|
 ALBIE
WAS RATHER CONCERNED – to tell the truth the lad was
beside himself with worry at the prospect of sitting the GCE examinations,
which were only a week away. These were to be his final examinations
at the Paston School and his entire future hung in the balance.
As far as his parents’ expectations were concerned, they had
made it abundantly clear ‘he was to excel in all things and
pass with flying colours’. But Albie had just cause to question
his academic abilities and, as it was beginning to affect his health,
he plucked up courage to visit his doctor.
THE
FAMILY’S MEDICAL PRACTITIONER,
Dr Lawson – or ‘Merry and Bright’ as everyone called
him – was an amiable Scotsman and always full of the joys of
spring – hence his nickname. He held surgery in a large house
on the corner of Church Street in Sheringham and had the reputation
of being a natty dresser – never without his Norfolk jacket
and plus-fours!
In
those days it wasn’t necessary to telephone for an appointment,
besides, very few people were on the ’phone and there was no
appointment system – it was more a case of first come, first
served!
Albie
languished in the waiting room, with all the coughs and wheezing,
and patiently awaited his turn after making a mental note of those
already waiting, as certain latecomers had a tendency to
jump the queue!
“Next,
please!” called Dr Lawson, from his surgery across the
hall. “Will the next patient come through, please!”
The
first of the patients disappeared into the doctor’s surgery,
closing the heavy, panelled door behind them!
“Och,
now, what seems to be wrong with you?” Dr Lawson asked
his first patient, with his every word clearly heard in the waiting
room as the doctor had quite a loud penetrating voice. Following
some unintelligible mutterings there was a period of silence suggesting
a more intimate examination was taking place!
“Now,
take a tablespoon of this medicine la-ast thing at night,”
Merry and Bright was heard to say, as the door opened and the patient
emerged: “and
if you haven’t moved by the weekend, call and see me
again on Monday!”
For
a while, the coughing and sneezing gave way to fits of chortling
and giggling, as result of the doctor’s remarks in passing!
Albie
sat there for almost half an hour, as patiently as could be, waiting
for his turn to come, or had he been forgotten, he wondered?
ALBIE
CONSULTS MERRY AND BRIGHT!
Suddenly,
Dr Lawson yelled: “Next!” and Albie leapt to his
feet, almost knocked the door down, went inside and took a seat.
“Well,
laddie?”
said
Dr Lawson, adjusting his wire-rimmed, half-glasses on the end of
his nose, gazing at the boy in a quizzical manner, “and just
what seems to be the matter with you?”
“I
can’t eat. I can’t sleep an’ I just can’t think
straight any more,” Albie blurted out, almost in tears. “I’m
so worried, Doctor – really worried, an’ I just don’t
know what’s wrong or what I can do about it.”
 Dr
Lawson responded promptly by instructing the lad to undress and,
warming the endpiece of his stethoscope by breathing on it, he began
sounding the Albie’s chest.
“Breathe
in... and out. Say: aa-aargh!”
Albie’s
heart began pounding furiously in the almost certain knowledge that
there just had to be something terribly wrong.
“Perfect,
perfect,” declared his doctor and, with a noticeable
air of impatience, waved his hand for the lad to get dressed.
“Well,
laddie,” the doctor declared, “there’s nothing
at all wrong wi’ you.”
Albie,
with a look of utter disbelief on his face, openly expressed his
concern at the doctor’s findings, but Merry and Bright would
have none of it.
“Hmmph,”
he snorted, “seems to me that you’re suffering from a
wee bout of hypochondria, a nervous malady. Is there nothing at
all on ye mind?”
Albie
then began to express his fears and concerns regarding the forthcoming
GCE examinations that were only a week away.
“I
just have to do well,” moaned the boy. “There’s
so much expected of me and I’m not at all sure that I will
be able to live up to it, but if I fail my parents... I don’t
know what I’ll do!”
Doctor
Lawson then stated the obvious.
THE
DOCTOR MAKES HIS DIAGNOSIS
“Your
trouble,” he declared, placing his hands firmly on his hips,
“is that you’re totally lacking in self confidence
and we cannot have that, can we?”
Sitting
himself down at his large, dark-brown, mahogany desk in the corner
of his consulting room, Dr Lawson began hastily making some indecipherable
scribbles on a pad and, tearing off a sheet, handed it to Albie.
“We
can do a wee something for you, I ken,” Dr Lawson exclaimed,
much to Albie’s relief. “Just take this wee note down
to Mr Shewell the Chemist, then I’m sure you’ll be as
right as rain and sail through all your exams!”
Swiftly
ushering Albie out of his consulting room, the doctor called after
the lad: “Just take one little pill, a half-an-hour or so before
your exams, and then the rest is up to you, laddie. Good luck!”
