Novel chapter 23

 

Chapter 23

The Second and Third Years.

The guitar making in the first year was very successful to everybody in the class except Finbar. As soon the fun stopped with his guitar making, he gave up. At the end of the school year, they took their guitars home and so did Finbar.

His father brought some guitar parts from a young lad at the dairy but Finbar didn't seem interested. He stuck to his harmonica playing and the bits and pieces from his father - a bridge, a few frets - remained in his sheriff's office together with The Atomic Flyer.

Sitting in there, on occasions, he looked at his old 'wanted' posters and practised his harmonica. At the same time every day, the familiar sound 'tap tap tap' of Sydney's white stick was heard: half a dozen or so taps, as he approached and when he had finished his ablutions, in the lavatory next door, he tapped the door twice on the way past as a kind of hello.

Finbar tapped back a couple of times on the saddle of The Atomic Flyer. That's all they did, each of them knowing that the other one was still alive and kicking – or tapping.

Sometimes Finbar climbed over his little building and spied on Mr. Bishop, the scoutmaster. He was hardly ever in the garden but he saw Bishop's mother once in a while.

A strange thing happened in his second year in the seniors, his year, well the 'A' and 'B' streams, were sent to another location. It was a church, near where he lived, on the corner of Runcorn Road and Moseley Road. There was no outdoor playground for the boys to gather for assembly and playtime, so these activities were carried out in the hall.

His teacher, another Welshman, took assembly every morning with the same prayer. As Finbar was a catholic, he didn't take much notice of the prayers but he liked the teacher's voice and heard him say, every day, as part of a prayer, which would make Finbar laugh 'not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing your will,' because Finbar knew one of the boys in the fourth year who was called Will, he wondered when the teacher was going to 'do' him.

The ironic thing about being so close to home was, even though it only took about five minutes to get to school each day, he was mostly late and getting into trouble from Mr. Davies, the teacher.

Finbar knew that the next street from Runcorn Road was Brighton Road and being at that location didn't give him the opportunity to pass Sofia's house on The Atomic Flyer.

The second year in the church with no fresh air, football, sight of the outside world or anything else, came to an end, and Finbar in the third year was in class three one (3:1) and introduced to his favourite teacher, Mr. Thomas.

He was shorter than his two previous school masters, as Finbar's father called them, but not as short as Mr. Hennessey, the sadistic communist from the junior school. He didn't know he was a communist, of course, at the time, but he did wonder about Russia.

Mr. Thomas was the third of three Welsh teachers at the senior school; there were others, of course and a Mr. Normington who played the same piece of classical music every morning on the piano. Finbar always appreciated the musical start to his school day and he delighted in the sight of the whole school entering the hall like gladiators entering the Coliseum. Prayers, hymns and diktats, were introduced by the headmaster Mr. Lyons, a huge man with a strong balding face and a big head.

Nothing spectacular straight away from from the new teacher, but one of the days when Finbar returned from lunch, late as usual, he entered the classroom and as soon as he opened the door, Mr. Thomas shouted “GET OUT!!”

Finbar went back out and waited.

After a little while, a boy opened the door and beckoned Finbar in. He stood inside the door and Mr. Thomas said “Do you know why you were sent out?”

“No, sir.” said Finbar.

“You don't”

“No sir.”

“Not only do you come in late, you had a big smile on your face. What do you have to say about that?”

“About what, sir?”

“The smile on your face.”

Finbar thought where else would he be smiling from, if not on the face, but said “I'm always smiling sir.”

“What?” said Mr. Thomas “You're always smiling?”

“Yes sir.”

For some reason, Finbar knew that being happy was good for his health. Mr. Thomas turned to the class “Is he always smiling?”

One or two of the boys said “Yes sir.”

“Always?”

More boys agreed.

“You'd better sit down.”

Finbar did.

Mr. Thomas was a jazz fan and he usually had a jazz magazine on his desk. If he was out of the room some of the boys looked at it. One day someone mentioned to him that a lot of boys had made guitars during their woodwork periods, and he told the class that if they were playable to bring them in.

He was a hi-fi enthusiast and recorded the class doing various activities and one of them was to ask the class what kind of music they liked. They said rock'n'roll.

As not one of the boys could get the slightest plink out of their guitars, he asked if a boy wanted to come to the front of the class and sing some rock'n'roll: a lot of humming-and-harring amongst them until Alan Pitt came forward.

“Right, Pitt” said Mr. Thomas “What are you going to sing?”

“er . . erm 'All Shook Up.”

“All Shook Up” said Mr. Thomas “Good – go ahead.”

Alan looked at the class, cast his eyes around the room and “Oh well a bless my soul a what's a wrong with me – I'm itchin' like a man up a fuzzy tree . . .” as he sang he shook his body like Elvis Presley and when he finished everybody clapped including Mr. Thomas “well done, well done,” he said.

He turned to the class “anyone else?” Clive Priest stood up and walked to the front of the class and before Mr. Thomas could say anything Clive went straight into “Some people like to rock. Some people like to roll” and between each line he shook his legs together like Elvis, then “a movin' and a groovin' gonna satisfy ma soul, let's have a party, let's have a party . .” as he sang he clapped his hands together and the kids joined in. Mr. Thomas looked on in amazement and when the song finished there was an uproar of excitement.

“Well done” said Mr. Thomas.

“What about Finbar?” said a voice from the back.

“Do you sing, Finbar?”

Finbar looked up “No! On the mouth organ” came the same voice from the back.

“Oh! You have a mouth organ?”

“Yes sir” said Finbar.

“Come on then.”

Finbar went to the front. “what are you going to play for us?”

“I don't know” said Finbar.

“You don't know?”

Finbar thought for a moment “Oh yes” said Finbar and went straight into Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and as he was playing so beautifully he looked at the boys in the class and saw that they were looking at him and when he looked at Alan Pitt he saw that he was crossing his eyes and making them jump which made Finbar laugh.

He went back to his seat and the class gave him a round of applause.

Another time he asked the boys to bring their guitars in – proper ones – and he recorded the efforts. There is a famous folk song or blues from the Mississippi Delta in the USA called 'Worried Man Blues,' and the boys who could play guitar told the boys who couldn't play, that most of the song was sung along to the 'G' chord, and the way to play a simple 'G' was on the third fret of the first string. That is the note G. There are two other notes in the chord but if you press that G only and play along with the nearer strings it sounds like a chord.

The first string is the one furthest away when you hold the instrument, the thin strings.

Most of the guitars played the G and they all sang together and when Mr. Thomas played it back it sounded quite good. He played the tape on a regular basis and there were other bits on there too including Clive Priest, singing 'Let's have a Party,' Alan Pitt singing 'All Shook Up' and Finbar playing the harmonica and cutting it short because he was laughing. Every time the tape played the class would laugh at Finbar's chuckle; he liked that.

Chapter 24

The Scouts