Artistic Appreciation Society

1

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. “It’s nice when someone gets a hobby.” Hobbies for the most part usually involve some kind of sporting activity or for others it is creating something from nothing, for example gardening. 2

Step forward Leonard Smith aka Hoss, named for his uncanny resemblance to the television show Bonanza’s character Hoss Cartwright. In other words and to put this in the kindest possible terms, he was a great big fat bastard with a haircut any country bumpkin would have been proud of.3

Leonard’s hobby then you would have thought was pie eating but you’d have been wrong. Leonard as it turned out was a dab hand at free hand sketching and his speciality lay in caricatures. The art department corridor bore testament to this as innumerable pencil drawings of the days sporting heroes and acting types covered its walls. 4

Hoss then was a bit of a favourite with the schools creative teachers namely art, drama and music. This was however for Hoss not a positive development as he was branded one of the schools homosexuals by mere association. Hoss it has to be said was less than pleased with the rumour flying around the second year common room that he was a and I quote “Fat poof!” 5

However you must take in to account that this was 1984, Duran Duran were in the charts, foppish clowns the length of the land were taking to wearing make up and frilly shirts. Not to chase this all around the houses, the way Hoss looked he had more chance of flying to the moon than getting his hands on a female and disproving the student bodies suspicions regarding his sexuality.6

Clearly bitter, Hoss went absent from school for a couple of weeks, conspicuous only by his absence from his usual post at the head of the queue for the tuck shop at break time. 7

It was a dank rain soaked June morning as I pushed the door open to the second year boys common room when I was met by what can only be described as cocktail of mirth and sheer terror. The common room was packed to the rafters with chaps seeking shelter from the downpour outside. Grasped in their sweaty teenage hands was a collection of stapled together pages from a homemade publication whose title was written large in black, front and centre on the cover.8

The new publication in question was the aptly titled “The Lash” and was clearly homage to the adult comic.9

Top, top marks to Hoss for putting his sizable talents in the sketching department to good use, as page after page revealed drawings of the clearly recognisable teaching staff in all manner of compromising positions. 10

Firstly there was our dreaded Deputy Rector Mr. Crampbell whose good name was besmirched as he was depicted throughout the cartoon strip as a psychopathic racist, who roamed the corridors looking for black pupils and chanting his mantra of “Fuck off back to your own country!” Oh and incidentally he also liked to sport women’s underwear below his suit. The title of this comic strip was my personal favourite “The King Of The Bastards And His Jocular Larks”.11

The walking egg that was Ms. Sherburne bore the brunt of Hoss’s wrath in the cartoon strip entitled “Hermaphrodite”. In which the unfortunate teacher was depicted as a gender confused alcoholic, highlights included scenes of her smoking a pipe, drinking a pint, having a shave and the daddy of them all, taking a piss standing at a urinal in the gents toilets.12

Even the shapely and extremely attractive Ms. Marks did not escape. Ms. Marks was lampooned as a conniving, huge breasted nymphomaniac, with a predisposition for foul language and an insatiable urge to have sex in public places. 13

Get the idea / feel of the publication and its narrative?14

Job done?15

Excellent!16

I laughed, Oss laughed, even Mr. Jenkins, aka Bullit Head, our sociopath of a physical education teacher look mildly amused. The dratted Mr. Crampbell however looked less than tickled pink, as he stood face turning a deep shade of purple, at what he had just discovered pinned to the schools main notice board.17

We did not see poor, poor, homosexual by default, Leonard after that and the school rumour mill spun into overdrive. The common coin of currency was that the frightful Crampbell had killed him to death and buried him under the school gym hall floor.18

Truth be told however he had simply been expelled from school and had to attend another school nine miles away in deepest darkest Pikeytown.19