Drop ten, turn and face. Quilty’s Football Yarns 36 Teaching in London, George Green, Isle of Dogs.

Drop ten, turn and face.

Quilty’s Football Yarns 36

Teaching in London, George Green, Isle of Dogs.

Returning to London from Leeds meant that I had a few things to sort out. The first was somewhere to live. I could have gone back to mum’s or indeed stayed at Terrie’s parents place. However, it is always good to have a place of your own and I had been a bit strategic while up in Leeds. I’d put my name down on the Hackney Council list a few years before returning south to London, knowing all along that I’d need somewhere to be based. As things transpired my name had not advanced at all on the list. In response to this disappointment, I decided to tell a small white lie to help my cause. Speaking to the council officer I made a case for a flat of my own, because being a teacher, I needed somewhere to prepare lessons, my parents place was always busy and in addition to the noise they often locked the door early and I had trouble getting in. Mum laughed when I told her what I said but amazingly it did the trick and within a week I was offered a one bedroom flat at 369 Fellows Court near Hackney Road. Terrie and I moved in to our sixth floor haven immediately.

My second task was to actually get some teaching work. Initially, I signed on for Division 5, which was Tower Hamlets. My own school, Parmiter’s Grammar School, was originally in Bethnal Green, so I was comfortable working in the area. As a 28 year old, new teacher, they actually told me I’d be employed as a Supply Teacher this first year. Technically I could be sent anywhere but in the event, I was mainly at George Green on the Isle of Dog’s. This was when Canary Wharf was still but a twinkle in a developer’s eye. I did work an odd day at Daneford, Morpeth and Stepney Green but once on the Island, they kept me there. 

George Green turned out to be a good fit for me. The Deputy, Sean Maginy seemed to trust me and kept bringing me back. Being a relatively local bloke had its advantages. I had a good rapport with the local students. A fortunate incident in some ways paved the way for this. On this particular day, I went out when school finished to catch the 277 bus. It went all the way back to Hackney. At this time I never had a driving licence. Upstairs on the bus I went and being a big kid, chose to sit with a lot of the bigger George Green students. All was well until the bus started making stops. As it did, the boys I was sitting with would open the buses back-window and jump down to the street that way, from the top deck! After three consecutive stops where the students went out via the window, the bus driver pulled over and came up to warn of ‘trouble’ if it happened again. As he turned away, he said to me “And you can stop laughing as well”. Stunned, my fly on the wall presence was suddenly abruptly changed. The driver refused to drive the vehicle any further until the George Green boys alighted. And there we sat for ten minutes. To make things worse a student clashed with another passenger and in no time his parent was also on the scene and a fight ensued.  Thoroughly pissed off and still a way from home I went down and told the driver if he wanted me off the bus, he’d have to move me himself. The student I was sitting next to, was, I later discovered an England boxer and recognised me as the new Supply teacher from the school. Then just as the atmosphere on the bus started to go even more downhill, the police arrived and threw everyone, including me, off the bus! This put an hour on my journey home, but in the wash up, it was worth it. Next day walking into George Green, I walked past a big group fifth year’s at the school entrance. They didn’t really allow me any space to slide by but from the centre of the group came a big voice.

“Oi, you’re that teacher who threatened the bus driver yesterday” I stopped dead. “Ere that’s you ain’t it?” I nodded weakly. “Well done sir, you told him”. And there I was, being acknowledged openly by the best fighter in the school. The crowd stood back to give me some room and from that moment I had a free pass around what a tough place. My mate ‘the boxer’ ensured that. The island inhabitants had a bit of a siege mentality but if they liked you would be very loyal.

