Forget the Fish

The challenge was to write a piece that ended with the words: 'Forget the Fish. We need to leave. Now!'

This is my effort - not to be taken at all seriously!

Forget the Fish

I had a hope, when we started tonight,
That, just this once, we would get something right.
No dreadful mistakes, or terrible flaws
To stop us receiving tons of applause.
Our audience large, delighted and wowed
We’d earn loads of cash and make our mums proud.
We’d perform all our tricks, end with a song.
But – oh dear – it’s all gone horribly wrong.
Perhaps what first got us into this mess
Was when I tripped and caught hold of your dress.
As the darned thing ripped and fell to the floor
The women all screamed, the men shouted ‘More!’
I just hope they heard my shouted out pleas:
The programme did not include a striptease.
And was it really such a good plan
When sawing the girl to use a large can
Of highly authentic bright red fake blood?
A smear is OK, but that was a flood.
The blue lights outside were not a good sign –
At least five people had dialed 999.
The card tricks were dud – could I find the Jack?
I wish you’d told me I’d brought the wrong pack.
Tapped with my wand, pulled the hat from my head
How was I to know the rabbit was dead?
And as for the doves, why didn’t you say
When windows are open birds fly away?
Now we’re approaching the end of the show
Do we continue, I ask – yes or no?
I have to say I’m beginning to doubt
If I can pull off the juggling with trout.
We have to admit our act’s a disgrace
A ripe tomato just hit me full face.
There’s not much point in us taking a bow -
Best forget the fish. We need to leave. Now!


© John Welford

The Three Bears: a story

                                                  

‘The trouble with your porridge, Mummy Bear, is that you always serve it far too hot and the three of us have no alternative but to go for a walk in the woods until it cools down. Do you agree, Daddy Bear?’

‘I certainly do, son, and that always leaves open the possibility that we will forget to lock the door and some small golden-haired child will wander in and start sampling it.’

‘Any such golden-haired child will almost certainly want to sit in my chair and eat my porridge, Daddy Bear.’

‘Why’s that, son?’

‘Because your chair is too hard, Mummy’s is too soft, your porridge has too much salt in it, Mummy’s doesn’t have enough, and any small golden-haired child – should one by some chance happen to wander by – is much closer in age, size and inclinations to me – the child of this family – than to two hulking great adult bears.’

‘And what, my clever clogs of a son, do you think this golden-haired child will do once she has had her fill of your porridge?’

‘Well, if it was me I’d wander upstairs for a lie-down and discover that only one of the three available beds was to my liking.’

‘Any idea which that might be, as if I couldn’t guess?’

‘Well, mine of course. Not too hard, not too soft, just the right size.’

‘You could be right, son.’

‘And then no doubt she’d fall fast asleep and we’d discover her when we got home from our walk.’

‘It could just happen, son, which is why, every time we try this trick, we always forget to lock the front door. One day things might turn out just as you suggest.’

‘You mean you want us to find some golden-haired child in my bed after she’s broken my chair and eaten my porridge?’

‘We certainly do.’

‘But why?’

‘Tell me, son, do you really like porridge?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘And do you know why that is?’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘It’s because, son, you’re a bear. It’s only in kiddies stories that bears eat soppy things like porridge. Bears much prefer to eat meat, ideally freshly torn from some creature that they’ve caught and ripped apart with their fearsome teeth and claws. It’s high time that you diversified your diet and started eating like the carnivore you really are.’

‘And you reckon that a small golden-haired child might be just the right size for a small bear like me to start on?’

‘Exactly son, you’ve got it in one. Now just get off that chair and join your mother and me for a walk in the woods. With any luck you might get something decent for breakfast when you get back.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’

© John Welford

First Day at School

There was no question about it – I was definitely not looking forward to my first day at Oakdale Junior School in September 1959. That was because of my last day at Stanley Green Infants the previous July.

In order to make the transition as painless as possible – that was the general idea – we were all ushered the short distance between the two schools so that we could spend the afternoon in the care of the teacher who would be looking after us when we returned after the Summer holidays.

