Pancho And The Philistine

It was a typical East London secondary modern school, large, Victorian and overcrowded with an excess of green railings; it brooded in the shadow of Docklands.
I saw it more as an open prison than a school; most of us were convicted of the same crime, lack of intelligence. The teachers on playground duty always walked in twos - like warders in an exercise yard. The hob-nailed hordes of children possessed a brand of scathing wit and cruel sharpness peculiar to kids of the inner cities. It would come to bear on teachers and pupils alike should they show any sign of weakness.
A Survival programme I once saw captured the situation perfectly; a pack of starving wolves were stalking an elk, they edged closer and closer from behind and from either flank, probing for a safe point of attack. Suddenly the elk lashed out with its powerful hind legs, sending the nearest predator flailing into the air; the rest of the pack slunk away to find an easier prey.
One such elk was Mr Pearson, a man who held the respect of everyone at the school. He had a fearsome reputation for caning and demanded and received complete silence from his class, a rare disciplinary feat for such an establishment. Imagine the terror of class 2A when we learned he was to be our new form teacher in place of 'mouth' McLean, whose booming voice no longer had any effect on us.
The skill of the largely illiterate hordes in giving the staff the most beautifully descriptive nicknames was always a source of amazement to me. They would pounce gleefully on any fault or impediment in the unfortunate teacher and highlight it cruelly in a nickname, preferably with the aid of alliteration. Why Mr Pearson was known as 'Pancho' I was ever sure. He was a portly man in his late fifties, red-faced and balding, with piercing blue eyes; a three-piece serge suit, complete with watch and chain gave him a Dickensian appearance; his speech and manner were also strangely Dickensian.
He always seemed a more fitting headmaster than 'Adolf' Yates of the black moustache and Aryan hair style, whom I disliked intensely. Pancho also had more substance than 'Pongo' Price, the historian, who obviously had no best friends and 'Cocky' Cooper, the swaggering art teacher, who's liaison with 'Sexy' Saville, the games mistress made his nickname doubly amusing. The only master with a surname widely accepted at face value was Mr Rockavitch; he had the trace of an Eastern European accent and a bad limp that caused him to rock from side to side. The hordes had evidently decided they could not compete with the cosmic joker.
The next term could have been a turning point in my life. Pancho lived up to his reputation, but had a sensitivity and compassion that occasionally penetrated his stern exterior. He took us all for English lessons and had a passion for poetry, his favourite being 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes. I too was taken with the poem, whose lines 'The moon is a ghostly galleon/tossed upon cloudy seas' had strangely captured my imagination. The exercise we were set on the work was a pleasure to me. The next day Pancho actually read out my version to the class, an act that seriously damaged my standing but was also the beginning of an uneasy truce between authority and myself.
That afternoon, when the blessed sound of freedom echoed through the corridors, I was asked to stay behind. I remember Pancho's words as if it were yesterday. 'May' he said, 'Philistine though you are, you appear to have some little writing ability. With my help and your willingness to learn it could be your passport out of this unholy place, the choice is yours'.
I had always hated school, I hated it from the very first day and was torn each morning by the desire to spend a glorious day in the park, roaming the bomb-sites or wandering round the docks. In fact I often did.
Pancho possessed a quality that was then unknown to me. He could inspire and motivate; it made me question for the first time my allegiance to the hordes and my contempt for the educational system.
As the term progressed, so did my work in English, for any extra effort I made Pancho would reward me with extra help. It was the start of a special relationship and the happiest days of an otherwise miserable school life. My security rating with the pack had plummeted. I was no longer asked to go prefect-bashing with them; the roughing-up of the 'Hitler youth' straight from Adolf's Monday morning briefing was the highlight of my week, but I soon realised I could not have the best of both worlds, prefect bashing and Alfred Noyes did not mix.
A month or so before the end of term Pancho again asked me to stay behind 'May' he said in his Dickensian fashion, 'I have something to tell you that I expect you to keep in the strictest confidence. You have been selected for a grammar school place should one become available next term. It is against school policy for me to tell you at this stage and I make no promises. Do you understand?' 'Yes sir', I said, 'Thank you'. The formality of our words did little to hide the respective feelings of pride and gratitude.
But the following Monday disaster struck. Pancho was not there and Adolph himself called the register. Later at assembly we were to learn why. 'I have some bad news,' Adolf said, 'Mr Pearson collapsed and died at his home on Sunday afternoon'. His voice tailed off into a background hum. I was aware of some of the girls crying but felt nothing, just a numbness and then anger, that man, his talent, his words and love of poetry had been senselessly extinguished. I was angry at Adolf and the impersonal way we were told. He had sounded like some third rate newscaster and I hated him for it. As for me, the voyage on which I had embarked firmly on course for better things, with Pancho at the helm, had changed dramatically. It had become a Marie Celeste, drifting aimlessly with me as the only passenger.
After much speculation by 2A the new teacher arrived. He was fairly young with a somewhat banal personality and what would have been a huge Roman nose had it not the appearance of being sliced off at the end. He was immediately dubbed 'Ollie Beak'. Like Pancho before him, Ollie Beak took us for English, at which he seemed to have little flair, but our first homework exercise was to write a story from a set title. Here I thought was my chance to show what I had learned. It would be my tribute to Pancho.
My story was as near perfect as my capabilities would allow. It comprised many of the things my mentor had taught me - feeling, humour and most of all the message in which I personally believed. It had a beginning, middle and end and even the spelling was correct, thanks to copious use of a dictionary. Pancho would be proud of me.
Sadly it was not to be. When the day came for Ollie Beaks appraisal, he read out a couple of the girls pieces in his irritating nasal voice and commented on most of the others. 'He is saving mine till last' I thought. 'This one is for you Pancho, I knew I wouldn't let you down'.
'Come to the front will you May, 'Ollie sniffed. 'When I set a piece of work like this I don't expect you to copy yours from somewhere else'. I was astounded. 'But sir,' I protested, he never let me finish. 'You may as well understand from the start May, I won't tolerate dishonesty. There's always one! Every class has one!'
I could stand it no longer, the anger and frustration boiled over. 'I wrote it, Ollie Beak!' I spat 'I wrote it!' waving the now dog-eared manuscript in front of his preposterous nose. There were roars of laughter from behind and then the pack began to bay. Pandemonium ensued.
I was given six of the best by Adolf, at which I delighted at showing no reaction whatsoever, and Ollie Beak never regained full control of 2A. After all, he wasn't much of an elk.
The truce was now broken. No more 'ghostly galleons' no more 'cloudy seas'. A few acts of dissent soon restored my former reputation and hostilities between authority and myself were resumed in earnest. I felt guilty sometimes when I thought of Pancho, but it had been the singer that was good, not the song.
Soon after this episode I was in Adolf's office again, this time to confirm my place at grammar school. To his disgust and to my satisfaction I declined. Little did I know in those turbulent youthful years that I had thrown away a future and more importantly, a real tribute to Pancho.
Now a quarter of a century later as I sit in a classroom looking more than a little like an overgrown schoolboy, I sometimes fancy that a portly figure in a blue serge suit is standing behind me.
Perhaps Pancho has slept long enough - or more likely, he thinks I have.

Tom May