WHERE HAS ALL THE SCANDAL GONE?

The question asked in this post refers of course to the staggering array of serious wrongdoing by so called respectable individuals and organisations that has gripped the attention of the British public one after another in recent months then, like a series of lights going out, have suddenly disappeared out of sight as     if by magic.

There in the white heat spotlight of publicity some newsworthy piece of filth drenches everyone in dirt for a few days or weeks then vanishes as though someone’s turned off a tap. It’s gone. Shut out. The awfulness of it sinking below our consciousness only to be replaced by something equally disgusting!

Does anyone remember those dirty Liberal Democrats lying to us for their vote before the last General Election?

Remember the news about British Gas manipulating and fixing the wholesale price of gas that put up your bills and put more money into the pockets of the shareholders? Thank you the last Labour Government for deregulating the energy supply industry…

Remember Rupert Murdoch’s gutter journalists hacking the phone of a dead girl?

Remember the police breathalysing the dead bodies of the Hillsborough Victims then perverting justice by falsifying all their own statements?

Remember Jimmy Savile, the nation’s favourite son, who the police knew was engaged in a vast slew of sexual illegality with children but did nothing to stop it?

Remember the appalling HSBC Mexican drugs money laundering scandal where the largest British based bank not only channeled billions of dollars of cartel drugs money from its subsidiary in that country into its banks in the United States but did the same kind of thing for thousands of Iranian financial transactions that also ran counter to United States law, only recently acknowledging its guilt and paying a massive fine in America. And all under the eyes of a Labour Government and the great center of financial propriety, the City of London!

Remember the notorious Libor Rate fixing scandal in which various British banks colluded to fix the interest rate at which they lent money to each other. This was highly illegal to say the least, and has at last led to the arrest of three banking executive homeboys.

And while I’m on the subject, remember the name Gordon Brown, the Labour Prime Minister who operated a policy of ‘light touch regulation’ for City of London financial institutions, giving bankers license to do just about whatever they wanted. The resulting economic depression has seen a major attack on the standard of living of the British people with many losing their jobs and suffering genuine hardship.

Oh yes! How about the Labour Home Secretary who not so long ago claimed expenses on the taxpayer for her husband’s porn videos? How very charming!

This is just the tip of the iceberg! The apex of a great betrayal of trust. Beneath is a vast undersea mountain of hidden evil that only briefly and occasionally makes it up into the light. Remember the Care Home staff who abused and humiliated the sick and the old. Those they were supposed to look after and respect.

Out of the revolving news and into the dark of short term memory. Where indeed have all the scandals gone? One subsumed beneath another even more disgusting. Covered up by red herrings like Leveson, celebrity chit-chat and gossip, the mirage of press control, the media hysteria about royal babies and juvenile footballers who now make a living out of spitting and accusing each other of racism.

Here one minute gone the next, with nothing sunk into the British psyche deeper than skin. Nothing really learned. Nothing really cared about. Remember the M.P.’s expenses scandal that once burned bright as a nova. So how many people demonstrated outside the Houses of Parliament at a scandal that exposed the rottenness inside British politics?

The question is why. The answer is that nobody cared.

How many of you watched a television documentary exposing the Inland Revenue? How members of its Executive Board held directorships in companies set up in offshore tax havens that give specialist advice to wealthy clients about how to avoid paying UK taxes or minimize such payments. In other words those with specialist knowledge who are publically employed to collect taxation for the Government are at one and the same time privately employed to use that knowledge to help people avoid it and are furthermore publically and privately remunerated for such an entirely contradictory activity at one and the same time! Such an anomaly is ludicrous never mind being obscene, yet it goes on.

Hidden away beneath trivialities like footballers, royal babies, nutcase M.P.’s and endless celebrity chatter there’s been a whole universe of gutter journalism, an exploitative and corrupt political system with little difference between the main parties at Westminster, a well embedded Establishment ring of child molestation and an only too often complicit police service. The latter, let it be said, is not just another spoke in the wheel of poison but as the force of law and order pivotal to the operation of the criminal justice system ultimately the hub of so much rottenness and perverse practice circulating like viruses in the bloodstream of our society.

However there’s far more to the web of disgust than scandals exploding with supernova brilliance in the media, dazzling us for a while before switching off. There’s the other kind of dirt already alluded to. Stuff that stinks as badly as anything else while remaining hidden from view. Dark stars of filth that rarely get picked up on. The activities of the Inland Revenue Executive is one such stinkeroo, the illegal sexual activities of undercover policemen another. The secret conduct of the intelligence services and what goes inside the BBC yet others. And all this to say nothing of the private lives of Members of Parliament! So much of this cosmic dark matter kept out of the public eye by the ever ready instruments of the British Establishment, the good old red herring and a well-rehearsed police policy of see no evil.

The Universe, cosmologists tell us, is full of dark matter. Society equally, is full of hidden scandal just as serious of the explosion of Jimmy Savile into our minds and the police cover up of his activities or their vile conduct over Hillsborough. The activities of Inland Revenue directors was likewise unknown before its exposure and is now crucial for understanding the general climate of permissiveness within which large multinationals manipulated taxation procedures. A legal sleight of hand that passed us all by unnoticed while we drank syrupy cups of coffee and paid our taxes. Not even a mention on Ceefax at a time when decreasing tax revenues would cause a reciprocal diminution in public welfare spending.

Actually tax avoidance by corporate big business is also an attack on the poor because it’s ultimately the vulnerable and the needy who have to pay for what they dodge.        

As for the wholesale price fixing of gas, a matter of crucial importance for millions of people who can’t afford to keep themselves warm in a freezing winter, that was only a Ceefax item for a day! A kind of Brown Dwarf in cosmic terms. Who indeed cares about old people freezing to death? Clearly a lot of powerful and influential people do! The subject is so emotive, so visceral, that the activities of the energy providers on behalf of their wealthy shareholders, fixing prices between themselves to maximize profits never mind whether the elderly are desperately cold at night just had to be hidden. Covered up. The idea   not allowed to escape into a horrified public imagination where it might have become yet another monster  of moral outrage.

So no supernova brilliance for that kind of moral monstrosity. Beyond Milly Dowler, Hillsborough, police shooting innocent people in their cars, News of the World pay-dirt, Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith it’s no go! What? Stuff that’s worse than good old Sir James, knighted for being so nice to children and Christmas guest of Margaret Thatcher? You’d better believe it, but then there are undoubtedly things out there far worse than the nation’s best loved money collector. The ultra-flash Rolls Royce, the cigar, the eyebrows, the silly faces, silly outfits and silly stunts… How could anyone even like such a creep? But alas they did in their millions and they gave him their children! A very discerning nation the British. Actually it’s all very understandable. With support from the police and the mass media he could do no wrong!

Here today gone tomorrow! It’s the sheer repetition of scandal in recent years, almost on a daily basis that facilitates a climate of acceptance. We have become so used to it that nothing seems to disturb us anymore. We have been conditioned to an acceptance of rottenness by the sheer force of its commonality, rather like the operant conditioning of rats or dogs as a technique of behavioral psychology. Continue flashing the lights and people just don’t see them anymore. They accept the experience as normal. Something they don’t have to think about.

That’s the great danger really. When nastiness becomes so commonplace that people stop thinking. Then it’s only a short step away from being unable to make a distinction between right and wrong.  What is good and what is bad.

We won’t do anything to stop those people being beaten up. It’s happening all over the place anyway.

Well there’s only a few of us. We can’t do anything to help them so look away.

It’s a kind of first step. On the road to fascism and then to the Nazis.

Just a first step you are taking. Look hard. Can you see it? Well can you?

 

Truth is on the march!
__________________________________________________________

If you've enjoyed reading my posts you'll certainly be entertained by my novels, available at a next-to-nothing price at Amazon.

From science fiction dramas like The Adventures of a Marooned Spaceman or pulsating galactic travels in The Adventures of an Alien Teenager and short stories in They Shall Have Stars to powerful real-life human interest stories such as With Malice, or black comedies like A Conspiracy of Trash giving you the lowdown on the literary profession, they all provide much pleasure and interest and they are all a great read.

Try The Adventures of a Marooned Spaceman for starters. It's about a man's heroic struggle for survival on an alien world and will take you to places of the imagination you've never dreamed. Or if you want a really good laugh, my novel about the literary profession will let you have it in spades.

