Lowewood Academy

The dull toll of the morning bell broke through my sleep with the finesse of a wrecking ball.  Headmasters are not supposed to have emotions.  Headmasters are not supposed to have weaknesses.  Headmasters are supposed to rise from their repose and transform instantly into their professional, scholarly and austere personas.  Not this one.  This one dragged his unwilling body out of bed by a force of will only marginally stronger than the opposite pull of the warm sheets.  Just like every day of the seven years of his headmastership.  If only Mr Letchmostly hadn’t run off with Morris Minor all those years ago, life might have been easier.

But as consciousness gradually displaced somnambulism, I remembered that today was not just like every day, and my appetite for it grew.  Today was to be Speech Day, and the last day of term: a day of emotion and lasting memories, a day of moment.  I could still remember my own last day of school – not, as some of the girls would have it, before the invention of the motor car, but nevertheless a good few decades ago – and the realisation that for all the girls and boys who were leaving us, today’s memories would live with them throughout their lives, even after most of them had lost touch with each other, was touchingly poignant.  The Last Day, like the distant wave of a lover left quayside by a parting ship, is the abiding memory which encapsulates all the highs and low, dramas and tears, friendships and fights, romances and adventures of whole years of schooldays.  Do our final year pupils leave the school, or, as they each follow the path life has set out for them, does the school leave them?

Seven hours later, I was surveying an excited and slightly fractious school as the pupils filed into the main hall for the start of speech day formalities.  To my left, Lord Fawcett looked as collected and in command as ever.  Adjacent to him sat a more flustered and – well frankly, to use a colloquial term, blousy – Lady Christabel Peel.  Lady Christabel – formerly Christabel Watkins, expelled for being too light-fingered for her own good, later Mrs Christabel Peel, wife of the Chief Constable, and now newly titled following the honouring of her husband with a knighthood – had become something of a fixture at speech days after her recovery, admittedly under somewhat dubious circumstances, of the Lowewood Challenge Cup.  Despite her racy past, she was held in affection especially by the younger girls, not so much as a paradigm to aspire to but rather as an affectionate caricature of their own mothers.  Only Lord Fawcett and I knew that the flushed red of her face owned more to her enthusiastic acceptance of my hospitality over pre-prandial sherry than to the stifling June heat.  The lemon and lime of her dress might perhaps have better graced a deck-chair than a formal speech day suit, but she was still our Christabel, faults and all.  Lowewood always has been a forgiving institution.

It’s an old headmaster’s trick to give the girls – and boys – some head on speech day.  The day was hot and the speeches were dry.  Add some dust and flies, and it would have made an ordeal to break Lawrence of Arabia.  But if you allow the pupils a little leeway to chatter amongst themselves, their excitement keeps simmering through the boring parts.

Their interest perked during the speeches from the incoming and outgoing Head Girl and Boy: it’s always a novelty to see some of their own up on the stage.  Vanessa Rees was sensibly brief, given her very short time as Head Girl, but held the audience in rapt attention in case she revealed anything about the mysterious disappearance of Juliet Aston-Beresford.  Whilst she gracefully lauded Juliet and modestly compared her own short time as Head Girl with Juliet’s achievements, she gave no clues to the latter’s whereabouts.  Alex Ap Iorweth gave a capable and manful oration in his deep Welsh voice, an inspiration to the younger boys.  Flavia de Bouverie fought her nerves to make a pretty little speech, unassuming, charming and thoughtful, with the whole school willing her on.  Only when her brother Felix came up to the rostrum as the incoming Head Boy did things liven up.  I had never realised he was so popular.  The shrieks and squeals of the girls which greeted his initial “Hello boys and girls!” grew into a crescendo as he casually drew his hand though his floppy black hair and gave his trademark confident and boyish grin.  There was a commotion in the middle of the hall when Polly Perrot fainted, or swooned at any rate, but after a flurry of activity from her chums, fanning, cooing and loosening her clothing, she resisted all attempts by Matron to drag her away and she remained for the rest of his speech open-mouthed and adoring, and rather more decoletté than was strictly proper.  Felix obviously lapped it up.  I can see we shall have some interesting times with that boy next year.

