Spirit of ’66 – December CW

The teacher took a deep breath, opened the door and faced her new pupils for the first time. She was surprised to see that the room was not the modern affair to which she was accustomed with little groups of tables leaving half the class with their backs to the teacher. This was a good, old-fashioned classroom with serried ranks of individual desks all facing the blackboard. The windows were high, allowing light into the room but preventing the distraction of a view to the outside.

“Hello everyone”, she said cheerfully, “I’m June Roberts”

“Good morning, Miss Roberts”, the class chorused dutifully, rising to their feet.

“Er, right”. This was unusual to say the least. She was not used to such politeness and respect in the inner city schools where she had previously worked and realised she would have to make allowances for this rural backwater. Born in suburban London, June Roberts had had an unremarkable but stable upbringing – her father a bank clerk and mother a secretary who had given up work for the interim to raise her two daughters. June was an indifferent pupil who had applied herself just sufficiently to gain the necessary ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels for teacher training college whereas her sister had sailed, although with considerable diligence, through school and into the Royal College of Nurses. June had spent ten years teaching in the London suburbs and then moved to her new post in order to care for her late mother’s elderly and ailing sister.

“This morning we’ll be studying history. What was your previous lesson about?”

“We were going to start on World War Two, Miss, but then Mr Jones left”

“Mr Jones?”

“Yes, our old teacher, Miss. His father was killed down the mine at the end of last term and he went mental.”

“I don’t think ‘went mental’ is quite the appropriate phrase for you to use. Perhaps better to say that Mr Jones was overcome by the death of his father and was unable to cope.

“Yes Miss. Anyway, he’s in the nut house now.”

“Enough! I will not listen to such language!” Mr Jones may be in care, I will accept, but I will not have you talking like that. Now, World War Two. At the end of World War Two, Berlin was divided between four countries, America, Britain, France and Russia, and what was the result?”

“The Berlin Wall, Miss?”

Well done, and when did it fall?”

Blank stares. “Dunno, Miss. Mr Jones never told us about that”

June sighed to herself. It was going to be a long morning and so it proved. The class seemed to have no idea of recent history which she put down again to the isolated community into which she had moved. At break, she went to the staff room and slumped down into a battered armchair with a cup of tea.

“I’m struggling. 2C seem very backward. They’re polite enough but don’t seem to know anything about history or anything else to be honest. I’m not sure I can cope. I’m not used to it”

“They don’t end up in 2C for nothing. Live with it – you’re their teacher for now and you’re just another brick in the wall until the next one comes along.”

“Fair enough, but I’ve only been here for one morning and it’s obvious that Mr Jones didn’t teach them anything.”

“Mr Jones?”

“Yes, their last teacher whom I replaced due to his bereavement”

“What are you talking about?” asked an elderly teacher. “Jones the Nutter was retired in 1966 shortly after his father got killed down the mine. He had a breakdown and ended up in a home. Died in ’78”

“But they said he’d only left last term.”

“Who said?”

“Well actually it was a kid called Evans, Gareth Evans, I think it was.”

“There’s no Gareth Evans in 2C. You must be mistaken.”

“No, I’m sure. Gareth Evans. Ginger lad with freckles.”

“There are no gingers in 2C, let alone one called Gareth Evans. In fact the only Gareth Evans I knew would have been my uncle. He was ginger too, funnily enough”

“Would have been? Was?”

“Yeah. He was buried in the collapse.”

“Collapse?”

“Oh c’mon. Don’t tell me you don’t know. This is Ynysowen Primary School – built to replace Pantglas Junior School. Didn’t they teach you any history either? You never heard of what happened here in Aberfan?”

June blanched, her teacup shaking in her hand. “Yes….. of course I’d heard, but……”

She put the teacup down abruptly and ran from the staff room, down the corridor and flung open the classroom door. Little groups of children seated around tables turned expectantly at her entrance, the sun shining on their faces from the low, wide windows.

OZ