CONTINUATION & CONCLUSION - ANTI-SEMITISM IN MODERN BRITAIN: A TEACHER’S STORY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE     TRIBUNAL:  A JEW TO BOOT

I worked out the remaining few weeks till the end of term. Some teaching but mainly invigilating exams. Honorary duty! The Headmaster gave me the option. I could leave immediately if I liked. Save any embarrassment or unpleasantness. I decided to stay. Besides, everyone knew. All the staff and the kids. Wherever I went and whatever I did I was greeted with affection. With bright admiration. The authorities left me alone. Their work was done. I could have rung the school bell any time of the day and they wouldn’t have minded. After all, they’d already tolled it for me. My time was running down fast and soon I’d be history. Just a speck on the surface of so many minds. 

I could tell that many of my colleagues were angry, what with my probation being extended. They knew the score. Understood what the authorities had done. Driven me to illness and desperation. There’d been protests. Some of them seeing the Head. There was nothing alas he could do! It was the decision of the Board of Governors… He’d proved the case himself by failing to attend the meeting was the story they heard.

On my last day I spent most of my time in the playground. Saying goodbye to countless numbers of kids. Those in the Upper School were angry. Some of them seriously. Even those I’d never taught. They said things to me that brightened my life. That made so much of the hell I’d been through worthwhile. So much appreciation for showing them how to think about things. How to see things in ways they’d never imagined before. So many telling me that I was a good man. Someone who really cared about them. Above all, someone they’d always take with them. Someone they’d never forget. The younger kids were tearful. Some gave me presents. Flowers and fruit. Crisps from their lunch boxes and chocolate.

When the end of term assembly came they were told by the Head I was leaving. Mister… leaving us today after serving at the school for three years. We all wish him well…

It was then that it happened. The older kids started clapping. It ran on, soon joined by the ranks of the juniors like a crescendo sweeping through the Hall. The Headmaster held up his hand but it just kept on running, joined in now by most of the staff. Someone at the back shouted three cheers for Mister ... and they all cheered me. Then it suddenly stopped. A deadly cold silence for the last prayer and the Head’s final message.

I left the Hall with the rest of the staff. Said my goodbyes in the Staff Room to all the people I’d worked with and liked. The Head of R.E. was tearful. All the rest were round me shaking my hand. No, I didn’t want any sherry. When my adversaries came through the back door to make their little end of term speeches I finished shaking hands and said loudly, “goodbye everyone,  thank you for everything, thank you for being good friends…”  then turned my back and walked out the front, not seeing anything anymore. Straight to my car, turned on the engine and drove out through the gates.

Kids having fun on the pavement and larking about at the bus stop. A few solitary stragglers far down the road and my eyes full of tears. It was goodbye to them and all that.

Home midday I phoned the Union Head Office and spoke to my contact. The Union would support me if I went for unfair dismissal at an Industrial Tribunal. As things stood I had a very fair chance. I picked up on his use of the word fair rather than good. Fair or good? I instantly questioned. The Union’s experience was mixed, he replied. Things often depended on who was hearing the case. That made me feel great! Not that I was expecting much anyway. All the same, I still had my hopes. At a Tribunal I’d make sure they heard everything. It would be my big chance to tell my side of the story. Make sure that everything came out.

That weekend we went to Bath and I partly forgot. Sunday night we drove home and Monday morning I remembered in detail. Louise off to work, our daughter at the child minder and me finishing writing a paper and thinking of immediate things. We needed money and I needed to work. That was because other big things were happening in our lives. Louise was returning to university in October. She’d have a grant but no more regular wage. The two of us not earning a penny. When my salary ran out then we’d be for it.

The summer was one long slog of lousy temporary jobs in offices full of Office type people. You know offices don’t you! Weekends we had good times together whenever we could, always trying to get out of Essex. Early October I heard from the Union rep. They’d applied for a hearing. An Industrial Tribunal would consider my case in a couple of months. We had to get together to talk, ourselves and the Union solicitor. Decide how best to handle things.

Central London the following week. Meeting held in his office. It soon became apparent that there was a fundamental disagreement between us. The solicitor was very concerned about how the Headmaster and Board of Governors would present their case and how best we should counter it. The Head, he argued, would claim that my conduct had been unreasonable throughout. We had to counter that by showing it was anything but. We had to stress the harassment. That the continual pressure made me ill. Unable to function at my best. The key points were that my relationship with my staff colleagues was excellent, the same as it had been with the kids. Here the petition could be used in support. At the same time he’d received a letter from one of my sixth form pupils whose father was a vicar.

This was news to me. As I read it tears came to my eyes over the things he’d said about me and the fact that he was willing to attend an Industrial Tribunal to speak on my behalf.  

The Union man acknowledged. My relationship with both staff and pupils was very important and could be set against the attitude and manner of the school authorities. In a similar fashion their negative judgement of me as a teacher was contradicted by the Department of Education which saw fit to extend my probation in direct opposition to the views of the Headmaster.

I wasn’t sure about this line of argument. The authorities would no doubt stress my unreasonableness. This could only be countered by a chapter and verse account of their own unreasonableness and its causes. There’d been the whole issue of religious prejudice and anti-Semitism right from the start. In my opinion this should be stressed as the cause of the harassment I’d experienced from the time I told them I was a Jew. From then on it was continually suggested to me that I should leave, first by the old Head and his Deputy and then by the man who took over. Having refused to resign there’d been the hateful trumped up suspension when I’d been marched out of the school. After that, on my reinstatement, it had been one thing after another. I’d rarely been left in peace. There’d been endless criticism of my teaching that had been bigoted and ignorant, then the manipulated failure of my Probation between the Headmaster and the Local Authority Inspectors. 

What should also be mentioned I said was the new Headmaster’s thoroughly hostile manner towards me after I wrote a letter to a local newspaper attacking the National Front and their leafleting campaign outside local schools. After summoning me to his Study he’d spoken to me in a thoroughly demeaning manner calling me “boy” and “laddie”. Telling me he wouldn’t have any member of his staff calling them thugs. The harassment had just kept on running. It was simply more than I could bear. I’d become ill. Began attending hospital with a heart murmur. I had a medical record to prove it if proof was required. I’d been hounded and victimized by the school authorities because I was a Jew. Of course, I’d use all the rest in support. It would add to my case, the basis of which was their religious prejudice.

The Union rep was against the whole thing. Religious prejudice and discrimination, as he’d told me before, were hard to prove under employment law. If I wanted to win my case, pursuing that line would not be in my best interest. I needed to stick to the facts, not over-personalize the situation on religious grounds, all of which would be denied and strongly disputed. Besides, I lacked concrete evidence. There’d been nothing in writing. Nothing recorded. The lay judges hearing the case would not be sympathetic at all.

I listened amazed. So how would a panel of judges look at it, I asked rhetorically? They’d want to know what reason both Headmasters had for my allegations of ongoing harassment. Why they’d done all this to me and no-one else? I looked at him hard. How was I to explain their conduct and its causes if I didn’t base it on anti-Semitism? The current Head could just turn round and say he had no reason for doing all the things I’d claimed, same as his predecessor. That none of it was true. The whole thing was clear as far as I was concerned. Take away anti-Semitism and you took away the motive… Then it simply came down to personal relationships. The Head able to claim there’d been a breakdown between us because we simply didn’t get on. Something that was no fault of his. He’d done everything he could etc. Called a meeting of Governors for me to attend so that the differences between us could be discussed and I’d refused. There, that on its own was evidence enough of the problem.

Once again I came back to causes. I’d asked for the meeting to be put back because of the Sabbath, stating my willingness to attend but they’d refused.

The Union man didn’t like it. He had to remind me I’d been a Jew teaching at a Church School. That I’d agreed to attend church services and religious assemblies when I’d been interviewed for the job. Therefore using the Sabbath as an excuse for not attending the meeting on religious grounds would cut little ice as far as an Industrial Tribunal was concerned.  

I responded angrily. Told him I noted his change of tune on the matter. The differences between us meant that the strategy of laying my case at a Tribunal was unresolved. His attitude hardened. The Union would be conducting the case on my behalf. The line of procedure is their call and would be determined by the advice he received from their Legal Department. I refuse to accept this. They are going to a Tribunal on my behalf not theirs. Presumably it was the wishes of the member that came first. He agrees but counters that the Legal Department would be disinclined to advise expenditure on behalf of a member if they thought a particular line of procedure was not the best one to follow. He asks me to think the matter over, again pointing to the consequences of having failed to attend the Governors meeting. I tell him that I find his view unacceptable. The meeting ends with no decision made about the presentation of my case. He suggests that I contact him next week for a chat.