I suppose I did fit in where others might struggle. An example being when I was drafted in as a replacement for ‘Room 5’. This was a special reception room for students who got thrown out of their class. A particular teacher, Pat Rowan, was usually the only person to work there. This day, Sean Maginy, asked if I was willing to go in and run it because Pat was away. So there I was in Room 5, at 9.00am. At 9.05am someone kicked the door open, stormed in and threw a book off a seat and onto the floor. After a second’s pause, I said “and who are you?” For the next five minutes the student ranted how unfair it all was. Gradually I calmed him down and without thinking, engaged him in casual conversation. Which estate are you from? Are you a footballer? Which team did you follow? Almost immediately his attitude changed. Here was the secret. Most students who arrived at Room 5 just needed to be calmed down. Such interactions made me quite useful to the school as an alternative person in Room 5. I was pleased with the regular work but after a few weeks noticed that while I was working six period days, there were always other Supply teachers who hardly left the staff room. Speaking to Sean I said “Sean, I not moaning but how is it those other blokes are always spare and I have six on, every day?” His reply shocked me. “Steve, I’ll be closing down the school before I ever allow any of those blokes into one of my classrooms!” And so it was. The School authorities had a deal with the unions that said ‘returning teachers’ had to be allowed on site but wouldn’t necessarily teach. These three basically sat in the staff room shuffling paper, got paid but didn’t teach. One in particular, was called ‘choo choo’, by the kids. He obviously had a few unresolved problems but when he was in the classroom the students used to distract him. In an English lesson they would distract him by asking, “Sir, how do I get to Sheffield from London by Train?” Instantly ‘choo choo’ would stop the English lesson and start sketching the British Rail map and timetable on the board. They had him at the word ‘train”. The school itself lay on the unfashionable end of the the Greenwich foot-tunnel. One shock at George Green, came when it was discovered that the Headmaster had had a nervous breakdown. No one knew. He was always an ‘office type’ boss but at this time he came into to work for three weeks before his deputies realised that there was a problem. Sad.

At George Green I got an opportunity to work with the football team and an outside coach called Jimmy Firrell, who scouted for West Ham for many years. He was the nicest bloke. The school team played across the road at Millwall Park. That confused me a bit because we were on the wrong side of the Thames, or so I thought. Someone said that Millwall may have actually been based this side at some time. Who knew? The Arsenal are from Woolwich so anything is possible! 

It was a funny environment, very few kids ever played out in the playground. That was until a hundred Vietnamese ‘boat people’ children arrived at the school and they, like magic, transformed the outside spaces by playing all sorts of old fashion kids past-times. Skipping, ball games and ‘rules based’ activities. 

The ‘Seven Up’ TV series was up to 28 by this time. and I managed to persuade Bethnal Green boy Tony ‘I want to be a Jockey’ Walker to come in to speak to our Social Studies classes. They just happened to be watching the series. For such a spur of the moment thing, the kids loved him. It was easy to relate to his experiences. It’s scary that the series has just delivered 63 Up. Yes, I still laugh at Tony’s jokes and we both support Spurs! 

During my year at the school, I volunteered to take away a Senior Student Group as the teacher in charge of an ‘Outward bounds’ trip to Mid North Wales. Terrie came along with us, as did another teacher Robert Llewlyn-Jones. Numerous individuals also came along to quietly advise me that I was mad to take away this group of sixteen year old boys and girls. We were going for a week. Our job as teachers was to oversee the group, while qualified people took all the activities. It was a great week. Most of these kids would hardly of ever left the Isle of Dogs in their lives. One day while camping we discovered that young Charlie Borg disliked wildlife and the open air. Thus, anything he saw near the tent he felt obliged to kill. Bee’s, mice and ants would not be tolerated. He refused to come out on a hill walk with us, so we left him back in the tent. We sat and watched from up on the hill to see what he might do, when we left.  Sure enough, Charlie Borg came out, grabbed a stick and proceeded down to the river. Here he used it to beat a dead sheep that was floating in the water! Charlie aside, the rest of the group were great and enjoying themselves rock-climbing, abseiling and running the assault course. That is why it was so annoying that the Centre staff had a crappy attitude towards them, as ‘City kids’. One bloke in particular, Roger, went out of his way to rile them. A good example being that our lot had to make themselves lunch, every day. Bread and peanut-butter sandwiches were a regular for take-out lunch. No problem but Roger insisted on tormenting them by drinking his daily flask of hot soup while they watched. Every day. If that was not bad enough, he dropped snide remarks about problematic ‘Londoners’ as well. I never really saw him do this, but it was happening. Thus, I was really glad I didn’t discover what they did to him, or should I say his soup. We were well on the way back home to the Isle of Dogs when I found out.  Yes, apparently, one of the students had pissed in his soup and they all watched him drink it! Terrie had got an inkling that they were planning something but didn’t know what. She didn’t actually tell me until we were on the bus to London. I enjoyed the year, my probationary year, as a Supply teacher. Then out of the blue I got offered a permanent job nearer to home at St Bernard’s in Bethnal Green, which I accepted immediately.