Sandwich were already runaway winners of the Challenge Cup, and so the normal tension of competition between the houses as the prizes were announced was missing this year.  But the individual prizes were anticipated with the usual rapture.  I started, as tradition demanded, with the Origami Prize, for which I reminded the school that Lowewood was developing a global reputation, and deservedly so.  Destiny Fairchild once again excelled herself and took the prize for Wilkes with her 1/10th scale model of the Eifel Tower complete with working lifts.

Theresa Malone, perhaps showing signs of growing out of her rebellious youth, was a surprising winner of the newly instituted Cultural Diversity Prize with her interpretation of Riverdance Burlesque.  I’d had some qualms about the suitability of her entry, but as chairman of the judging panel Lord Fawcett had assured me that it was far less revealing than many of the ethnic dance displays he had seen during his travels in Africa and the Middle East, and so it was a pleasant change for me to be giving Theresa a prize rather than a punishment.  When I announced that Mrs Ngogo (neé Abbots) had donated the prize of a week at a macrobiotic felt-making course, Theresa had rather ungraciously turned up her nose and asked if the second prize was two weeks, much to the amusement of the assembly.  But she earned genuine cheers when she announced that she planned to enter ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ next year.  God help Simon Cowell.

Awarding the Challenge Cup was unremarkable other than, for me, the distinct and not altogether pleasant whiff of llama which accompanied Oliver Priestly when he came on stage to collect the cup for Sandwich.  The Sandwich pupils were beside themselves, winning the most prestigious prize for the first time in five years, and Oliver did little more than hold up the cup and relish the cheers of “Sandwich!  Sandwich!”.  I could sense Lord Fawcett bristling: I was vaguely aware of an historic family feud concerning the invention of bread based convenience foods.  Dashwood were a distant second, but their honour was restored by Cassandra Abbots winning Best All-Round Sporting Girl, and being genuinely surprised and flattered by the wolf-whistles and cheers which attended her appearance on the stage.

And so the most important day in the school calendar played itself out, as in so many previous years.  After the speeches and formalities came the hugs and kisses between the pupils; and the more reserved goodbyes between pupils and staff – perhaps all the more emotionally powerful for being restrained.  To those many pupils who came up to me, or the few braver ones who came to my office, I could only ever give my good wishes in the most formal and bland manner, showing no favouritism and no hint of emotion, and they, of course, took their cue from me.  Did any of them realise, I wonder, how much they had touched my life?

The school had quietened now as the afternoon had drawn to an end, and I was alone in my office, fingering and re-reading for the umpteenth time the postcard from Juliet Aston-Beresford.  It had arrived with the last post, and I had been scouring it for clues and reasons ever since.  Oh, the rashness of youth.  Why, Juliet?  Why give up so much?  But she was happy, in love, and destined for exciting adventures.  Maybe she had made the right decision after all.

“I’m just off now, Mr Shaftebotham!”  Miss Bellend interrupted my thoughts as she popped her head round the door. 

“Thank you, Miss Bellend.”

She paused, and then turned to leave.  I was still holding Juliet’s postcard, my thoughts far away in America.  Rashness is the preserve of youth, I suppose, but spontaneity is a freedom available to all men.

“Oh, Miss Bellend!  Belinda, I mean.  Belinda….”

She turned back and squinted at me.  I knew that look: it was the one she reserved for those occasions around 5 o’clock in the afternoon when I remembered some urgent task that needed doing by the start of school next day.

“Yes, Headmaster?”

“Would you like to go for a drink, maybe?  Perhaps grab a bite to eat.”

She looked puzzled.

“That is, if you haven’t got any plans.”

Belinda’s countenance changed, slowly, as if a thought process was at work.  Her eyes widened, and I realised how sparkling blue they were.  Why had I never noticed before?  Ah Belinda, my helpmeet with a heart of gold.  You’ve made this school what it is, nobody knows that more than me.

“Well I was going to meet Izzy and Natasha, but I’m sure they won’t mind.  Of course, that would be lovely Mr Shaftebotham.”

“Call me Archie, please.  After all, school’s out!”

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 11:00 am and is filed under Assembly Hall, Headmasters Study. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.