By the time the hearing came round in December we’d worked out a compromise. We’d play it his way initially. Counter their reasons for dismissal with unreasonable behavior and harassment backed up by the petition, the extension of my probation and the evidence of the sixth form pupil as witness. Then, in my own testimony, I could say at the end why I thought this was so. Give my reasons as it were.

I wasn’t happy about it at all but the Legal Department was running the show. It was their expertise, their money I was told and they weren’t throwing it away on a line of appeal that would be lost from the start. In the end I went along with their strategy to hide it all under the carpet and not make a stink. It was the right thing to do! Oh yes, I’d have my say at the end but first follow the standard approach. 

Woburn Place. Central London. A cold, grey rainy morning. I met up with the Union Rep and the solicitor outside the Industrial Tribunal offices. And there waiting for me was my former sociology pupil who’d come to speak on my behalf. We didn’t see anyone else till we went down into the Court, and that’s exactly what it was like. A brown room with brown panels and benches and a platform for the panel of judges. I already knew the procedure. What was going to happen. The kind of people who’d be hearing my case. A panel of three. The Chairman at the center would be someone experienced in law, a barrister or solicitor who’d been in practice at least seven years. Probably a QC. Of the other two, one would come from an employees’ organization, almost certainly a Union man. The other from an employers’ organization, a personnel or resources officer, whatever that meant. The Defendants, i.e. the Board of Governors would present their case first, giving the reasons why I’d been dismissed. The Head would undoubtedly be their chief witness. Maybe they’d have other witnesses too! His Deputy… Inspectors from the local authority… Maybe even some of the teachers though that was unlikely as most had signed the petition.

While we sat in the Court waiting, in walked the Head with someone I’d never seen before. I kept looking round expecting others. The minutes ran away then the panel entered and sat themselves down. I was astonished. There wasn’t anyone else. The Head was there on his own. Him against me and my witness, my petition, the extension of my probation etc. No-one from the Governors or the local authority! I began to think I had chances. Now came the formal introductions. The Chairman, a smart grey crusty in his sixties began outlining procedure. I noted how it panned out. The Board of Governors to put their case first followed by that of the plaintiff.       

The unknown man was a solicitor. From the firm used by the Church of England to represent their schools in legal matters, the Union man whispered. Oh, so that’s who he was I thought. He was young and came over sharp and succinct. Putting the case for the Board clear and hard. There’d been a breakdown in the relationship between the plaintiff and the school authorities right from the start. Having given the previous Headmaster an assurance that he would attend school assemblies and church services, he had subsequently refused. His relationship with his pupils was also fraught with complications and difficulty. He had been warned about this by both the Head and his Deputy on numerous occasions but their advice had been ignored. After a serious letter of complaint from a parent, a child had been removed from his class. The plaintiff had then seen fit to cross question his former pupil alone in a corridor leaving the Head no choice but to suspend him from duty because of his unprofessional conduct.

I was aghast and turned to the Union solicitor. All this was supposed to have been expunged from my Record. I’d only returned to the school after having been guaranteed this by the Head and the Union itself. The solicitor rose to object. The Union and his client had been given a guarantee by the previous Head that this entire incident and complaint would not form part of my record as its circumstances had been a matter of serious dispute. The suspension had been withdrawn and Mr. ... had only agreed to return to the school once that guarantee had been given. The Church solicitor returned to his feet. On behalf of the school he didn’t concur with that view. The initial complaint had been upheld by the Head and his subsequent suspension still formed part of his Record.

The Union man’s face flushed and I uttered loudly so that the panel could hear, “absolutely disgraceful, I’d never have gone back there under those circumstances after what they did to me.”

The Chairman of the panel gave me a harsh look and the Church solicitor swept on.

I wasn’t having it. I got to my feet and complained loudly. The evidence supplied by the School Governors was inadmissible. I’d received a firm undertaking from the Headmaster that it would be expunged from my Record.

The Tribunal Chairman addressed my solicitor. “Your client will get the chance to put his case in due course. In the meantime I must insist that he does not interrupt these proceedings again.”

I sat down enraged. If this was a taste of what the Governors and their solicitor would get up to then I was cooked.

The man was now on the subject of my letter to the paper. He had attached the name of the school without having sought permission to do so. The plaintiff’s response to the Headmaster’s questions during a meeting between them had been surly and aggressive when he had only sought to give guidance and advice on the matter. He was, after all, a person of considerable experience, having formerly been in charge of a Sixth Form College and had only wanted to foster constructive dialogue between them. The attitude of the probationer, however, had been entirely unreasonable. The Head had formed a positive opinion of his abilities as a teacher and member of his staff but revised this during the course of the year. He had been utterly dismayed when the plaintiff had personally organized a petition on his own behalf among the staff, trawling it round the Staff Room asking teachers to sign. Many had done so, he would testify in his evidence, but only under pressure. His hand had finally been forced when Mr. ... had publicly declared his refusal to meet with him to discuss school business. After that it was clear that a breakdown in their relationship had occurred. The Headmaster’s response had been to request a meeting of Governors be called to discuss the situation to which the plaintiff would be invited. The plaintiff’s refusal to attend this meeting left the Governors no choice but to terminate his employment at the school. He now wished to call the Headmaster to give evidence.

The man and his suit got up and confirmed his reasonableness all the way through. It was a convincing and polished performance that couldn’t have been more persuasive if he’d been Iago spinning a tissue of lies on Othello. Entirely convincing, unless you’d been on the receiving end of his diabolical malice and knew the truth. Nothing openly critical. Just oodles of fair play and kindly concern on a probationer’s behalf, with all the unspoken assumption of me being endlessly difficult and unreasonable left to fester in the minds of the panel. Why, he’d never have got to be the Head of this school or any other if he’d been anything but fair minded and decent. I had to hand it to him. It was beautifully done.     

I sat there and listened. If it hadn’t been me, having known and experienced everything he’d done I might have been persuaded myself, only it was me and I knew how I’d suffered. A year or more of his dirty tricks and being demeaned and two years of it by his predecessor.

His detailed cross examination by the Union solicitor seemed altogether too smooth. There were a number of key points. He’d failed Mr. ... in his Probation Report. Well if that was the case, why had the Department of Education not accepted his judgement? Why instead had they chosen to extend his probation for another year? Such cases were almost unheard of.

The reply came almost pat. He saw no harm whatsoever in the probation being extended. In fact he was glad, hoping it might have given him the chance to improve his work and finally succeed. The Department wasn’t compelled to agree with the decisions of every Headmaster and in some cases it didn’t. He had no difficulty with such a decision.

Again it was beautifully done. Adding to the halo of reason already projected. What about the petition then the solicitor continued. Signed by virtually every one of his colleagues after you’d threatened to suspend him from duty for writing his letter after a long period of harassment? He’d claimed in his evidence that Mr. ... had organized this himself, on his own behalf, which Mr. ... categorically denied.  However, even if, for the sake of argument, he had indeed organized it himself, why would the vast majority of his colleagues have signed it if what it said was untrue, if he hadn’t been unfairly treated, threatened with suspension and harassed? Why would they do that?

The man looked distinctly uncomfortable. He’d been advised by the Deputy Head that Mr. ... had been putting pressure on staff to sign. He himself had known of the petition and had in no way acted to stop it. That’s all he could say. He’d never treated him unfairly. His only concern had been to protect the name and reputation of the school.

“So you criticize and condemn one of your teachers who writes a letter to the local paper attacking a fascist organization for handing out leaflets and recruiting outside your school,” the solicitor continued. The Head was ready with his answer. “In no way would I do that. As an individual he was entirely free to make whatever criticism he chose but as a member of my staff, writing on behalf of the school was an entirely different matter. Mr. ... added the name of the school under his own, making it seem as though he was writing on behalf of everyone without first having gained prior permission. It was this that I sought to point out. A difference which he refused to accept.”

Again, he sounded entirely reasonable. Entirely convincing. Only I knew the difference.

The solicitor turned elsewhere, to the harassment. Wasn’t it true that in the last year both he and the Deputy Head had between them summoned Mr. ... out of the Staff Room on countless occasions in a very public manner to criticize his teaching, warn him about minor or nonexistent infractions and repeatedly suggest that it would be in his best interest if he were to leave? These summonses and the pressure placed on Mr. ... had been of such frequency that they’d had the effect of causing him to become ill. He was aware, no doubt, that he’d begun attending hospital. The medical report which he now wished to offer in evidence showed his client to have experienced heart problems exactly from the time this harassment began. What did he have to say about this and the effect it had had on his health?

