Patronise at Your Peril

Patronise at your peril

In 33 years working with boys below the age of fourteen I have
experienced a number of gentle 'put downs' from my pupils. Here are a
few of them:
Whilst taking a junior class for Science two of my scholarship
candidates were working on their own in the same room. Both were of
ample proportions. I idly remarked to the form in general that boys who
were good at Science appeared to have big bottoms, to which one of them
replied, "You must be very good at Science, Sir."

On another occasion a colleague of mine had been doing human
reproduction with a class of ten year olds. He had misspelled
'spermatic cord' as 'spermatic chord'. At the end of the period a very
small boy came up to him and said, "I know its an organ Sir, but there
is no 'h' in cord."

I coached the under elevens at Rugby for a great many years. One day I
went home for lunch and found what I took to be last night's chilli con
carne in a bowl. I tucked in and went to take my game. As the game
progressed I got more and more liverish and gave them hell. That night
my wife revealed that she had mixed the chilli con carne with dog food,
ready to feed to the dog. The next day I apologised to the boys in the
game and explained why I was so bad tempered. At a later date I was
incubating flu and behaved very much as before. Once again I apologised
later when one of them said "It's alright, Sir, we thought it was only
dog food.

I was also involved in a recording of the school jazz band, and my
brief write up described me as an ex seaman. One of the band came up to
me afterwards and said "Ex seaman", we're all that aren't we Sir?

Although I was bigger than the rest of the jazz band, I was by no means
better. In one piece I came in loud and wrong at the start of the piece
on my tuba when all was quiet. "What some people will do for a solo",
said a diminutive trumpeter to my right".

The most subtle joke I remember was played upon the staff as a whole.
In chapel (compulsory for boys and staff alike) the hymn books were put
out at the right place for the first hymn in the staff stalls. One
Sunday the chapel wardens put out the books at hymn 679 when it was
actually 769 and quietly enjoyed seeing all the masters hurriedly
ruffle through their hymn books.

I had just told the story of how a cat had eaten most of Hardy's heart
when they left it in an urn on the kitchen table before burying it in
Dorset. I suggested that this made a complete interment difficult. Bury
the cat came the instant solution.

My wife was driving my four year old daughter to school when a stray
dog ran across the road. My wife said that such dog owners should be
shot, to which my daughter responded that that would mean that there
would be many more stray dogs on the streets.

Finally, an incident that had nothing to do with children. I was
canvassing and came to a house where the man of the house had just
died. I asked the lady who came to the door if we could count on her
vote. I then enquired about her husband's loyalties. She said that he
was deceased. I understood her to have said 'diseased'. I promptly
offered to arrange a postal vote for him. She shut the door and
fled.