David Walliams - Grandpa’s Great Escape

Jack didn’t like school much. He had just turned twelve so had been sent off to big school. He hadn’t made any friends there yet. All the other kids seemed to be only interested in the latest pop star or silly gadget. This being 1983, many of the kids spent their lessons fiddling with their Rubik’s Cubes under their desks. Jack couldn’t find a single person who had a passion for model aeroplanes. On his first day, he was laughed at by some older boys for even mentioning them. So Jack learned to keep his mouth shut.

“You are going to school today, young man!” Mum always called her son ‘young man’ when he had done something wrong. “You tell him, Barry!”

Dad looked up from his newspaper. “Well, it was very late last night…”

“BARRY!”

The man suddenly thought better of disagreeing with his wife and his sentence quickly changed tack. “…But of course you shouldn’t miss school. And in future please do absolutely everything your mother says.” Finally he added a rather mournful, “I know I do.”

Next, the woman gave her husband a rather unsubtle poke on the shoulder. It was clear she wanted him to make the big announcement about Grandpa. As Dad did not immediately respond, she poked him again. This time it was so hard he actually went, “Ow!”

“Bar-ry…” she prompted. Mum always said Dad’s name in that strange elongated way when she was trying to get him to do something.

Dad put down his paper and folded it slowly to put off speaking as long as he could. He looked straight at his father.

Jack feared the worst.

Was this the moment when Dad would tell Grandpa that he was going to be sent to Twilight Towers?

“Now, Dad. You know we all love you very much and only want the best for you…”

Grandpa slurped his mug of tea noisily. It wasn’t clear whether he had heard what his son had said at all, as there was no flicker in his eyes. Dad started again, speaking slower and louder than before. “Are… you… lis-ten-ing… to… me?”

“Spit it out, Cadet!” replied Grandpa. Jack smirked. The boy loved that his grandfather gave Dad a much lower rank than him. In fact, the lowest rank there was.

Dad (or ‘Officer Cadet Bunting’ as Grandpa called him) took a deep breath and started again. “Well, we all love you very much, and were thinking, well, it was the… er… Charlady…”

Mum glared at Dad.

“…I mean Barbara’s idea really. But after last night we both agree. We thought it might be best if you went into…”

Jack had to say something, anything. He needed to buy his grandpa some time. So before Dad could finish his sentence he blurted: “…School with me today!”

Jack had been petitioning his history teacher, Miss Verity, to be allowed to bring Grandpa into her class all term. At his new school, they had started studying World War II. Who better to learn about it from than someone who had actually been there? What’s more, all the other kids could see how cool his grandfather was. Maybe then having a collection of model aeroplanes wouldn’t be so sad after all?

Miss Verity was a tall, thin woman who wore long skirts down to her ankles and frilly blouses up to her chin. Her spectacles hung down from her neck on a silver chain. She was one of those teachers who somehow managed to make an exciting subject deathly dull. History should be thrilling, with its stories of heroes and villains who shaped the destiny of the world. Bloodthirsty kings and queens. Daring battles. Unspeakable methods of torture.

Sadly, Miss Verity’s method of teaching was mind-numbing. All the lady would do was write dates and names in her beloved coloured chalks up on the blackboard. Then her pupils would have to copy everything down into their exercise books. “Facts! Facts! Facts!”she would recite as she scribbled away. Facts were all she cared about. One particular history lesson, all the boys from her class clambered out of the window for a crafty game of footy in the playground. Miss Verity didn’t even notice they were gone, as she never turned around from her blackboard.

Convincing the history teacher to allow Grandpa into the classroom at some point had not been an easy task. In the end, Jack had to bribe her with a set of coloured chalks from the local newsagent’s shop. Fortunately for the boy, the shop owner, Raj, had sold the set of ‘luxury’ chalks as part of one of his special offers. They had come free with an out-of-date box of fudge.

It was lucky that history was the second lesson of the day, as Grandpa made his grandson rather late for school. First, it took a while to convince the old man that when Jack had said ‘school’ he did of course mean an RAF ‘flying school’, and not just the local comprehensive. Second, the ‘shortcut’ through the park turned out to be something of a ‘long cut’. Grandpa had insisted on climbing to the very top of the tallest tree in the park so he could “keep an eye out for enemy aircraft”. Coming down took a great deal longer than going up, and in the end Jack had to borrow a ladder from a nearby window cleaner to coax his grandfather to the ground.

When the pair eventually passed through the school gates, Jack looked at his RAF-issue watch and realised his history lesson had started ten minutes ago! If there was one thing Miss Verity could not abide, it was lateness. All eyes turned to the boy as he entered the classroom. Jack went bright red with embarrassment. He hated being the centre of attention.

“Why are you late, boy?” barked Miss Verity, spinning around from her blackboard.

Before Jack could reply, Grandpa stepped into the classroom.

“Wing Commander Bunting at your service, madam,” he said with a salute, before bowing his head and kissing the teacher’s hand.

“Miss Verity,” she replied, giggling and covering her mouth nervously. The teacher was obviously flattered by Grandpa’s gallantry. It might have been some time since a gentleman had made a fuss of her in this way. That the teacher giggled made the class giggle too. To silence them, Miss Verity gave the children one of her famous death stares. These were so chilling that they always worked in an instant.

“Please take a seat, Mr Bunting. I had absolutely no idea you were coming today!” She glared at Jack. The boy offered his teacher a warm smile. “But you are here, so let’s make the best of it. I believe you are going to tell us all about your life as a World War II fighter pilot?”

“Roger!” replied Grandpa.

The teacher checked behind her, in case someone called Roger had entered the room. “Who’s Roger?”

“It means yes, Miss,” called out Jack.

“Pop your hand in the air if you have something to say, boy,” she snapped, before turning back to Jack’s grandpa. “We have just begun studying the Battle of Britain. Please can you tell us something of your personal experience of this?”

Grandpa nodded and twizzled the ends of his magnificent moustache. “Certainly, madam. The first day of the Battle of Britain we all knew the enemy had planned something huge.

Total obliteration, that’s what Mr Hitler wanted. Radar picked up a huge squadron of Luftwaffe Junkers over the coast. With Messerschmitt fighter planes acting as guard. There were so many that day the sky was black with them.”

From the back of the classroom, Jack beamed with pride. The entire class was hanging on the old man’s every word. For a moment he felt like the coolest kid in school.

“We had no time to lose. The enemy was coming in fast. If we didn’t take to the air immediately, we would have been knocked out on the ground.”