Hamilton Academicals

Teachers at my secondary school were, on the whole, a few rays of light not withstanding, a shower of complete and utter miserable bastards.1

They clearly all detested their jobs only slightly less than they detested the pupils whom they were charged to allegedly educate. This led to all types of bizarre and ridiculous punishments for even the most trivial digressions from school rules.2

My chum Dave, having been seen to slide down the banister of the schools main staircase, side-saddle style, was then forced to polish said banister every break time for a week. Swoopster had been caught writing the word arse on the inside cover of one of his jotters. 3

The deemed suitable punishment for this scandalous behaviour? A weeks worth of break times, spent ensuring that all boy’s toilets were fully stocked with a plentiful supply of non absorbent toilet paper. 4

Then the daddy of them all, Bounce having been caught passing notes in Latin class, was then promptly shut in the stationery cupboard for the remainder of the class. No problem. I hear you thinking, as this was the schools standard policy for such transgressions and usually you would be right. However, on this occasion Mr. McRanter, forgot about him and on the bell ringing to usher in the lunch break, promptly pissed off to the pub, as was his custom and left him in there. 5

Imagine his surprise then, when Bounces father rocked up to school to look for his son, who had failed to return home for lunch and discovered where his son had been and indeed still was.6

The most zealous practitioner of these punishments was our dratted trigonometry / religious studies teacher, the awful Mr. Mortimer a.k.a. Morty. Morty was clearly a hero figure amongst his piers in the staffroom of a lunch and break time. Clearly quite an achievement, in a school who’s staffroom was awash with a never ending parade of people of dubious parentage and glib sociopathic ner-do-wells. 7

So Morty was then, to use a sporting analogy, a sort of player’s player, a chap’s chap if you like, or, if you prefer me to make it crystal clear, he was a bastard’s bastard.8

You must remember that this was the 1980’s and corporal punishment was the order of the day for serious crimes like running in the corridor, skiving or bunking off of classes and smoking in the boy’s cloakroom. However, unless you are the sort of fellow who wets the bed on a regular basis, likes musical theatre and whose hobbies include pillow biting. After you have sampled the delights the belt or Mr. Sting as a few of our teachers called it, its physiological effect as a method for deterring adolescent misbehaviour tended to be limited.9

It is true however that it did deter the nancy boys and jessies amongst our number to be whiter than white when it came to towing the line. However, boys will be boys and after numerous visits to Mr. Crampbell our fearsome Deputy Headmasters office for a meeting with the aforementioned Mr. Sting. It must have become glaring apparent to the teaching staff that the ubiquitous six of the best was no longer having the desired effect.10

Doomed!11

That was it, from that moment on you no longer only had stinging hands for a few minutes, no, no. Your presence was also required for a predetermined number of sessions, of mind numbingly boring detentions in the school library at break times.12

Guess who supervised these detentions?13

Yes you’ve guessed it! Morty, and what’s more you had to copy out sections or as he called them “Passages” from his favourite work of fiction, the do gooders handbook a.k.a. The Bible.14

It was during one such miserable detention session, where I had to copy out a biblical text word for word ten times. When the dratted Morty stepped out of the library and left a dozen or so pupils, thrown together from all years of the schools pupil body unsupervised.15

The door had no sooner clicked shut behind him when a classmate of mine called Hamilton, arose from his desk, ran over to Morty’s desk and proceeded to lift the telephone receiver which sat thereon. 16

Now before I go on, you must understand that this was the early 1980’s and the politically correct brigade had not yet taken umbrage at anything and everything even remotely racist or sexist. Hamilton you see was not his actual name, as being of Pakistani decent it was something all exotic like Caliph or Kulim, I can not quite recollect which. 17

Anyway I digress and not to chase this all around the houses, he was known around the boy’s cloakroom as Hamilton, after the football team Hamilton Academicals aka Hamilton Acies aka Paki’s.18

Childish? Yes!19

Racist? Undoubtedly!20

Amusing? When you are fourteen, a resounding yes! 21

Our pubescent right wing insults were as nothing however, compared to one or two of the male teaching staff, who had taken to calling Hamilton and I kid you not Gunga Din.22

Back to Morty’s bible bashing detention session. 23

Hamilton then dialled a number, I knew not which and upon an answer being acquired at the other end, began a verbal tirade casting all manner of aspersions on sexual preferences, religious beliefs and the identity of the recipients father. As a parting quip he nigh on shouted “And Theseus did not kill the minotaur! You fucking half wit!” 24

Suddenly it became apparent to all but the terminally imbecilic, which member of the teaching staff had been called.25

Hamilton, calm as you like, hung up the telephone, turned round with a huge smile upon his face and sat back down at his desk as if nothing was amiss.26

Top marks to him for wreaking his revenge, however a piss poor grade “F” to him for failing to think his ill-conceived scheme through and the odds therein of him actually getting away with it.27

A few minutes later the library door nearly flew off of its hinges as the enraged duo of Morty and Mr. Crampbell entered the room.28

“Who just phoned Mr. McRanter from this telephone?” They both hissed almost in unison.29

I sat with my head down getting on with the work at hand, as everyone knows that the very worst thing you can do is dob anyone in.30

There then followed what can only be described as the inquisition of all inquisitions, with genuine threats of school expulsion and even the possibility that the local rozzers may be summoned. Needless to say no one grassed up the increasing furtive looking Hamilton, despite the fact that most of us believed him to be a card carrying member of the pikey fraternity.31

The potty pair were clearly exasperated. With their usual grace and aplomb, they then dished out a class wide, en mass six of the belt and then played their joker. Announcing with what can only be described as sheer glee that and I quote “You are now all on detention for the next month! Unless the perpetrator is forthcoming!”32

We all stood firm and were not forthcoming with the required name, however as the earring wearing Hamilton would soon discover, we were less frugal when it came to dishing out black eyes, split lips and kicks to the bollocks.33

On the upside, my handwriting did improve no end by the end of the month, the downside was however that I also knew, nearly word perfect, far too much about do gooding, miracle working and the like, than is healthy for a young chap.34

Clown!35