Drop ten, turn and face Quilty’s Football Yarns 40 St Paul’s Way Bow

Drop ten, turn and face

Quilty’s Football Yarns 40 

St Paul’s Way Bow

Martin Rabenau was a PE Teacher when I was at Parmiters Grammar as a student. He was a star teacher just as he had been a great footballer. As someone returning to teaching, I found Martin to be a fine mentor. Being someone who was both a football and basketball coach at the time, his input straightened a lot of ideas I had around coaching those sports. Funny enough, soon I was actually involved in an all OPFC Cup Final, on the other side to him. In what was a big day for the club we were the underdogs because they were the higher XI. Those intra club games were particularly edgy. Thankfully, we came out on top to win 2-1.

St Paul’s Way was a predominantly Bangladeshi school, co-Ed but with an unusual demographic. Two thirds of the students were boys and a third girls. In practice this meant that while most classes were co-Ed some were boys only. This I would think was a preference from some parents for single sex classes. Going from the comfort of a City dealing room to teaching PE in Bow was certainly a culture shock. That said I was fortunate in that of the 80 staff retrenched on the same day as me, I was the only person with another professional occupation to return to.

St Paul’s Way, Bow was unfortunately the location for one of those governmental policy muck ups that have you shaking your head. At this time East London was accomodating both Vietnamese and Somali refugees. It seems the assumption was made that Muslim Somalis would fit in well with Muslim Bangladeshi’s. Wrong! They fought at school, after school and again the next day. Serious inter community mediation took place. Unfortunately, the Somalis, who were fresh from a war torn country brought a ‘grudge culture’ with them and the adults at home seemed to be reloading their offspring to come in and fight again. Things got worse with scummy ‘Sun Reporters’ began creeping around the school in search of a story. Those Somali students were not really in the right mindset for school. We had several with gunshot wounds from conflict and they often walked in and out of class not ready for the organisational time-table of a secondary school. The lack of language support set the experiment up to fail. 

That all said getting back into teaching as quickly as I did was fortunate. The national economy post 87’ Crash was slowing down alarmingly in 1990. In fact the whole world was heading for a downturn. Spending the year at St  Paul’s Way Bow was good for me but by now Terrie and I were living at Higham’s Park. We had had Dan who was just 15 months old and Terrie had Cassie on the way. Financially, our post Stock Exchange income had halved and mortgage interest rate had doubled. Trying to get a job closer home seemed sensible. Thus, when Martin got me an interview at a school nearer home run by another Parmiters ex- teacher Tony Maxwell, things looked promising. In the interview I was promised a one point promotion position to go with the role. It was a surprise then that after accepting the job the confirmation letter made no mention of a  ‘promotion position’. Confused and annoyed I wasn’t willing to just let it go. I phoned the Headmaster of the school and told him the offer was wrong. In the conversation he back tracked and suggested the promotion point was only a possibility. Rightly or wrongly, I took a moral stand. I told him I was used to dealing with people whose ‘word was their bond’. I wouldn’t be taking the job working for someone I couldn’t trust. Irresponsible, I know but it was how I felt. 

So there I was. In need of a job for 1991. Fear can be a good motivator. Immediately I started to visit local schools close to Higham’s Park putting out CV’s. As I related in an earlier another yarn, walking into Warwick Boys school, I snagged a job without realising it. There, in the school front office, it was all sorts of busy. I decided not to wait and tried to hand the CV over to a bloke behind the counter. To my surprise he held my arm and started a conversation. 

Man behind Counter. “What is this young man?”

Me. “It’s just a CV”.

Man behind Counter(Still holding my arm) “What do you do?”

Me. “I teach History and PE, can you pass it on?”

Man behind Counter. “When can you start?”

Me. “Immediately. Who are you?”

Man behind Counter. “I’m the Headmaster, Can you start Monday?”

Me. “Yes, but I want a one point promotion point”.

Man behind Counter who was the Headmaster.”Ok, see you Monday!”

And he did. I had a job five minutes from home!