It now looks likely that my old school mate “Toota” will be going along to our Senior School’s last lesson this weekend. He describes himself as having long scraggly hair and his mates call him Bill Bailey.
I’ve been reliving a lot of school memories over the last year or so and whilst many blog about their teachers, specific lessons achievements and humiliations- I’m going to Blog about… caretakers.
Kenton school was a big one even then, with 1,500 children on the roll, currently 2013. (The school called them Pupils, the Bus Company called them Scholars). With a roll that size, there were typically twelve classes in a year group and we were streamed according to ability.
The caretakers were a benign presence in the building, brown lab-coated middle-aged men who magically appeared with numerous mop buckets whenever it rained heavily. (Kenton’s flat roofed corridors were somewhat prone to leaks although the main buildings were generally OK). Their duties were numerous but mainly cleaning, housekeeping and minor repairs. They have grander titles these days (Building management teams, Facilities supervisors and the like) and they don’t have to stoke boilers any more but the challenges are the same- keeping one step ahead of the scratter kids and dealing with petty vandalism.
At Kenton, the head Caretaker was Mr. Earnshaw but he was widely known as “Chicken Knocker” by all of us kids as he had allegedly been caught stealing a frozen chicken from the local Fine Fare, he had stuck it up his jumper. Now I don’t actually know if this is true or not, he had supposedly been given the mother of all bollockings by Mrs. Innes, the Head Mistress. (If I see her this weekend I’ll ask!) He lived in a small bungalow on site and I have no recollection if he was a family man or not. He had a high, reedy, strident voice that was very distinctive and he didn’t seem to like Pupils very much as they were the cause of all his extra work.
He lived in the caretaker’s cupboard near the main hall that everyone knew as the cubby hole. It was a fairly large space, but full of the sort of gear caretakers needed; floor polishers, consumables, toilet rolls & light bulbs. (I later found the serious light bulb stash under the stage, all the unusual sizes like 500 Watt GLS and fluorescent tubes. That was handy for relamping the stage lighting battens between shows. To get in we had to lever up a large trapdoor (with a manky mattress beneath) and negotiate all the abandoned feminine hygiene machines to get into the actual cupboards)
Now in my early days of doing the lights I had to borrow the wooden stepladders which were seriously unsafe but eventually the caretakers acquired a self assembly scaffold tower which made a great follow-spot platform as well as making the front of house focussing so much easier, despite the effort required to assemble and dismantle it.
Later, the school bought a Public Address system for the main hall. This consisted of a microphone, a stand, a cable and a valve amplifier (a 30Watt Selmer one) which connected to column speakers either side of the stage. The gear lived in the cubby-hole but I ended up on the sound crew. This meant that I could sit backstage during assemblies rather than have to listen out front. (One of the caretakers would unlock the pass door for me, which was just inside the Girl’s gym lobby area). The amp had a built in spring line reverb which made a horrible noise if you bumped it! Certain days, the school band played, so I would work the Amp from the side lighting platform, where the handle was to open the curtains. (I’d bring the lights up as well, the standing joke from Mr. Martin the woodwork teacher & trumpet player was that he wanted a spotlight on him and eventually I was able to oblige after I’d manged to fix one and scrounge a lamp for it).
For one show, i came in for a dress rehearsal and was disappointed to find that the scaff tower was not available- Mr. Earnshaw said that it was in the lower school hall and it was all alarmed. He could tell how disappointed I was and he walked away, stopped, turned back and gave me a set of instructions I had to follow to the letter. Across the green bridge, along the ground floor corridor, up the back stairs, turn right on the first floor landing and into the hall. Do not deviate from that route or all hell will break loose. When finished, leave it here.
I persuaded a cast member to give me a hand and manhandled it down two staircases and several intervening stairs on the route. It must have taken us ages of backbreaking work and my helper got into trouble on his return as he had missed his scene. I didn’t set the alarm off and Mr. Earnshaw noticably warmed to me after that.
I then went on to do school discos, at first mid-week ones with others, then the biggie- the Christmas year Discos. (I was paid £30 for this, the Company that did it the previous year charged £30 a disco so I was happy and the school was happy as well). I was allocated some storage space for my gear in a little used cupboard and with it came the ultimate accoladde- a Master key. It was the West Master (for the boy’s school) but it opened quite a few East doors as well. Truth be known, all teachers had an East &/or West Master key so that they could open and lock many of the classrooms but I was probably unique in having one as a Pupil. Mr. earnshaw said as much when he peeled it off a big bunch and he made a little speech about responsibility in a very pompous voice but I noticed that the other caretakers were grinning and winking at me at the time!
