» School Days

One or Two Things
(I) Religious Education

For RE, we had a young chaplain who, basically, didn't seem to actually worry about the education component, nor the religious element; in fact, it was a bit of a mystery exactly what he was teaching us.

However, he remains memorable to this day for choosing to believe that Priest was suitable viewing for a class full of fifteen-year old boys.

Not only this, but he gave it the following introduction:

"Yes, this film does feature Hamish Macbeth. But none of you ask me where his helmet is."

Shudder.

(II)

Later, having moved away from the lunacy of single-sex education, I was happily studying for my 'A' Levels when we were taken on a field trip to Wales to study the biology of the sea.

All well and good, you might think, but as we rocked up to the tiny Welsh hostel that was to be our home for five or so nights, there was the growing realisation that, yes, shared rooms would be involved.

This wouldn't have been a problem, had it not been for Gilbert.

Now, the boys' rooms were immediately split into demographics; The Cool Kids, and The Others. In an odd way, I'm now proud to be an 'other', but back then, it meant - trust me, this is bad - sharing a room with Gilbert, Ray, and another guy whose name escapes me.

Ray was, in fact, cast into our heathen wilderness simply because there was not enough room in the Cool Kids Room, but he bore it with remarkable dignity and grace. Or, more likely, he didn't really care.

Gilbert, however, was a walking chemical weapon. He had no social graces, no endearing qualities that spring to mind, and - crucially - no idea what the concept of hygiene entails.

When he hadn't washed for three days, the stench - in an enclosed area - was eye-watering.

But it was when he used a t-shirt to clean between his toes - one of the few t-shirts he had brought with him, hence, reek - was when Ray took umbrage.

Now, Gilbert also snored. Like a banshee. No, in fact, like a some sort of meta-banshee whose wail a banshee would hear before dying. Which meant that none of us had had more than the exhausted sleep you get when you run out of energy completely.

Which added to the strung-out atmosphere of our room.

Ray informed one of our teachers of this. She, naturally, thought he was joking, and that his fanatical zeal that she do something about Gilbert's personal hygiene - at the very least - was some sort of prank. But, in the end, she promised to have a wander into our room and make some mock-gestures about the smell, and gently suggest Gilbert do something about his aura of sewer.

She made it three steps into the door before she physically recoiled from the reek.

She suggested, in the strongest possible terms, that Gilbert enlighten himself of the functioning of the shower. Fortunately, he agreed to do so.

The worst was yet to come, however.

Gilbert, as has been said, had no idea of basic social graces. Such as the things it's polite not to do when you're sharing a room with three other men while they're trying to sleep.

Ray was lying awake on something like night four, most likely wondering if he could kill Gilbert in his sleep and get away with it.

But Gilbert wasn't sleeping.

Oh no.

Gilbert had decided that, having - we suspect - endured an abstinent three or four days, that a room full of exhausted fellow students was the perfect place for mutton musket practice.

The way Ray tells it - oh, thank god I had passed out from exhaustion that evening - he was lying there, contemplating his fate, when Gilbert, apparently having decided everyone else was asleep, conducted some gentleman's relief.

Ray could hear the sound of the thin, hostel duvet moving

up

and down.

Up,

and down.

And this left him in a quandary. Say nothing, and endure this masturbatory auditory onslaught, or say something and by chance cause his misfortune to cease - at the cost of his and (theoretically) Gilbert's embarassment. And what if he said something at Gilbert's moment of personal enlightenment? No, much better to lie back, wait for the wanking to stop, and then pretend it never happened.

This was such a momentous moment in Ray's life, however - a personal low of disgust he may never recover from - that he had to tell the Cool Kids in the next room, if only to beg that they let him sleep on their floor until the bus back to safety in a few days time.

But even if they wanted to, they couldn't - and, because they found it funny - wouldn't.

Which leaves us to the conclusion of this story, for Ray's torment was not complete yet.

For the other kids, in their wisdom, had found a soundtrack to Ray's problems.

And that soundtrack - to be played at any point when Ray was around from then on?

Oh, you should probably have guessed.
(Tue 3rd Feb 2009, 20:31, More)