The Headmaster remained impassive. His face showing concern. He denied absolutely that he had put any pressure on me at any time to resign. He was aware I had been unwell but maintained categorically that meetings between us, or between me and the Deputy Head had always been part of normal school routine. Only to discuss issues pertaining to school business and my work. Both he and the Deputy Head had many such meetings with all staff of whatever level on a regular basis. There was nothing untoward about them.  On the contrary, they were part of the process of learning about the concerns of staff at the school. Keeping his finger on the pulse of things as it were. To this end such meetings and discussions were invaluable for all concerned.    

“But you made calling him out of the Staff Room a regular thing did you not?” the solicitor persisted. “At least three times a week if I understand rightly.”

The man seemed chagrined. Was it really that much? He hadn’t kept count but thought it unlikely. It had seemed to him and the Deputy Head, however, that Mr. ... was not entirely amenable to discussing issues arising out of his work, particularly with the latter who was currently the Acting Head of his Department. As he understood it, Mr. ... believed that his qualifications gave him superior knowledge of the subject and was therefore not inclined to listen to advice.

“That’s completely untrue,” I blurted out. Hardly able to contain myself over the lie. Another critical look from the Chairman. Both at me and the Union solicitor.

“If Mr. ... had opinions on the subject matter,” the solicitor pointed out, “then as you have said, you would have been keen to discuss them. This is not at issue. What is at issue is your suggestion that Mr. ... was intellectually arrogant and on behalf of my client, I have to say that I find such an aspersion offensive.”

The Headmaster acknowledged. This had never been his intention. Both he and his Deputy were concerned only with the interests of the pupils and fostering good working relations between them and the staff. He had always hoped that Mr. ... would appreciate this.

“So why do you think he took the decision of refusing to meet with you unless in the presence of the Union representative, knowing where his action might lead? By any interpretation this was a serious and desperate measure.”

The man looked perplexed. He just didn’t know. He’d tried to understand. Had wanted to talk to him about his refusal but had been unable to do so. In the end he’d been given no choice but to discuss the matter with the Chairman of Governors. A meeting had been arranged to which Mr. ... had been invited in the hope that the situation could be resolved. This he’d refused to attend.

“You discussed the meeting with the Union representative did you not?” the solicitor asked sharply. The Head nodded. That was so. “In the course of your discussion the representative informed you that Mr. ... would be glad to attend such a meeting but could not do so on the date in question because it was the Jewish Sabbath. Can you confirm this?” The Head again nodded. “Was it not the case that the representative asked that the date for the meeting be put back in order to allow him to attend?” Again the Head concurred. Such a request had been made and conveyed by him to the Chairman of Governors. “The date wasn’t put back, was it?” the solicitor said sharply. The reply came as though carefully rehearsed. “Given the urgency of the situation and the difficulty of assembling all the Governors together at any one time the Chairman took the decision that it was best to press ahead with the meeting. He had hoped that Mr. ... would set aside his objections on this one occasion in order to achieve an amicable resolution of the situation.”

The solicitor pressed on unruffled. “Was it so urgent that it couldn’t be put back just a few working days? Would that not have been reasonable given Mr. ...’s religious concerns and your own keenness to discuss the matter with him?”

The Head came back just as unruffled. “Arranging another date for the meeting, I was told, would not have been easy. Certainly longer that a few days given the need to get everyone together. Given the various commitments of the Governors it might have been weeks. Under the circumstances it was deemed impractical to make the change.”

My solicitor wouldn’t let go. “If this meeting was called simply to discuss your relationship with Mr. ... as you say, why the need to call a meeting of the Governors at which all would be present? Why not simply discuss the matter between yourselves in the presence of the Chairman of Governors and the Union representative?”

Here the Church solicitor intervened. It was his understanding that the matter was of sufficient seriousness to warrant a full meeting of the Governors. He had been assured of this by the Chairman himself.

Just at this point my eye caught sight of the man at the center of the panel, the Chairman of the Tribunal. Was it my imagination or had he nodded his head to agree?

The cross examination was over. Now it was our turn. My solicitor went through the harassment chapter and verse. Nothing about any suspension though. Then came the petition submitted in evidence. One for each member of the panel. The lady representing ‘employers’ read through it quickly. The ‘employees’ man, who looked like something off a Soviet Politbureau, only a little less so. As for the Chairman, he picked it up delicately between two fingers like it was something nasty, glanced at it over his half specs then placed it on top of a little pile of papers. Petition over!

Yes, the solicitor went on, the Head had addressed Mr. ... as ‘boy’ and ‘laddie’ and threatened to suspend him because he’d written to a local paper attacking an extremist organization that was disseminating racist literature outside the school.

The tribunal panel took it all in stony faced. I really didn’t think they were impressed by my ‘heroics’ at all. My case outlined in ten minutes I rose to give evidence, relating how the current Head had suggested to me that I resign my post at the school after the incident then mentioning the many similar requests I’d had from the previous Headmaster. These all began, I said, raising my voice, from a time early on when I’d complained about remarks made at a school assembly which I’d regarded as anti-Semitic. Remarks such as the Jews who’d murdered Jesus and the Jews who’d killed Christ. I’d complained about these to the Head at the time who was surprised when I’d done so and been shocked when I’d told him I was Jewish. It was then that he’d suggested for the first time that I should leave the school.

An immediate intervention from the Chairman of the panel. “Had you informed the Headmaster of your religion when you attended your interview?” I replied that I hadn’t. The Headmaster never asked me what religion I was and I hadn’t thought it important. “Just another question if I may,” the Chairman continued. “Were there any other teachers at the school who wrote to the papers or joined with you in complaining about the leafleting at the school?” I said that there weren’t and he thanked me for clarifying the issue. My solicitor,  I noted, didn’t look happy. Those were questions that the Church solicitor might have asked!

Yes, I continued in full flow, I’d been asked to leave because I complained about the assembly, then suspended from duty in a disgraceful manner on a trumped up charge, never being allowed to see the letter of complaint from the parent which might never have existed in the first place, had my free periods and work breaks taken from me on a regular basis, found my subject knowledge endlessly challenged and criticized along with my teaching, had my Probation failed and been regularly belittled and demeaned in front of my colleagues. In the end it was all too much. Too hard to take. I’d become increasingly ill under the endless insults, criticism and pressure that became even more acute after the Department of Education had extended my probation period. I seemed to be everything these people wanted to get rid of – god knows, they’d said to me enough times that I should leave… “And I was a Jew to boot,” I went on.

It came like a murmur from directly in front. Again I saw the man’s face. “A Jew to boot,” I heard the Chairman mutter, his intonation heavy with sarcasm, his face twisted and sour. Then it struck me like thunder. I’D GIVEN THE PHRASE ONE MEANING. HE’D GIVEN IT QUITE ANOTHER.

I felt trapped in a moment of time. Everything slowed down and me standing there looking at him. And inside that moment I instinctively knew that I’d lost. Knew it as surely as I ever knew anything. From then on I continued with my submission like I was in a dream. Glad I had such a good working relationship with my colleagues… Happy that I had such a great relationship with most of the kids… How much I’d enjoyed the work… Pleased that the Department of Education, through the reports of the Government Inspectors, had extended my probation in the face of great opposition… I said it all without remembering too much. Same as I didn’t remember too much about the cross examination. There were hard and difficult questions, that much I know, and I defended myself coolly. I remember my concern to come across as a straightforward person who despite having been put under such pressure, had tried his best all the way through to do a good job at the school. Done his best for his pupils both with teaching and preparing them for their exams. Done his best to be a good colleague. Done his best to cope and move forward. That was the nub of it really. The Church solicitor making me sound unreasonable and me answering calmly and quietly and appearing the opposite.

And what was it all for, I remember thinking, when I’d already lost?

What I recall more distinctly than anything were the comments made by my former pupil. My only witness. He’d passed all his exams and left the school during the summer. It was more of a testimonial really. Him standing there. Speaking on my behalf with the Head sitting there listening. Not afraid to do what he did. He’d agreed to attend the hearing to put forward his views on Mr. ... during the time he was in his Sociology ‘A’ level class.

Knowledge of his subject extensive to say the least. He always showed to me and other members of the class great keenness to pass this knowledge on to us. He constantly offered his services at both lunchtime and after school for anyone interested wishing to discuss any aspect of our course work. Some of what he taught did require a critical look at long held ideas which some of us found discomforting but it had the effect of making us think. From a personal point of view I found his willingness to put himself out – particularly at exam time – for our benefit, invaluable in gaining my ‘A’ level in that subject. Outside the classroom he was often to be seen mixing with students in the Sixth Form Suite. Whenever I had contact with him which was quite frequent, I always found him most amiable. He treated pupils with respect and for the majority who had contact with him, to my knowledge, this respect was returned. I can only speak of Mr. ... from my own personal experience but as a teacher I found him to be of a very high standard both in his knowledge of the subject and in his methods of putting this across. Socially he seemed to mix well with my fellow students and was well liked by many of us.