“Next,
please!”
Albie
did as he was told and went home with a small tube of pills secreted,
under his handkerchief, in his right-hand trouser pocket, happy
in the knowledge that he would do well and excel in all things.
THE
DAY OF RECKONING
The
fateful day duly arrived and Albie, and the rest of his form, assembled
outside the gymnasium that had been set aside for the first examination
of the day – Mathematics, which Albie had come to dread!
In
his pocket, neatly concealed within the folds of his freshly-laundered
hankie, Albie could feel the small tube of pills prescribed by his
doctor. Already he sensed the telltale signs of impending nervousness,
with the butterflies fluttering inside his stomach, refusing to
settle.
Albie
glanced at the little tube of pills in his hand. ‘Pro-Plus’
it said on the label, ‘Guaranteed to Relieve Tiredness, Sustain
Stamina and Give Confidence’! Swiftly, but discreetly, he tore
open the wrapper and popped a sugar-coated pill into his mouth.
“Mmm...
quite nice,” he said to himself, then popped another, and another...!
In
the gymnasium, rows of desks and chairs filled the large hall, with
each set a regulation 6 feet apart from the next to deny any cribbing.
Satchels, books and logarithm charts were not permitted within the
exam room, with each scholar only allowed to take a pencil and ruler,
together with a fountain pen and a bottle of Quink – preferably
black.
“Silence
must be observed at all times,” ordered the Invigilator,
and, glancing at his watch, gave the order to commence. “Turn
over your papers, you may now begin. You have one-and-a-half
hours!”
WILL
ALBIE’S PILLS HAVE THE DESIRED EFFECT?
Turning
over his exam sheet, Albie looked at the first question. As if by
magic, his nervousness had vanished and he was feeling at peace
with the world, cocooned within a sort of pleasant warmth and, in
a sense, ‘on a high’. Quickly, he began his calculations
to the mathematical problem and wrote down his answer. If they were
all as easy as that, he told himself, he would sail through the
exam, he just knew it!
Albie
had finished his Maths’ paper within minutes to spare as the
bell rang heralding the end of the exam.
“That
was really easy, that Maths paper,” once outside, he
exclaimed to his friends. “I don’t know what all
the fuss was about, it was a piece o’ cake!”
But
his
friends weren’t at all sure, as they’d found the examination
quite difficult.
And
so it was for all the other examinations: English, History and Geography.
After popping a quick pill to stem his nerves, Albie would set to
and write all the essays, fill in all the dates, hazard a guess
where Mesopotamia was to be found, all without giving it a second
thought. After the exams, once outside, he was so confident
he’d done well. But had he really?
One
exception to the rule was the Art examination. This being his favourite
subject, Albie had decided the little ‘confidence’ pill
wasn’t necessary. Drawing
and painting like never before, the lad let his imagination run
riot and began expressing himself right from the heart, putting
his innermost thoughts and feelings down on paper in glorious colour.
When
his ‘work of art’ was finished, with every brushstroke
torn form his body, Albie was completely drained of all his emotions
and pent-up frustrations. But had he done well enough to pass the
exam? Strange, he thought, there were no feelings of confidence
this time, and, slightly downhearted from the ‘masterpieces’
he’d seen all around him, he was certain that the other scholars
had bettered him.
But
his Art Master, Joe Mercer, had other ideas and took him quietly
to one side.
“Albie,”
he whispered to the boy, “don’t let this go to your head,
but I think, from what I’ve seen from your painting, you’ve
done really well!”
Then
the lad remembered the day, many months before, when he’d been
sent home from school feeling rather unwell, and how he’d discovered
the joys of the countryside and sketching from nature. He’d
vowed there and then – on that sunny springtime day, beside
the Organ Beck at Beeston Regis – to become an artist and now,
it seemed, his ambition was about to be fulfilled.
“You
will need some formal training of course,” said Mr Mercer,
interrupting Albie’s daydreams, “but I’m sure they’ll
find a place for you at Art School!”
When
he arrived home, later that day, Albie told his mother what his
Art master had said.
“Oh,
I don’t know, Albie,” exclaimed his worried mother, anxious
for her only child to get the best out of life. “What do you
think, Dad?”
Albie’s
father wasn’t too keen on the idea of an artist in the family,
as he regarded most of them as unwashed, unshaven, dropouts!
“I
still think a career in the Co-op is the place for you, fellow-me-lad!”
he replied.
The
boy began to look rather crestfallen at his parents’ disaffection
with the idea of him being a painter, or an engraver, or perhaps
just a general artist in some north-facing studio, and, at this
point in time, his future didn’t look at all promising.
