I’d seen them before, a twosome usually but sometimes with an addition, walking down the streets of our small town. Strange people I thought, certain too that other normal people would think the same. (I can really be very arrogant in my thoughts at times! Just as well others can’t read them.)

Anyway, the most outstanding of these two was the man. Tall, with a shaven head and two small piercing round eyes looking out from a most pugnacious face. No shirt, or jacket, even on the coldest of days; just a singlet showing off his somewhat skinny chest, narrow hips and long thin legs with great lace-up boots on his feet. His bulk seemed to increase too as he drew nearer. I could feel the animosity that came with him as he approached me. He bristled with it; ominously. And his look, when his eyes met mine, was quite belligerent. The message his look conveyed to me was, Ugh! You pathetic looking wimp. I should squash you with my boot, and watch it, ‘cos I just might!

I would sometimes proffer a timid greeting, given in a casual light-hearted way, in an attempt to inculcate his favour, if there was any favour to incul if you get my drift. Sometimes he answered! Fiercely, with eyebrows furrowed and knit tightly together looking down on me, surprised as if expecting a sudden attack from a pathetic looking wimp who had the audacity to address him. But I could never catch what it was he said as it was forced through clenched teeth. Perhaps it was just as well.

Sometimes I was spared the effort of a greeting as he was busy throwing words over his shoulder at the slight form of femininity trudging behind him. At times I thought he might have been completely stoned. But here’s the thing: he was the same person I had seen as a schoolboy, just a few years’ ago during my years as a teacher. There was a strangeness about him even then, when, despite being dressed as other schoolboys in his uniform he was never lost in the crowd. Something indefinable in his walk, his look, the way he held himself, together with a strange aloofness (bordering on the cloud-nine variety) suggested to me – vaguely – that something was out of kilter somewhere.

How easily I, at times, have thus appraised my fellow men. I wouldn’t say I judged them; more that I was able to assess or sum a person up fairly quickly. Of course I’ve also been wrong at times, and I certainly wasn’t sure in this case.

I saw this man again another time fairly recently, with the slight form of femininity. This time though it was different. This time they walked together, side by side, and he held her hand. And this time, in his other hand, he held a tiny bundle close against his chest. His look was still fierce but it was the fierceness of a man who has fathered a child. And should anyone have dared to challenge him about the baby being his I do believe his very look would have turned them to stone…

For me – and I’m sorry to have to say this, but – for me, I felt something was wrong. The picture just didn’t ring true. His eyes still lacked something; something that I would describe as the light and warmth of true fatherhood. Both of these qualities were missing, and I must confess my heart froze slightly with that realisation. Would what I thought of him as a person be passed on to the child? Wasn’t the pride I saw only there for himself? Was he really a father? Or had he simply supplied the male sperm that fertilised the egg?

Well, down the street they went. A brief and moving picture of three human souls that passed me on the street that day. Of their background, heritage and future fortune, I knew nothing, but I have thought much since then of the small bundle in that man’s arms. What of its life? Would the mother be a mother; the father a father? Would the child experience all that a human father may bestow – of warmth, love and care?

The strange man was there on the street again today, walking with another man (who appeared to be quite normal) and chatting as they walked. And she, the slight form of femininity, was back a pace or two as they walked before. No babe I saw, and I felt concerned by that. As I was about to turn away from the scene, still wondering, my eyes saw that she had stopped, head down, looking at her feet, while the two men walked on a little way. And do you know…the strange man noticed she was not following and he stopped too. Then pausing only a moment, he walked back to her and, placing his arm around her shoulders quite gently it seemed to me, leaned forward and spoke softly to her. They held each other briefly, before holding hands and joining the other, and they continued down the street.

It was then I thought this: could it be that I am the odd one out?

Dennis Crompton © 1995

Walks with my dad

 
A few scenes with my dad are rather special to me. Times when I discovered something about how he felt; things that helped shape the way I see and feel about things today. I was about eight years of age at the time of the following events.

There always seemed to be so very many people in Lune Street, Preston; a busy, bustling street with so much to see and take in. I guess we had gone about a quarter of the way along it when I heard the sounds that roller skates make as they move across flagstones – a sort of click-clack as the wheels cross the join between two stones.

The sound quickly got closer, and suddenly there he was: a man aged about 55 with thin, grey hair, scuttling in between the legs of the passersby whilst seated on a square, padded piece of wood with small metal wheels at each corner. He propelled himself along with the aid of two short sticks, his hands protected by pieces of cloth. Very skillfully he manoeuvred himself around, and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.
There was something else about him, something that only registered in my mind after he had passed by. The man had no legs, just two short stumps also wrapped in pieces of cloth. I was just about to as Dad about him when we came across this next scene.

An elderly man was seated on a box in a doorway to our left. His fingers were moving slowly across the page of a large open book that he held on his knees, and he was talking at the same time. The man was blind, and he was reading from the Bible which was in braille. On the ground at his feet was a cloth cap into which people had thrown a few coins. Dad dropped something into it too as we passed by, and the man paused in his reading to quietly say thank you.