I remember him saying these things because he read them from the letter he’d sent to the Union solicitor which I still have in my possession. At the Tribunal he spoke quietly, earnestly I felt, before sitting down. As for the rest it was all quickly over. No questions from the Church solicitor and only one from my own. Had he been surprised when he’d heard that Mr. ... had been dismissed from the school?

“Everyone I knew at the school that I’ve talked to told me they’re shocked,” came the simple reply.

That was it. A few remarks from the Chairman. None of the panel except he had asked me any questions. There was nothing that they’d wanted made clear. The Chairman thanked everybody and suddenly it was over. The Head and the Church solicitor in a huddle for a few moments then they just disappeared. He’d never looked at me once throughout but I’d looked at him. I’d have four to six weeks to wait my solicitor advised. I remember thanking my former pupil. Asking him what he was doing. He told me he was working on a building site to earn money to travel and I remember thinking what a great fellow he was, this vicar’s son. Then it all faded. We all went our separate ways.

Early January an envelope came through the door. Industrial Tribunal… See how quick those people could be! I knew before I opened it up. It wasn’t long. Just three or four lines. What was there to say really? My eyes took in the word ‘regret’. End of story. Your appeal for unfair dismissal not upheld.

That was it then. Dismissed. Out of the school. Out of teaching forever. I should have felt angry after all that they’d done but I didn’t. I could only think of the kids. Never mind all the harassment and hell. I knew that I’d miss them. All the exchanges of knowledge. All the discussion and argument, and in the end all the laughs. The teaching experience was humanizing. It was that that they’d taken away.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO     UNEMPLOYED MAN

My last salary cheque came in December. My dismissal upheld the following month. With Louise back at university all we had coming in was her grant and money from a couple of lodgers. That to pay the mortgage, the rent in Bath, the bills for both places and not least our food. We sat down and did some serious talking. Getting another teaching job in the area was out of the question. Having been sacked from my last I didn’t have a prayer with the Local Education Authority, no matter who had control of the council. However I tried. Met the Labour spokesman. We’d talked before so he knew what was what.

So their decision was upheld by the Employment Tribunal was it? Sorry, then he didn’t see how he could help. “It’s the officials you should be talking to. They make all the decisions not me,” was his cop out. He was only a councillor!

It gave us a laugh. I really shouldn’t have bothered. It was always the same with these people. Cheap talk then principles shoved in the dustbin. January and February I wrote applications for all kinds of teaching posts in London and Bristol. The question on the form always the problem. Please give your last job as a reference. There was no getting around it. Some never wrote back and with the rest it was always so sorry. Middle of March I went back to temping in commerce. Two weeks here, three weeks there. No sick pay or holidays. Often nothing guaranteed. One drudge job after another. I just switched off and did what I had to do. Writing my academic papers when I got home and painting my canvases weekends. The work at least put food in our mouths and helped pay some bills.

I never went back to the school. Never saw any of my old teaching colleagues and pupils again. Their phone calls dried up after a time. They had their jobs and I was out in the cold. Time went by but we hung on by the skin of our teeth. To our great joy Louise got through her first year exams and was working again during the summer. We were once again able to pay off our debts. Even save a little. Soon I’d published my tenth academic paper. I was an acknowledged expert in my field but still couldn’t find a job teaching at a college or university. My Masters degree wasn’t enough. Neither were the great academic references I had. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. At Oxford and Cambridge handing out jobs was all done through friends and unfortunately I’d never done the brown nosing required. That kind of thing wasn’t my style so I did menial clerical work over the next couple of years but was never really employed. Nothing I could ever say that I liked.

Two lean years. So many moments in so many offices that I was often quite overcome by sadness at times. It was always when I thought of the school and how I’d been treated. How I’d been so easily spat out by the system. I still had the letter from the Department of Education. Despite the decision of the Industrial Tribunal, they still considered me fit for employment as a teacher and told me I was free to seek a teaching post. The decision by the Secretary of State, the letter said,

“had been taken on evidence concerning your practical teaching ability and the potential of your succeeding in a different atmosphere from that obtaining at the school.”

It had been copied to the Local Education Authority but it meant nothing to them. Four months later Louise finished her degree. We were free! We could at last move forward together. Change the course of our lives. Do something big.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE     GETTING A LIFE

It’s too often the case that stories like this end with Jews going down to defeat. Taking their licks and walking away with their hurts. Dead at heart and feeling like nothing. Well not this time. The pain had to stop, just like it has to stop for the whole of our people. I was coming back up. 

My wife graduated in July but there was no chance of her finding suitable work. It was the Summer of ‘81 and the country was lurching into economic depression. The mining houses were all cutting back and companies laying off people all over the place. The best we could hope was a continuation of temporary work to keep us afloat. For two highly qualified people it was no way to live. We used to meet during lunch breaks. Walk up the Strand to Trafalgar Square and stroll down the Mall to the big house right at the end. Then came the day we never made it. Someone in the Strand stopped to ask us directions and we fell to talking. He was from Rhodesia and told us the country had just become independent Zimbabwe. The whites were all leaving and there was a desperate shortage of teachers. Furthermore the mining industry out there was big.

We looked at one another in a daze. Rhodesia? Zimbabwe? It was somewhere in South Central Africa and  along the Strand was the High Commission no less. We called there the following day out of plain curiosity. Africa was Africa and we were paying off a mortgage in Essex.

Six weeks later we were flying out of Heathrow at night, destination Harare! From there on to Bulawayo. The name sounded magic. You know what I mean. Spears, shields and elephants roaming wild in the bush. Having duly noted our degrees, my teaching experience and our academic references, the Councilor for Education had put it like this. “We need qualified teachers like you. On what you’ll be earning together you’ll be living like kings,” he said beaming. We could even send back a large part of our earnings. Enough to pay off our mortgage and still live in style.

We made an instant decision. It sounded like one hell of an adventure. No need to ask any questions. We’d be put up in a hotel till we found accommodation. That said we were definitely in!

We left the house with our lodgers still resident. A trusted friend would look after it for us. Collect the rent and pay the bills for both places on the money we’d be sending back. The flat in Bath was locked up. My mother had the keys and would visit monthly to check it all out.

Our last afternoon in Essex came and went. Cheese, wine and trepidation. Only our daughter was madly excited. We were going on one big adventure. Twelve hours later the plane touched down in the African  sun and we began a new life.

A month later we were renting a fine house. Large garden at the front full of tropical fruit trees and half an acre at the rear with a clear blue water swimming pool and a patio big enough to barbecue an ox. And with it came two servants. Two quid a week each and our white neighbours already complaining. We were setting a bad example, over-paying them like that!

Within a year I’d been promoted to Senior Master and my wife recruited to manage the Geology Department of a large mine on double her former salary. We were indeed living like kings and sending home money. Best rump steak at twenty pence a pound, vegetables and fruit next to nothing and long holidays together after we’d bought a car. The magnificent Victoria Falls along with game parks full of lion, buffalo, zebra and elephant for starters. It was only the beginning. Her company had a large private school that needed a new Headmaster. Might I be interested?

It took me time to make a decision. I couldn’t leave Government service for another six months. That was the contract I’d signed. Senior company people saw no problem. They’d buy it out. No, I didn’t want it that way. I was enjoying the work where I was. However, if they held the job open for another six months I might reconsider. They held it open and eighteen months after arriving I was Headmaster of a large private school. Free house and servants, long holidays and serious money, far away from Industrial Tribunals and endless harassment at a lousy Church school in Essex. A job for as long as I wanted without worry, anxiety or fear.

It wasn’t only the money. I wasn’t a dog any more. We were enjoying wonderful adventures. Holidays in wilderness areas and mountain jungles, meeting many interesting people and buying things for our homes back in England. Over the next three years we travelled all over South Africa. Magical names and magical places. Johannesburg and Bloemfontein, Ladysmith, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. From Table Mountain to Kimberley, Mafeking and Pretoria. Famous Boer War battle sites and sieges. We climbed Spion Kop, the great hill from where the Kop end at Liverpool FC stadium gets its name, and stood at Rorke’s Drift waiting for the coming of the Zulus!