“But,
if that’s what you’ve set your heart on, Albie,”
replied his father with a wry smile, “then who are we
to stand in your way – if you want to be an artist, an artist
you shall be!”
Soon,
with all the examinations over, Albie was able to heave a sigh of
relief and await the arrival of the results of his labours, which
his parents hoped would be ‘exceptional’! The lad
himself, of course, was still full of ‘confidence’, in
the belief that he would achieve good pass marks in all subjects.
All would be revealed when the results were known later that summer
– but, was he to be in for a shock?
THE
LAST DAY AT THE PASTON SCHOOL
At
the end of five, long, wearying years, Albie, and the rest of the
scholars of the Paston School, assembled in the Gymnasium Hall for
the end-of-summer-term service. With mixed emotions, he joined the
crowd of young and old, smartly dressed Pastonians, for, what was
for him and many others, their final service.
 They
sang the psalms and hymns, and prayed for guidance in their world
to be, some secretly rejoicing that their time for learning was
over.
Then,
the Headmaster, Lieut. Col. Marshall, addressing the entire School,
spoke of ‘upholding
the honour and tradition of Paston’, reminding the leavers
of past achievements by other Pastonians – comments which Albie
and his friends had heard many times before – no doubt also
witnessed by countless other generations of past scholars.
“Whilst
the Sixth-form justifies the existence of the Grammar School institution,”
the Headmaster continued, “the less-gifted boys, in the academic
sense, grow strong in the habits of industry and especially in character,
which will put them in good stead later in life.”
This
was indisputable, as The Paston School was well-respected in the
world of commerce, as Albie was to find out in the years ahead.
The
service ended with the formation in the main aisle of all the boys
who were about to depart that famous school and go their separate
ways. As they moved quietly in full view of the rest of the seated
school, many were of mixed emotion. Some were eager to get on with
their lives – aspiring to the giddy heights of Oxbridge, or
an apprenticeship in some dark, noisy factory – whilst others,
like Albie, would go on for further education. Joining the rest
of his fellow school-leavers at the front, he began to feel a slight
pang of regret.
His
thoughts were interrupted by the Headmaster who, turning his attention
to the boys all standing patiently in front of the assembled school,
said: “I wish you all well. Go forth into the world and hold
our banner high, and never forget what you learnt at The Paston
School.”
Almost
time to leave, thought Albie, as they began singing the final hymn,
the hymn of dismissal, which was, by tradition, always sung at the
end of every summer term.
“Lord,
dismiss us with Thy blessing
Thanks for mercies past receive;
Pardon all, their faults confessing
Time that’s lost may all retrieve;
May Thy children
Ne’er again Thy Spirit grieve.”
Albie
sang loudly, until his voice ran dry and, with a lump in his throat
and a tear in his eye, he gave thanks for all the good times he’d
had at the Paston School, as images of the past invaded his mind.
Some times, of course, had left bittersweet memories; such as his
first day at the school with his initiation on the school train,
then there was the gruelling Cross Country Run which took place
every year – and his first experience of boxing, how could
he ever forget that!
“Let
Thy Father-hand be shielding
All who here shall meet no more;
May their seed-time past be yielding
Year by year a richer store;
Those returning
Make more faithful than before.”
Albie
found it difficult to sing that last verse of the hymn, as his innermost
feelings were beginning to get the better of him. He knew he would
always remember that final verse for the rest of his life. There
were, indeed, those he would see no more – boys he had grown
up with, those he had gone to Infants’ school, passed exams
with and joined at the Paston School – unless fate intervened,
their paths were destined never to cross again!
The
gymnasium doors suddenly burst open and, with one accord, an uncontrollable
flood of Pastonians of all ages burst out to go their separate ways.
Some laughing, some shouting, all clamouring for the summer, but
some to return another day.
Most
of the boys, amidst the sea of navy-blue blazers, were thinking
of nothing but their summer holidays, as they happily scurried down
the wide shingle drive to catch their ’buses and trains home.
This was not the time given to thoughts of the autumn term.
But,
there was to be no such return for the leavers, as they stood, isolated,
at the bottom of the driveway, alone, in an unfamiliar world.
As
Albie quietly walked away, he ventured a fleeting, backward glance
at the old School House and the Form Room Block at the Paston School,
which had been like a second home to him for the past five years.
Passing
through the gates that one last time, knowing he was never to return,
Albie brushed away a solitary tear from his eye.
“From
Good to Better Everywhere,” he said, turning on his heel
and tossing his blazer over his shoulder. “Look out world –
here I come!”
NEXT:
In Part Two of Albie’s Tales, the lad from Sheringham becomes
a Bohemian!
Please sign Albie’s guestbook as I would love to hear your
comments –
or email:
|
