大象传媒

A fellow-sergeant at the depot in Guildford, Surrey, in 1947 was a sergeant in the Army Education Corps. He confided in me that he was gay, although not, as far as I remember, using that word, a fact which may or may not be relevant to this story. As it was the depot of the regiment, The Queen鈥檚 Royal (West Surrey) Regiment, there was a contingent of boys, recruited I believe at the age of 15 or so, who were intended to become regimental musicians. One of the tasks of the education sergeant was to engage in the boys鈥� education. He found this an immensely difficult undertaking, finding it virtually impossible to maintain discipline. He complained about this to me several times until, in a moment of blind bravado, I said that I would take a class.
I鈥檝e no idea why I said it, having only a tiny amount of teaching experience. Part of that I described in my article 鈥楢 young supply teacher in wartime鈥� A3336059 . Otherwise I had had three months鈥� teaching practice when in the sixth form at school and a short period in 1945 as a Local/Paid Education Sergeant. Not really very much. At the appointed time I waited in the empty class-room, somewhat anxiously. Then in they came, roaring, swearing, punching each other in a jocular fashion, climbing over the desks. Then they sat down at their desks, suddenly quiet, silently looking at me expectantly, trying to anticipate my reaction.
I wondered what to say. I had no fund of ideas or practice on which to fall back. I waited for a little time and suddenly I found myself saying: 鈥楾hat word you keep using. You need to say it properly. It ends in 鈥渋ng鈥�. There鈥檚 a 鈥済鈥� at the end鈥�. There was, I fancy, a collective gasp. They had never heard anything like that before, mild though it seems today. No doubt they had expected me to shout at them to behave, perhaps to threaten them with all manner of punishments. They continued to keep quiet and I took the opportunity to start the lesson. I cannot now remember what I was trying to teach them and in fact their comparative silence did not last the whole lesson. Towards the end they became unmanageable, just as the education sergeant had described to me. I was glad to escape. I did not offer to repeat the experiment.

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