Our new lives were only just starting. In time we moved south. I had a senior post at one of the universities while my wife was running a minerals exploration base just a few hours away. A flat in Pretoria and free farmhouse accommodation in countryside full of forests and lakes. Great walking with high shining skies that seemed to run on forever. Meanwhile we had a new friend. Max the Cat who I’d rescued from a fire when he was a kitten. Max was really more than a friend. He was loved. I’d never liked cats but now it was different. We’d kind of raised him. Were the only real family he knew.

Eight wonderful years in Africa and two long holidays back home in between. The last one, six weeks at Christmas, turned out to be tough. Three weeks in Bath and the same at our house close to London. Seeing family, going to museums and art galleries. Doing London things. Suddenly it was over and we were saying goodbye. Back to the sunshine and all the good living. Somehow getting on the plane at Heathrow seemed hard. Far harder than it should have been. We all felt depressed and that night high in the sky we suddenly knew. Despite the jobs and the money, the wonderful life style and respect that went with it, it wasn’t enough. We’d had our fill of all that and needed a change. Crazy as it seemed on that plane we were homesick for England, the place where we’d been treated like shit. We wouldn’t have jobs if we returned and not much chance of finding them either but that wasn’t positive thinking. I’d been a Headmaster and university academic. I could almost write my own reference. It was then that I realized something else. Teaching was no longer for me! I’d had my fill of it. I had to move on and do something else.

During my travels in Africa I’d acquired many curios and ornaments. The latter mainly intended as gifts. Once off the plane and in the months ahead we began thinking. These items were inexpensive and typically African. Some of them very ‘New Age’. When we returned why not set up a business? Import them in quantity and sell them to shops? We began talking it over, buying a wide variety of samples.

Meantime my wife experienced a major change of job scene. Exploring for gold in the middle of nowhere hundreds of miles away. No chance of seeing us weeks on end. It helped us make up our minds. Another six months and we’d be on our way home. Right now though I was at a loose end. Alone in the flat with our daughter at boarding school, I began a new kind of career. Any spare time I had after lecturing I began writing. Science fiction short stories to start. The first batch I wrote I filled with Jewish characters and themes, portrayed with sympathy and affection. Jews had only too often been portrayed badly in literature and besides, no science fiction that I’d ever read had Jewish characters so mine would be different! Soon I’d sold three to the Jewish Times, South Africa’s leading Jewish newspaper for their Festival Supplements. They published them in colour and paid me well for my work. That made me an author!

My girls were delighted. I should think about writing a novel. After all, my teaching only took up three days a week. Their suggestion was good. Along with working out plans for a business I urgently got down to the task. Time ran by quickly. Soon we’d bought everything we needed and having both left our jobs took a final two week vacation seeing the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe for the last time, visiting game parks and saying goodbye to old friends. Back in South Africa, with our car and furniture sold, we all left in a cab for Johannesburg airport. As for Max the Cat, he’d be flying out later, British Airways first class.

As the plane took off we joined hands. We were together as always. Strong in heart and spirit and heading for a new life all over again. Twelve hours later we touched down in cold blinding rain. Back where we started but not quite. I hadn’t just been booted out of a Church School after taking a whipping and we weren’t down on our uppers. We had money and a world of experience. Healed by eight years in the sun and many adventures. We were going forward again. Onwards and up.

After a month settling back into small scale Great Britain we began visiting shops and stores. We had some initial success but not enough for our liking. Most department store buyers spoke only to Royalty or God and those that didn’t wanted holidays in the Caribbean or endless wining and dining. One thing was clear. Wherever we went people liked our stuff. Soon we were getting ideas. If we couldn’t sell it in quantity to stores without incurring the overheads then why not direct to the public? London street markets seemed like the thing. We’d become market traders. At least it was different!

We started small. Began importing from Africa after early trading looked promising. The first year was a learning experience but good all the same. The following two years were excellent. Soon we had six markets, were manufacturing jewellery through out-sourcing and became regulars at all the big festivals. It was a hard life. Involved much travelling and talking. All the difficulties of employing people to work on our stalls. Our commercial and business dealings were straight and above board. Only one fly in the ointment. We were running a trading business just to make money but weren’t business people at heart. We’d become market traders partly by accident, partly design, and though it all went stunningly well for the next seven years the money on its own wasn’t enough.

My wife went back to university, obtained her doctorate financed by savings, and soon got a great job working for a mining house. In time she set up her own consultancy business which became a success through her own hard work and ability. It’s something she really enjoys. As for me I began writing novels. Been told I write well but just need a break. I’ve certainly enjoyed the experience immensely and found writing an endless pleasure and thrill. 

That’s how it is, but that’s only for now. Who knows what we’ll be doing in a couple of years? The world’s a big place. Keeping on doing things, different things, that’s the real trick to it all! Not staying in the same place year after year doing the same stuff over and over. If I hadn’t changed my name who knows where I might have wound up. I might have spent my whole life as a teacher. There’d have been no mountain jungles, no days on end out on horseback, no cat pulled out of a fire who became a good friend. There aren’t any big wide skies over tight little Essex. With any luck I’d have made Deputy Headmaster by now!

No thanks. I wasn’t born to die such a mean death. Going round and round till I wound up with half of nothing. Writing these lines I’d like to think we’ve only just started living. There are so many more things to do and see. Twice now we’ve travelled round India and had an amazing escape in the Tsunami. Life’s not about where you end up. It’s about what you do on the journey.

CONTINUATION - ANTI-SEMITISM IN MODERN BRITAIN: A TEACHER’S STORY

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN     SAVED BY THE BELL

 

Six weeks before my two year Probation was up I had an unexpected visitor. A new Government Inspector, someone I hadn’t seen before, showed up at the school. The Head even more surprised than I am. He declined the use of his Study to chat. Instead we find an empty classroom. Once we’re on our own the man immediately assures me that he’s entirely independent of the Local Authority Education Inspectorate and all Government Inspectors I may have seen on previous occasions. He’d been called in to overview my situation on the basis of the letter I sent to the Secretary of State for Education. He is not there to inspect my teaching. His intention is simply to talk.

For the first time in a meeting with any Inspector I instinctively feel he is sympathetic to what I am saying. I reiterate what I wrote in my letter. Tell him about my experiences right from the start, emphasizing my early suspension and the trumped up letter along with all the various forms of harassment. I say that I’d tried hard not to allow these to upset me and done my level best to get on with my work. I also tell him about my good relations with my colleagues and say that I’m liked by the kids. He intimates his awareness of the petition but makes no aspersion that I organized it myself. I tell him frankly that I find the teaching rewarding and that I enjoy it, particularly when I am able to stimulate the kids with new ideas and get them to think independently about the subject matter. It enables them to make their own contributions to the topics under discussion. In fact, this was the most satisfying part of my work at the school. However my spirit was too often dampened by all the other things I’d had to put up with.

I talked a lot and he listened. I said that I was particularly distressed being told by the Local Authority Chief Inspector of Schools that although my teaching had improved he felt I was unsuited to teaching at Secondary School level because, being so highly qualified as he’d said, I wouldn’t find it sufficiently stimulating or rewarding. On the contrary, I say, I found the very nature of teaching at the school challenging, especially in my efforts to get ideas across and help my pupils to think. He asks me if I would continue working at the school if I was able. I said that I would but my Probation period was almost at an end. While it been my first full time teaching job I felt confident that if I’d been teaching elsewhere I would certainly have passed it by now. I’d done my level best in just about everything but felt that the school authorities had always wanted me out. Right from the beginning when they’d discovered I was a Jew. They’d suggested that I should leave so many times it had become simply ridiculous.

I took in the fact that he was making notes and he saw it. It was nothing to be worried about he said quietly. He was just getting down all of the background.

When the interview ended there was a radical shift of procedure compared to previous inspection visits. Instead of him going to report to the Head he asked me to accompany him to his car. I walked with him to the school car park. The Department of Education, he said, would review my case on the basis of our interview along with information from other sources and would be notifying me of their decision in due course. As he drove away I felt impressed more than anything by his friendliness and warmth. I could only think that it was all a consequence of my letter to Secretary of State Shirley Williams.

The following day I’m called in by the Head. Asked if I found the meeting with the Government Inspector productive. I immediately sense he is curious. He wants me to reveal details. I reply neutrally. I did indeed find the meeting useful. He now remarks that my Probation period will soon end. That I will receive a report on it in due course. I nod. No more than that. The meeting ends. I feel that his comments about the Probation period and the report were intended to intimidate. Draw me into difficult conversation.

