I was reading a book the other day called The Sound of Laughter by Peter Kay. I say ‘the other day’ but what I really mean is the other two weeks, as I am a very slow reader.My dear wife Moi and some other cocky friends claim that they can scan a page and take in all the relevant information in just a few seconds. I refused to believe it but I’ve tested them out and it makes them even more cocky when they prove that they can.
One friend was kind enough to attempt scan reading instruction, which took me all the way back to primary school when frustrated teachers tried to convince me that this squiggle on the page could be translated into a spoken language. My friend tried her best, bless her, but as many have said before, it was trying to educate pork. I did put some effort into it – really, I did – but all I could retain was the page number.
I’ve had to go back to my slow reading technique, although I have progressed past having to slide my finger under each word as I venture along the line and this squiggle miraculously becomes an endless mine of information or entertainment.
Talent v provision: a limited overlap for Norky at Colne Valley High School
Anyway, as in his aforementioned book, Peter Kay was describing his early acting career in his school plays, and it reminded me very much of my own teacher’s desperate attempt to find something that might coincide with what I was good at and what the school could provide. As described in the earlier episodes of my education, this was proving to be a very limited overlap.
Colne Valley High School was a state-of-the-art facility, providing anything a child might need to be a fully rounded individual ready to face the world or to go on to university and change the world.
The school opened in January 1956 with an initial intake of 860 pupils.When I arrived two years later with my smart new uniform and my sister’s cast off satchel, there were 1,750 pupils.During the early plans for the school, I believe there were ideas put forward for either a swimming pool or a theatre and, for reasons I never discovered, the theatre idea won out.
When I arrived, the theatre, music and canteen blocks were still being constructed, and the theatre and music studies were carried out in other rooms throughout the school. A temporary modular building in the car park acted as our dining room for the overflow needing to be fed. It was like a flat-pack canteen, known by us as ‘the terrapins’, though I don’t really know why – probably the manufacturing company name. It was supposed to be temporary but it was still there in full use when I left four years later.
Tidiness bar too high for domestic science option
When I, and probably all the other pupils, reached the age of 14, the system in place at the time determined what direction each snot-nosed, grubby little oik was going to go in. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to achieve much academically – even the 25-yard breaststroke was way beyond my capabilities – but coincidentally they were looking for some boys to redress the boy/girl balance in the domestic science classes.
We were lined up – how I got into this line I do not know –to be inspected by the domestic science teacher who scrutinised each of us scruffy oiks in turn. It reminded me of the nit nurse from junior school– I fully expected her to ask us to drop our trousers and cough. (Remembering that teacher now, it wouldn’t surprise me if she would have enjoyed our embarrassment.) The inspection included fingernails and general tidiness. If I’d known we were to be inspected to this degree on that day, I would have at least combed my hair and checked if my flies were fastened up properly.
Needless to say, I was not chosen.
Making up the numbers in theatre class – against all inclination!
The other department where boys were needed to make up the numbers was in the theatre class.
By this time my troublesome puberty had become well established, and I was a very typical self-conscious 14-year-old who didn’t want to be noticed by any adult, particularly a teacher. Performing something on stage was the last thing I wanted, but somehow there I was pretending to push an invisible grand piano across the room, or carry a very heavy balloon, and of course a tree swaying in a gale malarkey. Hours of fun.
The time came when we were split into groups of four and, as the girls still outnumbered the boys, I was put with three girls, charged with acting out a ghost story of our own invention. Piano shifting and tree-swaying in a large group was tolerable but acting in a small group with all the others watching was not going to happen.
It was no more likely than agreeing to strip naked in Huddersfield town centre and sing Land of Hope and Glory.
Norky’s special skill comes in handy
The only skill I developed at school was making an owl sound by cupping my hands together and blowing through my thumbs and, even though I say it myself, I was magnificent, the envy of my year. it was my greatest achievement at school. If the school gave merit marks for this skill, I would surely have achieved head boy status, or at least a position as prefect, but they didn’t, so I wasn’t. And besides, I would of course have turned it down if offered.
Prefects were always sucking up to the teachers, bringing little presents, writing study notes in class, the first to shout “Oo, sir, please sir, me sir” – creeps they were. I’m sure all the prefects went on to become solicitors, bankers, estate agents or even bloody politicians, I’ll be bound.
Anyway, back to the ghost story, I was so determined that I was not going on stage that I very skilfully persuaded the three girls to walk on pretending that they were lost in a dark foreboding forest, although I wouldn’t have used the word ‘foreboding’, as I didn’t know the meaning of the word at that time. I was to be the sound effects man.
There they were, acting their little hearts out, looking up mainly, as amateur actresses tend to do when pretending to be frightened in a dark foreboding forest. I tooted my famous owl impersonation from the wings and the girls screamed (as girls do) and ran off. In a nutshell that was it, well not even in a nutshell – that actually was it. The whole thing lasted no more than 20 seconds.
Some skills we learn as children stay with us for life. Unfortunately, and very disappointingly, try as I might, my magnificent owl seems to have died.
An early end to an unlooked-for acting career
The theatre teacher, who was himself an occasional television actor, asked, “You don’t want to be here do you Norcliffe?”. It seemed to come as something of a surprise when I told him that I didn’t know why I was there in the first place. He quickly sent me back to the bewildered class to waste my time for another few months until that wonderful day came when I left school.
Needless to say, Ken Russell did not contact my mum and dad with an offer to take their Peter away for a high life as a theatre and film actor. In my humble opinion, for me, school was ten years wasted. But I did get to meet Joan Hollis, Sandra Clark and Marilyn Wood, who were wonderful screamers, and I’m sure Ken Russell would have no problems finding parts for those fine lasses.
