GETTING WISDOM

Getting Wisdom
Oil on board. 305mm x 410mm

"Boy! You're just down from the trees!

I hung my head in shame.

"Stand up! Hold out you're hands!" The taws zipped through the air with a suddenness of a lightening strike and connected with my flesh. I'd never been belted before. The pain was excruciating and I had to bite my lip to prevent a sob as tears ran down my face. I was eleven years old. The humiliation of being branded a failure was almost as bad as the pain.

"You children have all passed your Eleven Plus exam and are the top ten per cent of the population," announced the Rector of Kirkcaldy High School on our first day. Our innocent faces beamed with pleasure at the thought of enlightened Academia but this was the harsh reality.

"That will teach you to learn your French Vocabulary. You'll get this every time you forget a word. This applies to all you boys." He strutted about in front of the class a demented martinet. His eyes flashed and his grey moustache bristled. He obviously enjoyed it. He was the GRIME

The fearsome reputation of the Grime had filtered down to us and strong, mature men still wince at his memory. None of the stories we'd heard prepared us for this blitzkrieg of violence and French verbs. I began to live in terror of Monday mornings when we had a double period of French. In those days I still believed in God and in the crush of pupils surging inexorably upstairs I'd pray with fervent intensity;

"Oh God! Dear God!

Protect me this day in my darkest hour of need.

May I be able to answer all the questions correctly

and be spared humiliation and the belt.

Make me invisible to him

so his terror passes over me,

or let him have an illness or accident

so he cannot attend school.

Please God! Please God! Please God!

Unfortunately God seemed to be permanently engaged elsewhere. The petty fears of an eleven year old boy seem inconsequential compared to the vast horrors of the universe. The Grime would ask questions round the class,

"What is the meaning of this? How do you say that?" till he came to us dunderheads in the front few rows and the systematic violence began.

"Clelland! Stand up!" Whack! Whack! Whack!

"Gray! Your just down from the trees!" Whack! Whack! Whack! 

"You took it like a man" said Hoss in the playground after one vicious belting.

"Look at this" I said and held out my hands. He'd been a bit off target and hit my wrists which were bruised purple and swollen.

"The bastard" said Hoss, "The bastard."

All this was beyond rational thought and in the realm of terror. On Monday mornings I started to feel ill and complain of headaches

"Douglas, we'll have to take you to the doctor if this goes on."

"Where's the pain?" asked the doctor.

"Round here," I said indicating generally my forehead and face.

"It may be his sinuses" suggested the doctor, "I'll arrange for an X-Ray."

All this meant time off school and I was happy.

I was taken into a room with a large X-Ray machine.

"Sit down and press your face against these cross lines." The radiographer retreated and there was a buzz as I was X-Rayed.

"There's nothing on the X-Rays," said the doctor. "How do you feel now?"

"Much the same. Not too bad."

One day the Grime made an announcement.

"Right! This is a class exam. I want you all to do well in this. I'm going to walk round and look at your papers and if I see one mistake you'll get one of the belt, two mistakes two of the belt and so on. Do you understand!"

He was crystal clear. We were dumbstruck.

Towards the end of the period he started at the back of the class looking over shoulders.

"That's spelt wrong! Stand up!" Whack!

"Look! Two mistakes. There and there!" Whack! Whack!

He came to Baker who was one of the top pupils.

"Baker! Stand up! You've made a mistake."

The class turned round to watch this unaccustomed event. Baker blanched white as his chair scraped back and he held out his shaking hands. He'd never been belted before.

Whack!

"That was a stupid mistake. You should have known better," roared the Grime. Then he came to the front row where we sat trembling in terror waiting for the beating of our lives. He looked at my paper.

"If I belted you for every mistake I'd kill you." Then he left us alone.

The dark days of winter passed and if there wasn't a thawing of the Grime he realised that some of us were a lost cause and not worth the aggravation. As Spring passed into Summer and the days stretched out it was the tradition for each class to organise an evening bus trip.

"Any idea where we should go?" asked Kinninmonth.

"Isn't it a bit late? Most classes have had their trips organized for months."

"It's more a matter of who'll go with us, I bet the best teachers have been nabbed by other classes."

A few days later my heart sank when I heard the news. We had a bus and the only teacher who wasn't booked up - the Grime.

The Grime sat beside the French student at the front of the bus. We were subdued all the way to Alva but disgorged a chaotic rabble. I thought I'd explore Alva Glen but others with more energy than brains took to the slopes and rolled boulders down the steep hill. There was moaning about why we had come to this boring place then a frantic hunt for the fish and chip shop where we loaded up with suppers and bottles of lemonade. It was on the road back that Baker displayed a perfect sense of timing. Everyone who travels by bus realises that the long back seat, although coveted by small boys, suffers the greatest movement. Baker was sitting there with his palls guzzling greasy fish and slugging back a big bottle of pink lemonade. Just before Burntisland he began to go green. As we approached a roundabout he staggered forward to the front of the bus with his hand over his mouth.

"Please Sir! Please Sir! I think I'm going to be AAAAArgh" The bus lurched as he projected the full contents of his bloated stomach over the head of the Grime, his jacket and trousers and cascading onto the blouse and skirt of the unfortunate French student.

"Pull in driver! Pull in!"

The coach pulled over to the verge and the Grime got out. The whole class pressed their faces against the windows watching him trying to wipe the spew off with a hanky. His head was decorated with flakes of undigested haddock and big, greasy chips .Oh joy, sweet joy!