Adam Mars-Jones - Pilcrow

I had the stage to myself and got busy. My experiments worked wonderfully. Biggie went Oooh! and Aaah! along with the others as my flash paper disappeared into thin air, my invisible ink glowed brown when we warmed up the paper, my hydrogen popped and my violet iodine solution cleared in an instant when I gave the magic command. At the moment when my magnesium ribbon ignited in eye-searing fashion, the hope on Julian’s face finally died.

His set had dried out by now, all the same, and Biggie encouraged him to put on his own performance. She had become thoroughly involved and did her best to make his display a success. She even told boys that they should pay as much attention to Julian’s experiments as they had to mine, which I thought was taking fair-mindedness rather too far. In any case our audience had had enough of chemistry by now. Boys started drifting off into other parts of the building, and I left too. It’s not in my power (in this body) to slip out unobtrusively, but I didn’t see why I should stay out of politeness when the contest had so clearly been won. The last words I spoke to Julian that day, under my breath but quite loud enough for him to hear, were, ‘Enjoy your Tiny Tots.’ It pains me now to think that I had been as spiteful as anyone. If I had put as much effort into treating Julian nicely as I did into stage-managing his public humiliation, I could have shrunk my ego down to manageable dimensions and transformed my own experience of the school.

Corrupt cylinder

At this point I was equally drawn to making myself popular and unpopular. If there were sausages for supper, in which case we had two per person, I would eat one and slip the other into a pocket, with a slice of bread wrapped round it to catch the grease. O sausage both holy and debased! Corrupt cylinder of nameless flesh and bland padding, but undeniably modular. Easy to transport.

Then in the dorm I’d stow it under the pillow and once the lights were out, slyly retrieve it. I’d croon ‘Nar-nar-na-nar-nar’ under my breath, that jeer of triumph which must be one of the oldest things in language. I’ve got something you don’t have . I’d make sure to eat the sausage as loudly as possible, with the maximum possible chomping and slurping.

Outrage and uproar. Physical mobility being in short supply in the dorm the other boys had little chance of grabbing a bite (though Roger Stott would have been in with a chance), but they could certainly vent their frustration in scream and song. Matrons came thudding, and I had an appointment the next morning to explain myself and the mayhem I had caused.

I didn’t cringe. I explained that this was something that was supposed to happen. ‘It’s called a midnight feast,’ I said. ‘It’s in all the books.’ I made my case. The dorm feast might not be in the calendar, but it was every bit as necessary as Hallowe’en. The snack of misrule was an indispensable part of life in a proper school.

I managed to turn something which started as a piece of selfish swank into a community crusade. Of course there had to be confab at every level before the justice of my assertion could be confirmed and something less ramshackle arranged. Midnight feast was schoolboy anarchy, but these schoolboys couldn’t be anarchic without help from the authorities to be defied. It wouldn’t have been possible for anyone but an AB to raid the kitchens, for instance. Raeburn, Willis, the matrons — everybody must have been in on the planning stages.

So one night there was salad for supper. Everyone complained about rabbit food, and nobody really ate a great deal. Then an hour after lights-out matrons came in with torches and bowls of crisps and slices of cake. Biggie was queen of the feast, but still somehow invisible.

There are puppet shows where the operators are in full view. It’s only convention that makes them disappear. That was how it worked in the dormitory, after the first moment of stunned surprise. We understood perfectly that the staff were not socially present. They were the conjurors of the treat, but they were not part of the event. It would have been wrong to thank them. They weren’t really there, but the food really was.

It was a magic feast, like something out of the Arabian Nights, even if the genies weren’t very light on their feet and blocked the light of the torches they brought. And genies as they return to their bottles don’t normally murmur, ‘We’ll be back with flannels and toothbrushes in half an hour.’

A scar I could be proud of

When I had come back to Vulcan after the appendix, once I finally had a scar I could be proud of and show off to selected fellow pupils, the Tan-Sad had stayed put in Bourne End. The reclining position it enforced had made it impossible for me to come close enough to a desk for lessons.

Waiting for me at Farley Castle was an Everest & Jennings wheelchair. Despite the classy name it was the standard National Health Service issue at the time. It wasn’t electric, but it could be converted. What this meant in plain language that an E&J motor (on order, rather a waiting list I’m afraid, John) could be bolted in place on the silver-chrome chassis to power the chair, the bulky battery tucked in at the back. Of course the NHS supplied the chair but not the motor.

With so little mobility in my hips I had never really been able to sit, though I learned to impersonate sitting well enough to put others at ease. On visits with Mum to friends of hers in Bourne End I would be able to settle myself in most chairs. I would perch my bum on the edge of the seat and lean back, keeping balance with my feet.

The Everest & Jennings was hardly more practicable. For longer trips around the Castle I could be pushed by Roger Stott my pet AB, the George-Harrison-in-waiting, his features soon to be plastered on most of the bedroom walls in the world, but he wasn’t my servant, or even designated as my helper except by his good nature. I needed to be able to move the chair myself, even if only to adjust its position relative to the desk once Roger had delivered me to a lesson. I learned to do this by leaning over and pushing against the tyre minimally with my hand, but my leverage was small and the required position precarious.

There weren’t seat belts for cars yet, so there were hardly going to be seat belts for wheelchairs. My guardian angel must have been working overtime during this period, which was perhaps why she (if mine was Mary Finch) didn’t have energy to spare to deal with human threats to my well-being. With Judy Brisby.

One thing that always annoyed me when I was finally settled at my desk was the paper. Foolscap. Why did the school insist on dishing out that particular size? It was so tall that if I tried to write anywhere near the top of the sheet I would inevitably crease and crumple the bottom half. On the other hand, it was both wasteful and odd-looking if I started writing half-way down. Out of the question, of course, to cut it in half for my benefit. The only concession offered was that I could use a typewriter. Although I was thrilled when Raeburn praised my competence on the machine (saying I was ‘quite the touch-typist’), I was stubborn enough to persist in writing by hand. I preferred the typewriter, but in my perverse way thought it made things too easy for other people. It was only fair that the teachers should struggle to decipher my markings. I had struggled to make them.

After CRX, the standard of the teaching at Vulcan was thrillingly high. Of course there was the odd journeyman duffer, whose idea of teaching was to read things to us out of text-books, but there were also bright sparks on the staff, and teachers who weren’t threatened by having bright sparks in front of them as pupils.