The next two weeks are a time of relative calm. Nothing seems to happen in any direction. At home Louise and I talk about the situation after I leave the school. Whether we should sell the house and move back to Bath or hold onto it with me working in London on a temporary basis to pay the mortgage while I searched for a suitable lecturing post, few and far between in my subjects. We had to consider the future. She wanted to stay in London. She’d been recommended to see someone at King’s College with a view to returning to University. I congratulated her on the news. It’s a great prospect. We will somehow get by after I’ve left. She’ll go back to University no matter what.

Less than a month to go at the school. The Head appears in the Staff Room during the lunch break. Asks me if he can have a moment of my time. All ears prick up. Set against my experience of so much of the year the tone of his request sounds almost ludicrous. We go to his Study. His manner is cold. Matter of fact. He informs me that I am to remain at the school. The Department of Education has extended my Probation for another year. I nod. Show no sign of emotion. I tell him that I will do my level best to succeed. He says nothing. Smiles icily. The meeting ends and I leave.

At home Louise is amazed at the news. So am I! You see, I tell her, my campaign of letter writing paid off. I had another year and with any luck I’d get through the probation. She shakes her head. I can tell by her look what she’s thinking. Not at that school you won’t.

She’s right and I know it as ever, but now things are different. I’ve got a whole year to find a new job and get the hell out. Leave under my own terms not theirs.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN     THE BIG HEAT

 

It began all over again just a week later. Called in by the Deputy Head, still running the Social Studies Dept,  and given a grilling. This time it was inventions in the Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution.  I’d made the usual errors of fact he said. Everyone knew that Arkwright invented the Water Frame that radically increased the spinning of yarn. I disagreed. He’d put it together using the inventions of others. In fact they’d refused to renew his patent once it ran out. The man gave me his Savonarola look. A real blasphemy special. I was telling the kids porkies. I should keep my personal views out of the classroom  and stick to the book. I shook my head. I knew my stuff I told him. I’d exchanged letters with the Curator of Inventions in the Textile Industry at the Science Museum on this very subject not so long ago. As a result of discussions they’d changed the label on the Water frame saying that Arkwright probably didn’t invent it at all.

The man was infuriated. Not so much about his lovely Arkwright but about some miserable little Jewish probationer sticking to his guns. He called me arrogant to which I responded by shaking my head. His precious Arkwright was a crook I said smiling. He nearly went mad. I had to take it back. He wouldn’t have anyone calling Arkwright a crook! I didn’t know my history and he did! He was running the Department. My portrayal was twisted and erroneous and he wouldn’t have it. I just let him go on, working out the bile in his system. I’d be reported to the Head for insubordination and obstruction. That was all. I was dismissed from his presence.

I left having taken nothing back, somewhat surprised. All he’d had to do was show me the instruments of torture and I’d have taken the sacrament! From then on till the end of term I was summoned out of the Staff Room by him and the Head on a regular basis. I knew what to expect. After all, I’d been there before. An endless procession of trivialities and made up infractions. I thought that now they might leave me alone but they didn’t. It was the same thing all over again. Summoned out of the Staff Room and called “boy” where no-one could hear. Taken to task over and over for just about nothing only this time it was different. The repetition and constancy was beginning to make me feel ill. What should I do? Contact the Department of Education again? I decided to leave it. Wait and see if things got any better. They didn’t. By the end of the term I was experiencing heart palpitations. Beginning to wonder for the first time how long I could go on. I felt seriously stressed. Was it really all worth it?

At Easter I didn’t attend the religious assembly service. That said it all. Let them sue me. If they asked I’d say I felt sick. It was the truth after all. The school broke up and the Easter miracle occurred. I wasn’t called out of the Staff Room.

It was around the time of the vacation that Louise knew she’d be going to Kings. She’d been interviewed by a very erudite man and they’d got along famously. She’d be studying Geology again and was over the Moon. This time we wouldn’t be separated. Only one more term and we could look forward to the long summer holiday. Work in London and finally pay off our debts.

Three weeks of peace. Louise worked and I looked after Larissa, writing another paper for publication during the evenings. Three weeks away from the school and my heart wasn’t jumping. I didn’t feel ill. There was a direct correlation between my state of health and the Headmaster’s Study.

I didn’t have long to wait. First day back and straight in to see him. My absence from the Easter Service had been noted. As far as he recalled I’d given him an undertaking that I’d attend. I explained that I’d been unwell at the time. Hmm, had I seen a doctor? I shook my head. No, I’d been right there at the school. He shook his head too. Further failure to attend assemblies wouldn’t be tolerated unless supported by sound medical reason. Was that understood? I nodded, letting him see that I felt comprehensively chastised! Right then, dismissed! I walked out knowing how lucky he was. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to have reached out over his desk and put my hands round his throat. Maybe he sensed I was close. Maybe he wanted me to do it. And somehow I knew that he knew! Come on! Make my day laddie!

For the next month I was in and out of both Studies three times a week with the door closed behind me. Never sure what I might have done wrong but always waiting to be called. Taken out of my class in front of the kids. Humiliation piled on humiliation. By now I was feeling ill all over again. My heart jumping and pounding. I’d seen my doctor. Taken time off to visit a hospital. Stress related they called it. Nothing really bad on the scan. Just a touch erratic that’s all. To make matters worse the campaign of tricks had started all over again. Loss of all my free periods… Lunch time duties… A seriously increased load of marking that came out of the blue. I couldn’t say no to any of it. I just took it all. Carried on regardless only Christ it was really getting me down.

One morning I caught sight of my face in the mirror. I wasn’t looking so good. An hour into morning lessons and I was called out of my class. The Head wanted to see me. My heart started jumping all over the place. I felt weak. Seriously unwell. It was all I could do to drag myself to the Staff Room.

“Tell the Head I’m in the Staff Room not feeling well,” I gave his Secretary the message. Cover was quickly arranged while I lay on a sofa feeling like shit with my head in a flannel and colleagues making me tea. Lunch time I went home and the following day phoned in sick. Back to the doctor and back to the hospital. Another scan. This time the line was a little less regular. I was unwell and needed a rest. Needed to take time off from work. I wasn’t listening. Stay at home and turn it all round in my head? No, the teaching helped me forget. Took my mind off things. Helped me concentrate. Somehow I’d have to ride it all out. Somehow.

What irked me most were the little things. Being passed over for departmental outings. Staying in school to cover while others took the kids to museums and history excursions. Small stuff but ugly. A permanent reminder that I was fuck nothing. Hiding in the Library to escape being called out of the Staff Room then being called out of my classes with all the kids knowing I was in some kind of trouble again. And now came more criticism. In my Sociology of Religion lessons I was trying to get the kids to think for themselves. My ideas had the approval of the Head of the R.E. Department but that wasn’t the way the authorities saw it. It was back to the beginning all over again. I was teaching unholy doubt!

I felt ill. I could smell another witch hunt in the offing. A warning from the Deputy Head first then a reprimand from the Head. I was teaching at a Church of England school and shouldn’t forget it. I pointed to the syllabus. The very nature of the subject encouraged questioning.

Half way into the term I felt hung out like a rag in the sun. It was a Friday morning and I’d driven into the school feeling well below par. Tired but holding on for the weekend. I was drinking coffee in the Staff Room. No assembly that morning and the lessons not yet begun. The door swung open. My name called in a loud voice and the Deputy Head’s face twisted in a lopsided grin. “The Head wants to see you…” I looked up feeling hopeless and angry. I was drinking my coffee. A basic human right. I had human rights hadn’t I? I wasn’t surprised when the words came but all my friends in the Staff Room were.

“I’ll only see him if someone from the Union’s present.”

It was a moment frozen in time. The talking suddenly stopped. The silence was deafening. It was said and I carried on sipping my coffee, not looking at anyone in particular. The Deputy Head left in a hurry and the spell was now broken. There was a great buzz of talk. Smiles in my direction. Now I’ve gone and done it I thought. He’ll soon be in like a fury. Nothing happened. When the bell ended the day there’d been neither sight nor sound of the beast.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY     BRINK OF NOTHING

 

After Friday’s defiance the weekend hung over me like a sword. The Head and his messenger boy knew exactly what they were doing making me wait. Making me feel the big heat. Two months after I’d had my probation extended they were letting me know that it really meant nothing. That they were still in control. The message was plain. Here’s what you get from now on and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Maybe I should have kept quiet. It’s easy to say. It wasn’t that I didn’t care anymore. I cared all right. I’d just got tired of being used as a punch bag. Felt I needed some kind of protection. The need to avail myself of a witness to the punishment I was taking.