When we had gone a little way down the street I asked Dad what had made the man blind (because Dads are supposed to have the answers to many questions, aren’t they?). “I don’t know, lad,” said Dad as he stopped and looked at me. “But every time I see him there like that, it makes me think how fortunate I am and I thank God that I have my sight.”

Those two encounters have stayed with me all of my life.

Dennis Crompton © 1994

A surprising reversal

We brought nothing into this world and it is certain that we shall carry nothing out of it. However, the bit in between immerses us in many variations. I once watched a plain piece of metal being silver-plated. The process didn’t seem to take long. The piece of metal was lowered into a tank. I saw a few bubbles rise to the surface and when the piece was lifted out it was gleaming with a thin silvery coating. We could liken various stages of life to that kind of process.

In my collection of discarded books from local libraries I have a New Zealand Almanac in which I found several pages of obituaries. For one month there was mention of:

• a chief electoral officer;
• an air vice marshall;
• a chairman of  New Zealand  company;
• a leading horse breeder;
• a paramount (Maori) chief;
• and three others, including a former pilot, a recipient of a heart transplant, and the youngest at 2 1/2 months old was the unsuccessful recipient of a liver transplant.

Those and the rest of the obituaries were for people considered to be of some significance, the kind you’d expect to be there in the Almanac. Because I’m stimulated by thinking outside the square, I wondered then who ought to have been in those pages but were not. For instance, there’s a great deal of hype and ballyhoo surrounding sport today. Fifteen make up a rugby team yet it’s the one who scores the try or kicks the conversion who gets the most recognition. It’s the same in most team sports of course. Everyone can’t be mentioned but surely there could be a more balanced appraisal?

The same applies in the wider field of life. I smile when I recall something said one day by the headmaster of the school I attended from the age of 10. It was winter, the cold was biting into our lightly clad bodies as we were lining up to get into the classroom where it would be warmer. As usual, muscle power or the threat of its use, saw the bigger lads in the front. The headmaster looked at us, his long thin nose red from the cold, sporting a small but distinct dew-drop. “Quiet everyone,” he called. And quiet there was. The boys at the front, now with a perceptible forward lean, poised on their toes ready for their motion into the classroom. But then the headmaster said, “Everyone turn around. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Now, the boy at the back move first and lead the way around into the classroom, and the rest follow him.”

Oh, with what childish delight we, at the back, marched past those bigger lads. When we were settled into the classroom, the headmaster looked at us and said, “If you care to read St Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 19, verse 30, you’ll find the origin of the rule used outside today.” Hes smile was only just outdone by the lads who’d marched past the bigger lads. From that time on, the headmaster kept us guessing as to what he’d come up with next as regards the order of things. It stimulated our thinking no end, and in doing so, he won my admiration and allegiance.

He was an ordinary man. The kind, I like to think, who when it came time for him to leave the stage of life, would have heard the words, “The last shall be first, come on in!” And I reckon that all manner of ordinary people would be close behind him.

Dennis Crompton © 1999

The rent man

We lived in a stone cottage in Preston in the 1930s – two up, two down – and shared an outside loo with the folk next door. So the rent wasn’t much, one shilling a week, but it still had to be found in the days of the Depression.

The rent man was pleasant enough, with a voice that seemed too quiet for such a big chap. He would arrive on his push-bike, remove the cycle clips from the legs of his trousers, then placing them in his raincoat pocket. I thought he had rather big feet, but never said so. He also wore a Trilby hat, “a little ahead of his time,” according to my father, who wore either a flat cap or a bowler, depending on the occasion.

Once inside the house the rent man would remove the rent book from his jacket and open it on the table. Each time he did so, my eyes were taken by the neatness of the columns of figures and signatures in his book. The money was picked up and placed carefully away, then, writing his signature in the rent book and, after a few friendly comments, on would go his hat, his cycle clips, and off he would go.

There were one or two times when he was not able to collect the rent, either that, or we just didn’t have it for him when he came. He never got angry or raised his voice. I’m sure he understood the difficulties we faced as a family. He would just say in his quiet way to my father, “Perhaps next week then, Fred?”

I took the rent to his home on two occasions. His wife opened the door and led me through to the living room. She was rather house-proud; dust dare not settle while she was around and if it did it wasn’t there long. Everything was where it should be but it didn’t seem comfortable to me. I wriggled in my seat, a big, padded armchair. My feet kicked the base and the sound reverberated around the quiet room. The rent man’s wife looked at me and shook her head. It happened again – my feet kicked the base. This time her look was icy. I hated that chair and the house and was glad when I finally left to go home. I felt sad for the rent man to be married to a lady like that – it didn’t seem right to me.

We didn’t have much in the way of padded armchairs and the like, but our rented house was a home and it felt good to be there.

Dennis Crompton © 1997