"SCRATCH"
Was his nick-name because his surname include “itch” in it. He was quite young, in his twenties I’d guess, fresh from training college, and an unkempt, fat bloke with irregular teeth. His shirt always gaped above his trousers revealing his belly button.
He taught English at my grammar school and was a sadistic bastard. This was in the days of teachers hitting kids with impunity or picking them up by the neck hair. But Scratch was in a different league. Other teachers would belt you for having done something wrong. Scratch didn’t need the excuse. His violence was gratuitous and, if he didn’t like you, vindictive. He was a real life Mr Sugden (Brian Glover) from “Kes”.
And he didn’t like me. Worldwide fans will find that hard to believe, but he didn’t.
On one occasion he entered a classroom, pointed at me and told me to come to the front of the class. Without warning he slapped me hard across the side of my face, so hard a classmate told me he saw earwax fly out of the opposite ear.
On another occasion he was umpiring a cricket match during a games period. I was fielding. The batsman drove the ball towards me and I picked it up and shyed at the stumps at the wicketkeeper’s end. It hit the batsman as he ran to make his ground. Scratch consoled the boy with his arm around him like a mother, and when the lad had stopped crying called me over and, again, slapped me hard.
A few years later when I was in the 6th form, Scratch decided to join the 1st and 2nd teams in a game of rugby. By then I was a 6-footer and welcomed his introduction into the game. He started off throwing his weight around but soon began puffing and panting. He got caught at the bottom of a ruck where I accidentally raked his face with my boot a couple of times.
He never retaliated. Like all bullies he concentrated on the little kids.
He left the school before I did, feeling the need in his leaving speech in front of the school assembly to state that there was no truth in the rumour that he had been asked to leave. I regret even now not having shouted out, “Shame on the school”.
He’s probably dead by now; leastways…
John Coopey
Wed 15th Apr 2020 15:52
By and large, MC, our teachers were a benign bunch. As I said, they’d mostly only clock you for misbehaving or being stupid. And the maxim that you always remember your best teachers certainly holds true foe me.