HWRK Magazine: Issue 03 - Spring 2018

PHANTOM
HEADMASTER
AFTER FOUR DECADES IN EDUCATION, WE’VE UNLEASHED
THE BEAST TO SHARE SOME OF ITS FUNNIEST TRUE TALES
The apple doesn’t
fall far from the tree
R
ob Whatmore was feeling rather pleased
with himself. He’d just completed his
first-year teaching and was standing in the
assembly hall at the end of a successful
parents evening. It was 1975 and his
timetable showed, out of a 40-period
week, he’d taught 37 – and 34 of them
were ‘third years’ (Year 9s in new money).
It’d been tough, but he was content with
his efforts.
He was shaken out of his daydream,
however, by a sudden commotion at
the far end of the hall, from which two
fellow members of staff were gesticulating
wildly. They were waving their arms about
and pointing to his nearest exit with no
little degree of urgency.
Rob, still not quite sure the signalling
was for him, was baffled. Yet they became
even more animated and pointed at a
large woman who was heading straight to
Rob’s part of the hall. Even his colleagues
gesture of a finger drawn across the throat
failed to communicate the impending
danger.
The ample and irate lady drew closer
and only when she was 20 feet away did
Rob spot his nemesis – Denise Brown
– smirking in a self-satisfied way, with
her head tilted slightly backwards as she
trailed behind (Rob guessed) her mother.
It was now too late to move.
“Where’s this Mr Whatfore?” the
woman asked. Nervously, Rob replied:
“That’s Whatmore.” “I’ll give him
Whatfore!’ Mrs Brown was a formidable
looking woman who most people would
stand aside for if she was pushing into
a queue.
“I am Mr Whatmore,” Rob offered,
if now a little sheepishly. “How
dare you!” she bellowed.
Rob looked for
help from the
staff around him.
Amazingly they had
all become occupied and were in deep
conversations or scouring the mark
books diligently.
“How dare I what?” he asked,
catching a glimpse of young Denise
still smirking behind her mum’s
shoulder. “How dare you write this
about my daughter?” she replied, holding
a report book aloft before passing it to
Rob.
Rob read his summary of Denise’s
year, which read: ‘Denise is probably the
rudest, laziest and most
disruptive pupil in the
year and possesses the
foulest mouth I have
encountered in the
school. Her manners and
respect for others are nonexistent.’
Rob made his decision.
Failing to have enlisted
any support from his
colleagues he went for
it. “Well Mrs Brown, any
pupil who comes into my
room shouting, ‘I f***ing
hate maths and I’m going
to knock the s***e out of
Amanda Brooks. Come
her you little b***h, you’re
going to get the f***ing
s*** knocked out of you,
you f***ing t***’ has,
in my book, the foulest
mouth I’ve come across in a 14-year-old.
On top of that, she hasn’t completed one
homework and is on a report card due of
her lack of work and poor behaviour.”
“I haven’t seen that,” Mrs Brown
“YOU FOUL
MOUTHED LITTLE
C***. WAIT ‘TIL I
GET YOU HOME I’M
GOING TO KNOCK
SOME F***ING
MANNERS INTO
YOU, YOU LITTLE
MADAM!”
snapped, turning back towards Denise,
whose expression had gone from
smugness to one of quiet terror. “Why
haven’t you shown me your card, you
f***ing little b***h? Who did you get to
sign it?”
Before Denise could
answer, Mrs Brown
turned back to Rob. “She
didn’t say all that did
she?”
“She did,” he replied.
“She didn’t!” countered
Mrs Brown. “Oh yes she
did, and some more,”
replied Rob, feeling more
confident and also a little
like a pantomime prince.
Mrs Brown turned to
Denise once more. “You
foul mouthed little c***.
Wait ‘til I get you home
I’m going to knock some
f***ing manners into
you, you little madam!”
Denise hung her head.
Mrs Brown turned
back to Rob once more,
and softly offered: “I’m so sorry she’s been
like that with you Mr Whatfore. Any more
trouble with her, just let me know… I
really don’t know where the f*** she gets
it from.”
72 // HWRK MAGAZINE // Spring 2017
hwrkmagazine
@hwrk_magazine