You Shouldn't Mock The Afflicted

S.E. class or social education class to give the subject its full title was a class for which everyone’s attendance was compulsory. This was due to the fact that this subject only ran for about the initial six months of our first year of secondary education and so opting out was not an option.1

Our teacher for the first month or so of this class had been the frightful Ms. Sherburne, who as described in a past tale, was no stranger to a cream cake and clearly drew Solis in her friends from the sensible shoe wearing fraternity. The final straw for her came I think when she was charged with educating our class in the dark arts that are hands up the jumper or to give the subject its official title, sex education.2

The upshot of which was a mirth filled forty-minute class on human copulation, during which she lost complete control of the entire class and more than half of us ended up being expelled from the room to await our fate in the corridor at the hands of our dreaded Deputy Rector.3

So it was then that on yet another dank Monday morning in early December 1982 that we had a new social education teacher, the never knowingly keen, head of the technical department, Mr. Linguard. I for my own part had already had some unpleasant dealings with the monotone woodwork teacher, the outcome of which had been a rather unpleasant meeting between the stinging palms of my hands and the frantic whittlers leather four-pronged strap.4

Fair to say then that Mr. Linguards classes, be it carpentry or otherwise, were for us, never going to be the home of laughter.5

“Boys and girls. In the run up to the Christmas period, this class will be mostly concerned with community projects. This will culminate in the entire year coming together to organise and run an afternoon of entertainment for the senior citizens of the town. Any profits generated by our activities will be donated to a local charity of the Rectors choice.” Droned on the monotone Linguard surprising even our apathetic class with his lack of enthusiasm.6

Unfortunately for us, we had badly misinterpreted the situation and found ourselves bodging together all manner of shite in our technical classes. We were then to apparently pedal this crap, at a profit, to the codjures in attendance at the end of term event/bun fight.7

Mr. Linguard took his woodwork class very seriously and we all did well not to piss our pants with laughter as he unveiled our latest woodwork project, for which we would and I paraphrase a little form him here. “Calculate the cost of the raw materials, plan out a production strategy and forecast our production output by the projects completion date!” All very well and good. In fact top marks in helping a bunch of twelve year olds understand better the world of business, however a piss poor grade “F” minus for his choice of product to be manufactured.8

Was it the usual shoddy toast rack?9

No!10

Was it then the equally dire pointless small storage box?11

Again no!12

Mr. Linguard whipped out from below his desk, with it has to be said a foolish look of immense pride upon his podgy face, what was to be our carpentry project. Namely the worst looking cobbled together stick puppet in the history of the world.13

As I said I did well to hold it in, not so fortunate Knumbnutts who made absolutely no attempt to curb his hilarity whatsoever, as he openly laughed his head off at the puppets appearance in front of the entire class.14

“I’ll have you know that in my old school in Glasgow we manufactured and sold dozens of these puppets. They were a huge hit with the old people!” Blurted out Mr. Linguard in a forlorn attempt to win us round.15

“Buy a lot of them in Glasgow! Want to buy a puppet? Buy a lot of them in Glasgow!” Howled Knumbnutts the tears rolling down his cheeks.16

Two of the lash and a hundred lines of the sentence, I must not be an exhibitionist or a hypocrite in Mr. Linguards woodwork class, to be handed in the next morning for his troubles.17

Over the next few weeks we farmed together the thick end of two pathetic, sorry looking stick puppets each, bringing the class hall to over sixty of the goggle-eyed monstrosities. Which we were to sell on an unsuspecting public, at the rip off price of £1.25 each. This meant the school actually trebled its money on the deal, not taking into account the fact of the forced slave labour upon its student body or the dim view the Trading Standards Agency take of such cavalier manufacturing practises.18

The second last Friday afternoon prior to the school breaking off for Christmas was the date set for our and I quote from the schools Rector directly “High School Community Fund Raiser!” The day upon us, it became glaring apparent to even the most feeble minded of students that this was going to be heavy going to say the least. 19

The girl’s in cahoots with the carpet munchers of the home economics department had done themselves proud baking up the usual selection of rock cakes, drop scones and the like.20

Mr. Smyth a.k.a. Tefal and the other bastions of homosexuality at drama and art had press ganged a band of like minded sexual deviants in to putting on a short concert in the schools main hall. This concert featured, surprise, surprise, songs from the shirt lifters favourite genre of musical theatre.21

Even the Benny’s and half-wits from the special needs class had contributed. Their top pupil Alexander (pronounced with your tongue pressed against the back of your lower set of teeth) displayed and attempted to punt a collection of his “Art”. Or to be more specific a collection of hand daubed finger paintings, which looked more like an explosion in a paint factory than actual art.22

Unbelievable the old dears from the local community actually seemed to be enjoying this stuff. The puppets were soon sold out, the cakes were all eaten/sold and the staff canteen tea urn could hardly keep up with the demand. 23

It couldn’t last.24

“Now ladies and gentlemen, if you would all like to take your seats in the main hall, Mr. Smyth from the music department has put together a show for your entertainment!” Crowed Deputy Rector Crampbell lording it over his cohorts.25

Oh spoons, I knew I would not be able to contain myself at the site of a load of and I quote from Oss directly “Benders mincing about on stage!”26

The lights dimmed, the curtain rose and having guessed what was about to happen, Mr. Crampbell loomed large and put the mockers on any hilarity.27

The room jam packed full of Octo and Nanogenarians were well pleased with the stage show as they clapped and sang along. As the curtain came down on the show we all thought the worse was over.28

How wrong could we be?29

After a short lull, up came the curtain again and there stood what can only be described as three of the most mental looking deranged pupils from the special needs class. Who then proceeded to completely murder and kick the arse out of some god awful old Scottish country song. 30

That was it! I laughed so hard and so loud I thought I would wet myself. Bounce, head back, roared with laughter, Oss laughed; even Mr. Jenkins our lecherous P.E. teacher was smiling ear to ear.31

Mr. Crampbell went bananas and following a severe talking to in his office he penned us all a letter home, which memorably contained the line. “Unfortunately JSDK finds mocking the afflicted amusing!” 32

My parents for reasons most apparent were not best pleased and I was in deep, deep shit once again.33