Adam Mars-Jones - Pilcrow

Eventually I was the only pupil left in the dining hall. Even David had done his best by the boiled egg and had been wheeled away. Judy Brisby said to the kitchen staff, ‘Just leave him there until he eats it all.’ I waited for a very long time, sitting and staring at that awful fish. Its juices had seeped into the toast, which had swollen and turned into unspeakable mush. The kitchen staff finished their shift and left. Then Judy Brisby was back. She checked all the doors of the dining room, in case there were stragglers or someone coming back for something.

She came close. ‘I’m warning you’, she whispered, ‘that if you don’t eat this on your own, I’ll just have to force-feed you. I’ll pinch your nose shut so you have to open your mouth. And then I’ll jam the food in with my fingers if I have to. I’m going to count to five, and then I’ll start. You can’t say you haven’t been warned.’

I didn’t say anything but I didn’t feel at all brave. I was telling myself she wouldn’t dare give me a nerve punch, but the woman leaning over me didn’t seem short of nerve. She even seemed excited by what was going on.

If she counted to five she did it quickly and without moving her lips. Then she did indeed pinch my nose. She kept her promise. She pulled my head back as far as it would go, and somehow she got my mouth open. Next second she was stuffing pilchards down me and ordering me to swallow. I wouldn’t even chew it. When she told me again to swallow ‘or you’ll get “what for”’, I spat it out. I had been quite a good spitter at CRX, practising on chewed-up corners of linen sheet, but I excelled myself now. The squalid mouthful of mushy fish went everywhere. Much of it went sailing over the table and on to the floor.

My defiance made Judy Brisby truly terrifying now. She simply picked me up from the chair and strode out of the dining room. Her rage wouldn’t contemplate the delay of the lift. She passed it by and carried me up the stairs and to the Blue Dorm. At the top of the stairs she held me upside down over the stair-well. Only her death-grip on my ankles stopped me from falling. She was beside herself. She hissed, ‘ Now will you? Now will you?’ She was panting with fury and exertion. Now would I what? The pilchards were miles away by then. This was no longer about pilchards. At last she got her breathing under control, dragged me back over the banisters and took me to the dorm. When she was a yard or so from my bed, she stopped and simply threw me towards it.

Her aim wasn’t good, or else only part of her wanted me to land safely. On my way through the air towards the bed my hip hit the side very hard. I howled in pain and couldn’t stop. Judy Brisby went out, and I went on crying.

Then Judy Brisby came back with Biggie, the Big Matron in charge of all the others, Sheila Ewart, nothing but kindness from stem to stern. Even the nicest matrons were strict at Vulcan, though, and Biggie had her own fixed principles. In her book there was nothing worse than telling tales.

Judy Brisby had obviously told her about what had been going on. Now she put on a show of tender concern, saying, ‘Well why didn’t you say you didn’t like the dinner? David Driver doesn’t like it either, so he had boiled egg and toast. You could have had that if you had wanted it! Lot of fuss about nothing!’ As if all I was crying about was not liking the food. Little cry-baby fuss-pot.

I looked tearfully at her and knew she had won with her lies. There she was, lying in front of dear Biggie, and Biggie was swallowing it all down. There was nothing I could do about it. Nothing at all.

Of course I took Biggie too literally. When she talked about not telling tales, she meant she didn’t want to hear petty accusations among the boys. Who had drawn on whose book, who had called whom a ‘thrombosis’ (which was our roundabout way of saying ‘bloody clot’). Being hurled through the air by a member of staff came into a different category. She’d have wanted to hear about that, but I didn’t know it at the time.

I couldn’t make a phone call without the help of a member of staff, so how could I grass Judy Brisby up? Telling Mum wouldn’t do much good either. She knew the number of the NSPCC off by heart, but when it came right down to it she was better at telling her neighbours how they should behave than knowing what to do herself.

The hip gave me pain for some time after the event, but I didn’t dare ask to see a doctor about it, in case he asked me questions whose answers would get me into more trouble.

All over PG Tips

Judy Brisby was lucky in her timing. I had made up my mind to confide in Mum, no matter what, the next time I went home for the weekend. Not to tell tales but to ask what to do, and to hope that she would take it out of my hands. But by then something had happened which made it certain that I would keep my trap shut.

It turned out that I wasn’t the only Cromer to be having a bad time at his school. Peter was attending Lord Wandsworth College in Long Sutton, near Hook in Hampshire. The school was founded in 1912 with funds from the late lord, who wanted to help full or half orphans — children who had lost at least one parent. The school’s whole purpose was tender, by that token, and of course the years after 1912 were absolute prime years for the creation of orphans. The supply began to dry up after the Second War, though, and after that time fee-paying pupils untouched by bereavement began to be accepted.

There were still traces of the founder’s mercy in Peter’s time. Permission was granted for pupils to keep certain pets. They had to be animals (such as rabbits and guinea pigs) that didn’t need to roam free. There were even a couple of lizards. Peter didn’t have a pet himself, but he had a powerful connection with animals. The fact that the pets which were tortured at the school belonged to other boys didn’t actually make a difference to him. The rabbit with the lacerated ears. The guinea pig with the scorched fur. The lizard whose shed tail did not deceive its giggling predators. Their pain lodged in him. He had no ability to disown it.

His sense of justice was soothed when the bullies turned their attention on him. They would drive drawing pins into his arms and legs. Then they started on beatings which became general and promiscuous. The site they chose for this torture was an old bomb shelter in the grounds. They told him when to come there, and he came. They didn’t need to come and fetch him. He took all he could take, and then he simply walked out and went to the railway station, took a train and explained to the ticket-collector that he had to go home.

That was one advantage I enjoyed at Vulcan. Judy Brisby never expected me to go to her to be ill-treated. She came to me.

When Peter arrived home after his train journey, there was bruising all over his body. The boys at Lord Wandsworth had been only partially educated. They hadn’t learned the trick of the nerve punches. Their tea-bag marks were very visible. Peter was all over PG Tips.

There were bruises on his soul that took much longer to heal. It showed how deeply the bullying had gone that he hadn’t said a word to me about it. Any more, I suppose, than I had told him about what Judy Brisby got up to. We protected our tormentors while we could, and never owned up to the taint of pain while we had the choice.

Our GP in Bourne End Dr Flanagan (Flanny) said that Peter’s injuries were certainly serious enough for us to sue Lord Wandsworth College. She said she would be happy to give evidence and back him up in court. Flanny was very far from being a soft touch. She was brisk and efficient and didn’t have much time for the niceties. It’s a fact that medical school is designed to grind down idealism into heartless competence, but Flanny must have been well on her way already. She had a head start.