Last week I wrote about an act of schoolboy protest,
when I produced the world’s loudest ever burp during the minute’s silence at my
school’s Ascension Day service in 1983. This rebellion was made all the more
impressive, because my dad was the headmaster who’d just asked us to be quiet.
He had seen me laughing afterwards and must have worked out that I might be the
mysterious phantom belcher. So what would he do? Punish me or let me off…..? I
left the story on a cliffhanger. I know you’ve been thinking about it all week.
Well…
he didn’t do anything. He shook with fury, then decided to let it go and
introduced the string quartet. I’d got away with it!
And
as I left the service, everyone was telling me how brilliant I had been. Even
the hardest kids in the school, who would usually avoid me like the plague,
were patting me on the back and saying, ‘That was flipping hilarious, mate” (if
you watched Grange Hill then you know that “flip” was the strongest swear word
available to 1980s school kids). They realised it had been a double dare for me,
because of who my Dad was. And for once they liked and maybe even respected me.
In a way, it was my own Ascension day (I am not saying I am Jesus.. that is for
others to say).
I
felt pretty good, until I remembered that the Headmaster was also my dad. He
was going to wait until I get home and then the sugar was really going to hit
the fan (again 1980s swearing at its finest).
We
were sitting at dinner that night and there was a bit of an awkward silence. Then
my dad said, ‘Something a bit weird happened at school today…’
“Oh
yeah”, I replied nonchalantly.
‘Someone
burped during the minute’s silence. I was going to tear a strip off them, then
I saw you laughing, and realised it might have been you,
So
I didn’t do anything.’
I
said ‘Well, it wasn’t me, so that’s lucky.’
But
he knew it had been me yet he still didn’t punish me.
At
the time I thought that was a bit weak. He shouldn’t have treated me
differently, just because I was his son. But I’m ashamed to say that it wasn’t
until I was in my 40s that I thought about this from his point of view. I’d
spent my life thinking how difficult it had been, being the Headmaster’s son,
but never once thought what it must be like to be the Headmaster at a school where
your son is a pupil.
What
was he meant to do, in that situation?
If
he’d hauled me out in front of the whole school, pulled down my trousers and
spanked me on the arse, then this might not be such a feel-good conclusion.
I’d
put him in an impossible situation. Our parents are just human beings and they
make mistakes. But sometimes we do something where every response would be
wrong. And we can hold grudges for
decades about those injustices.
If
I meet anyone from my school, the first thing they say to me isn’t
‘Oh
I saw you on the TV” or “I love your Metro column.” They always say, “How’s
your dad?”
They
loved him.
In
the past I have tried to make out that my dad being my headmaster is
responsible for my adult screw-ups. But there’s only one person to blame for
the way my life has turned out. And it isn’t my dad.
It’s
my overprotective mother.
Congratulations to the Queen on becoming our longest
reigning monarch. Spare a thought for poor Prince Charles. He’s got to be happy
that his mum is being sent victorious, happy and glorious, but I bet he hums a
certain Lion King song a lot. He probably even envies Louis XIX of France who
reigned for 20 minutes. It’s not a record you’d want to break, but it’s better
than nothing.