Oakdale Junior was one of the largest primary schools in the Borough of Poole, taking about 150 new pupils every year, divided into four classes. These were rigidly streamed with promotions and demotions at the end of each term for those children who exceeded expectations or failed to reach the expected standard. An assessment had already been made at the infants’ school so the streaming came into play right from day one.

That meant that I was placed in Class 4, which was the A stream. The top two streams, in classes 3 and 4, were housed in a separate classroom block across a side road from the main school. It was to this block that my group of pupils was conducted on the afternoon in question.

I could never have imagined the shock that was going to befall me and the other children from Stanley Green. This had been a very progressive school for its time, housed in a building that was only about five years old when I joined the school in 1957. Every classroom was light and airy, with a door leading to a garden area in which lessons were sometimes conducted on fine days in Spring and Summer. Learning through play was a strong element and there were no teachers to whom one could not take an instant liking.

However, the teacher who greeted us in Class 4 at Oakdale Junior was far from likeable. This was Mrs Barnett, who was not only considerably older than most of the teachers at Stanley Green but had also come from a very old-fashioned tradition of teaching in which strict discipline was the top priority. She made it clear at the outset that our job was to attend to her every word and not let our attention flag for an instant. She ordered us to our places – each child at a desk in a row instead of the groups at tables that we had been used to – and told to look directly at her and not even think of talking to anyone else.

Not unnaturally, some of the children wanted to take a look at their new surroundings and pass the odd comment to a neighbour. When Mrs Barnett caught a child doing this she pounced on them, dragged them to the front of the room and whacked them three or four times on the back of the leg with a ruler. This happened several times during the afternoon, either for inattention or failing to answer a question correctly – which was usually because Mrs Barnett assumed that our Stanley Green teachers would already have drilled us in pieces of knowledge that they clearly did not think we were ready to learn.

So that was why I spent a terrible Summer holiday absolutely dreading my first day at Oakdale Junior School. I’m sure that I was not alone in this among the future members of Class 4.

My mother dropped me off at the school on my first morning, but she did not know about the separate classroom block and I was left on the other side of the main school building. I therefore had to ask the crossing warden, who controlled the traffic lights at the busy road junction outside the front of the school, where I had to go. She told me to go through a gate in a high fence, which I duly did, only to find myself in a playground thronging with kids – boys only - from all the years in the school.

A whistle blew and the children were instructed to form up in lines according to the class they now belonged to for the new school year. I joined one of these lines, hoping it was the right one, and followed the instruction to stand to attention then turn left and march off through the cloakroom and into the long corridor off which all the classrooms led. I simply followed the leader and found myself in a classroom that was nothing like the one I remembered from July. We were soon joined by the girls, who had been marched down from the other end of the corridor.

A roll was taken, but my name was not on the register so I could not answer “present” as every other child was able to do. I just sat there, feeling very confused and wondering when Mrs Barnett would show up, because the teacher in front of me was certainly not the harridan I was dreading to meet again.

A few minutes later Mr Knight, the deputy headmaster, came in and asked if there was a John Welford in the room, which there certainly was. He told me that I had placed myself in the C stream and needed to follow him to where I should have been. “Here we go”, I thought. “I wonder what sort of mood Mrs Barnett will be in”.

I was duly taken across the side road and into the correct classroom – Mrs Barnett’s lair.

But Mrs Barnett was not there. Instead, there was a very pleasant young lady called Miss Robinson who welcomed me with a smile and showed me where to sit. She turned out to be an excellent teacher who treated children in a far more civilized way than Mrs Barnett had done and never used any form of corporal punishment on a child, not that she was ever placed in a position where this might have been a possibility.

It turned out that our afternoon with Mrs Barnett had been the final few hours of the latter’s career before her retirement. Why she had decided to end her days as a teacher by whacking as many children as she could is anyone’s guess, but we were all mighty glad that the school had chosen a replacement who was far more deserving to be termed a teacher.

© John Welford