by David S. Williams
2005 Sense of Mischief winner
Over 40 age group
"You should have seen them, Headmaster," exclaimed Miss Fairbairn, in high dudgeon. "As if they had no better way of spending playtime."
"Less dangerous than British Bulldog, I'd have thought," I suggested innocently. That rather robust game had been the object of her derision for most of the playtimes that week.
I looked out of the window. The crew of Council's new street-cleaning truck were busily and enthusiastically testing out their new suction pump on the drain next to the school. An impressive pile of flotsam had been gleaned already. Clinging to the playground railings like so many old-fashioned sailors to the rigging of their ship, the Slowies were watching enraptured.
"Little things please little minds," huffed Miss Fairbairn.
"While bigger fools look on in sympathy," I added mentally.
I tackled the group about it in the classroom later. "Great, wasn't it?" enthused Ronnie Hawthorn, "Do you think I could get a job doing that when I'm grown up?"
Portly Ceece Bartlett looked grave and sage. "That's a skilled job, that, cleaning the streets," he said. "A trade. Ye'd need to get your scholarship to do that."
Ronnie sighed as another window of opportunity threatened to close upon him.
"He could always get a job road-mending, Sir," said Brian Donkin, "We all did a bit of that a couple of summers back..."
I must have looked puzzled but Ronnie's eyes lit up with the memory. "You mean the paddling pool?"
William Fenton, ever the cynic, was derisive. "Why, that was when we were bairns!"
"Some of us would think that that wasn't so very long ago," I ventured. "But I'd like to hear more. Unless I'm mistaken, Ronnie, it's your turn for the class story this morning. Maybe you could tell us the tale of the paddling pool?"
And Ronnie was all too happy to oblige.
The children, it seems, had been bored. When you are very young and it is summer and you haven't even school to fill up your days, I suppose that the world can seem a very dreary place. Especially when you're living in the same street and spending every day doing the same things. So that day they were looking for something new to do.
It was the council workmen who gave them the idea. There had been "road works" on the main road between the Liddle Arms and Winnie Proud's shop for the last few weeks and the children liked nothing better than to watch them. Big Joe wielding the pneumatic drill, his muscled arms struggling to retain the raging monster in his grip. Jackie and Tickser with their mighty picks and shovels, swinging in rhythm stopping only briefly for swigs of tea from their thermos flasks. And their favourite, little Billy with the big round sign for stopping the traffic. Green "Go" on one side, red "Stop" on the other. Little Billy was no taller than the tallest of them and the thought of someone of their size with the power to stop the traffic - even Dr. Spen and Clipper Moss, the village copper. They had all wanted to stand in the middle of the road and stop the cars like Billy did.
Conveniently, no-one could quite remember whose idea it was to undertake a construction job of their own. It was a warm day and water and warm days go seamlessly together. The available water - from the old standpipe, a relic of earlier days at the corner of Farmer's Field - was rather rusty and brackish, but it would have to serve. Memories of paddling in the pool at Carlisle Park in Morpeth loomed large and, suddenly, the unpaved back lane must have seemed ripe for the digging. The children took little prompting, of course, and once started, they entered into it with gusto, equipped with an imaginative cache of improvised tools. Seaside spades masqueraded as picks, a borrowed garden spade for Big Joe's Drill. And Ronnie Hawthorn was little Billy with a bamboo pole and a sign made from an old piece of spare wallpaper.
Why it was that usually vigilant mams remained unaware of the chaos which threatened their doorsteps is not recorded. Perhaps the heat was conducive to an uncharacteristic afternoon doze. Perhaps their growing awe and wonder at the grandeur of their project made the children uncharacteristically quiet in their endeavours. Whatever the case, I'm assured that in an hour, the street was a scene of wondrous chaos. The paddling pool grew from hole to sunken trench to street-long dug-out worthy of the Western Front. And a chain of well-organised "little uns," anxious to be part of the action, wielded rusty bucketful after rusty bucketful of stagnant tapwater to the impromptu lido. Soon a score of happy children were paddling merrily, some barefoot, some still in their sandals, mud oozing between their toes.
And so all remained well until the fateful hour of five. That was the time that a dozen dads, comrades on the dayshift at the Pit, biked home together.
A dozen bikes pulled up short as a dozen pairs of bemused eyes took in the liquid landscape. A dozen ears were well and truly seized and a dozen dowps were well and truly tanned.
And, I am reliably informed, it was a sadder and a wiser crew who watched Big Joe and Little Billy and the rest do their stuff next day, dwelling ruefully on what it must be like to be sufficiently grown up to dig holes without suffering the consequences.
"So it was quite a... er...painful experience at the end, then?" I asked Ronnie, as he wound up his story.
"A bit, Sir." he admitted, but - his mouth twisted into a wry smile - "It was worth it."
"There are times," said Miss Fairbairn, after I had recounted the story to a largely amused staffroom at playtime, "when I almost believe that you encourage them, Headmaster. It really wasn't funny. Children need to grow up with respect for property."
"How about you, Joss?" I asked. "Perhaps they can give you some help with your rose bushes?" Joss Machin snorted into his tea. I wasn't supposed to know about the rose bushes he had transplanted into the school garden, to be cared for during his "Gardening Lessons."
Young Davina Cotton, plimsolls planted gracelessly on a neighbouring table, extricated the last of her apple core from her mouth and smiled her usual wry smile.
"It didn't take me long to realise," she said, wrapping it in a piece of tissue and flicking it with admirable ease into the metal waste bin, "that teaching that lot successfully consists largely of tiring them out. Bet they slept well that night."
"I have them for Arithmetic now," I said, standing up as the bell rang. "And if you think that doing PT or digging trenches tires them out, you need to watch them wrestling with Long Division. I'll give Ronnie Hawthorn ten minutes before he's out like a light."
But I was wrong. He was snoring in five.
The Paddling Pool © David S. Williams 2005