All In How You Say It

He was subtle , Mr Walsh. Nobody probably even thought twice of me being asked to clean the blackboard. Mr Walsh always asked someone at the end of the day, and only occasionally, was it a person who had misbehaved. He certainly shared it around. Even if someone claimed their 'mother was waiting for them', Mr Walsh would calmly reply. "And I am sure this will not be the last time you will keep her waiting, but this time there is a genuine reason." It would not usually take very long to wipe down the two blackboards (excluding the bottom right corner where the homework list was kept), so, no ones mother was ever kept waiting very long. With Mr Walsh, asking me to wipe down the boards, raised no suspicions, he was fair in sharing the load. Now I know I said I would finish this story fairly quickly and not draw it out (particularly as there are only 30 more entries, before my promise of one years worth of daily writing submissions to this blog is completed), but, this has just reminded me of an incident involving another school teacher, who did not understand what fair was. She was a lot more terrifying than Mr Walsh and as quick with the punishment (and possibly morally ineffective) as my father, when it came to discipline. I recall she also refused to listen to reasons, but decided autocratically, who should be punished (ultimately claiming at the end of the disposing out of the punishment, it was 'God's will' that it be done - I would kind of have liked a second opinion from him on that) 

This frightening teacher was encountered during our time in the town of Port Chalmers. A small town in the entry to Dunedin Harbour. The wharf on which we practically lived in the old stone Post Office (my father being the postmaster there), was the original wharf from where the first shipment of frozen meat was sent from New Zealand to Great Britain in 1882 (yes, that was eighteen eighty two) so some ninety years later I had a teacher who's attitude to students must have been transplanted from then. She must have been raised on the system of the work houses and the factories of the industrial revolution. Combine that with the fact that she was a nun, of the older religious zealot type, was it any wonder we children were constantly being admonished for everything, by way of the thick, short piece of black leather known as "a strap" (but which I thought she called 'muddy doo'. For, when hitting us she sometimes called out, "Do you want another taste of "Muddy Doo" It wasn't until years later, when studying mythologies, I came across a reference to "Mauthe Doog" in Welsh folklore. It is, according to the texts I was reading, pronounced "Moddey Dhoo" and is the name of one of the hounds of Hell. Obviously the nun, had a bit of Welsh history). So she kept it within reach all hours of the school day. Any transgression, from writing with your left hand, to looking out the window at the wrong moment, could bring down the wrath of "Muddy Doo". And "Muddy Doo" left one heck of a bite.
(Continued tomorrow)