I talked it over with Louise on the weekend. Not for long but long enough. People like that didn’t like people like me saying no. Some little Jew needing protection after his mates had killed Jesus. On Sunday we went for a walk in the country. Me and my girls. Wide blue skies shining high in the middle of nowhere and woods full of flowers. First thing Monday morning the legions were out. The toad-like Deputy Head summoning me from the Staff Room. The Head wanted to see me immediately after coffee break. The vocal intonation was clear. If I didn’t comply I’d sleep with the fishes. 

I wanted to say, ‘Hey Fat Tony, tell the bastard I said he should go fuck himself,’ but I didn’t. Instead I put on the charm. I was always pleased to meet with the Head but right now I wanted the school Union Rep to be present. The man’s face turned florid. I’d denied the Lord twice. Things were beginning to get biblical.

The coffee break came and went and I didn’t go anywhere, but neither did anyone come looking for me. Tuesday morning I found a cheap brown envelope waiting for me in my pigeon hole. No stamp! I opened it up knowing it wasn’t a pay cheque. From the Headmaster’s Office…

Dear Mr …, Your refusal to meet with me to discuss school business unless accompanied by the union representative is unreasonable and unbecoming a member of my staff. It is contrary to normal working practices and not conducive to a happy and positive school environment. Having discussed the matter with the Chairman of Governors I write to inform you that a meeting of the Governors will be called to discuss the matter to which you will be invited. Yours etc. 

Invited and sacked I instantly thought. And here he was making it sound like a pleasant chat. I immediately showed the letter to my closest colleague the Head of R.E. “Mind if I show this around?” he asked. I didn’t. Soon it was public knowledge. Everyone giving me words of advice. I had to go to the meeting. Put my side of the story.

That night Louise saw the letter. It was a trigger for my dismissal she said. That was clear enough. A perfect way round the extension of my probation. First thing the following morning I had to contact the Union. Only Head Office would do. Get things moving on the highest level I could. It wasn’t easy. The Regional Officer was away for a couple of days so I got through to someone on the Executive and told him the story. That evening the Regional man phoned me at home. Sorry, he’d been handling a problem elsewhere. I explained the situation. He told me he’d call the school the following day. Speak to the Head and get back to me soon as he could. I wouldn’t be alone at the meeting, he’d make sure of it. I thanked him and left it like that.

Friday morning I took a call at the school. It was the Union man. I told him the line wasn’t secure. He should phone me at home in the evening. He did. He’d spoken to the Head. The meeting of Governors was scheduled for the end of next week. I was required to attend but he could accompany me if I wished. My conduct had been deemed seriously unreasonable he’d been told, which coming on top of a variety of other misdemeanors could be construed as sufficient grounds for dismissal.

I was amazed. Not because the bastard was planning on doing it but because he was making his intentions so plain and letting me and the Union know it! The meeting would be a fait accompli. The Governors had appointed him and he was a personal friend of the Chairman. He was their man and they’d be the jury. I made the point on the phone. It would be a Kangaroo Court hearing. They’d be hardly likely to listen to me over him!

The Union man insisted. I had to keep an open mind. No matter how I felt I had to go. He’d be there to help me put my case. If I refused the Head would be able to tell them I was rejecting every offer of help. They’d go along with him because I wasn’t there to explain.

I said I’d think it all over, thanked him and put down the phone. Keep an open mind!  If he’d been in my shoes for the last two years he might have known better. I now had the weekend ahead and decisions to make. Board of Governors meeting to hear allegations of misconduct! As though the Union could do anything. Even if I’d had the school union rep in on our meetings as I’d requested he still wouldn’t have taken a blind bit of notice. Looking at it coldly I’d given him the opportunity he needed. Handed him over a gun. It was Louise who put it that way. For god’s sake didn’t you know? Well maybe I did. Maybe I’d just had enough and my excuse with the Union was my way of saying I just wanted out. There’s a time for everything in life and maybe deep down I felt my time at the school had come to a close. A large part of me wanted to stay. I was enjoying the work and got on well with the kids. But there was another voice too. Telling me the world was a whole lot bigger than Romford. Fuck the Head and his Governors’ meeting. A Jew on trial for misconduct, that’s what it was. That’s how he saw it. After two years of hell it was me who was on trial. My behavior questioned. Me taken to task. Up before some little Inquisition of Essexites when it should have been him. I felt a terrible anger. The sheer injustice of it all. Why should I have to account for my actions? Why not him?

It was then that I made my decision. Not on the grounds as to whether I could defend myself but whether I should. I was a Jew who’d already suffered enough. Why it should be me there having to face it after the phony hateful suspension… after all the harassment and threats… the daily hell that I’d suffered? No, I wasn’t going to their lousy kangaroo hearing. Just another Jew being called to account for his crimes. Fuck him and fuck them. To hell with them all. I’d made up my mind.

“You’ll be sacked,” Louise said quietly.

“I’ll be sacked anyway,” I replied feeling sick.

I spent the weekend with my family. Doing more work in the garden, painting, thinking about the academic paper I’d been invited to write. Good things. Thinking positively about the future. I wasn’t going to their meeting next Friday. Let them do what they wanted. What they’d do anyway whether I attended or not. It was a verdict on themselves not on me. I’d go on. Go forward and do other things. I’d always feel clean.

I phoned the Union on Monday. The man was dismayed. Pointed out something I hadn’t thought of before. In spite of Headmasters past and present, the negative reports on my teaching, the school and local authority collectively failing my Probation, the Secretary of State for Education had seen fit to extend it for another full year. That was exceptional. Almost unheard of. It had to say something. They clearly thought I had potential, that I’d make a good secondary school teacher, otherwise they wouldn’t have done it. Above all, that they weren’t listening to the Headmaster and buying what they’d been told. That was a huge plus in my favour which we could use. Nothing was lost. All I had to do was attend the meeting with him.

I told him I’d made up my mind. My decision was final. He begged me to reconsider. I shouldn’t give up my career. Teaching was good and worthwhile. I should relax. Talk to my wife. Mull it all over. Promise him at least I’d do that. I found myself promising. Right, he’d call me on Wednesday. Not at the school but at home.  

As though by magic my staff colleagues knew the meeting was scheduled for Friday. The Head of R.E. was immediately supportive. He’d go along if I liked. Put in a word for me on behalf of the staff. There were also others willing to help. I said I’d think it over. I hadn’t decided on anything yet. One thing I did know however. Friday evening was Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. Now I wasn’t religious. Not a praying man you might say. All the same, the Sabbath was special and you didn’t need to be religious to know it. If I was going to attend any meeting I wasn’t going to have any anti-Semite piss on me at a time when Jews traditionally rested and relaxed. I made the point to Louise. If I was going to any meeting of theirs it wouldn’t be on a Friday evening and when the Union man called I told him the same, explaining my reasons. Okay, I was in. I’d go to the meeting but only if it was rescheduled. He understood. It was a fair enough point. He didn’t see any reason why the day couldn’t be changed. He’d speak to the Head. Have the meeting rescheduled for early next week. We left it at that. He’d phone me tomorrow. He was sure the Head would understand. That everything would be fine.

Thursday I was called out of the Staff Room at lunch break. I had a visitor. The gentleman from the Union, the Deputy Head said loudly so everyone could hear. Now this was unexpected. Something was up and it couldn’t be good or he’d have phoned. Good news always comes easy that way. I was right. The man’s face said it all. We talked in an empty classroom. He’d called the Head first thing then again after he’d contacted the vicar who was Chairman of Governors. They wouldn’t reschedule. The meeting would take place on Friday as planned.

That’s it I said. If they wouldn’t make any allowances for the Sabbath then we both knew what to expect. He put up all the same arguments. All the things I had going for me only this time I didn’t want to know. Their decision was an insult. A deliberate slap in the face. I shouldn’t have even suggested the idea. Shown myself willing only to have them do that. I let him run silent. Took his hand and thanked him profusely. It was over and I wasn’t going. I’d call him next week soon as I heard anything.

They had their meeting. I got a letter the following Thursday. Cheap brown envelope in my pigeon hole same as before. My employment at the school was terminated. Irreconcilable differences between myself and the Head. Work out the next few weeks till exams and the end of the year and that was it! My salary would be paid by the local authority through the summer vacation and the term after that up till Christmas. Surprisingly it ended with a Yours faithfully… Now that really hurt. The Chairman of Governors didn’t love me anymore! And him being a man of god, a vicar and all…

I showed Louise the letter when she got in from work. She gave me a hug. Made me her best ever spaghetti for supper. I kept my inner thoughts to myself. Six month’s salary going for me but that would soon disappear. I was staring out over an abyss. It should have made me hard and determined but instead I felt tearful. Later that night with both girls asleep I sat down and cried.