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| The blue door on the far right of the picture was one of a double-door entrance leading to stairs to the upper floors. The doors referred to in the following tale were located a few feet within the alcove beyond the railing. None of these buildings exist today |
WILLIE RUSSELL was how we referred to him at school. A head teacher, if I recall correctly, who had an emaciated, hawk-like appearance. He was also a Justice of the Peace, and I suspect that the experience of having people 'at his mercy' in court rather appealed to him. He was possessed of a severe, dour demeanour, and though I don't remember ever being in his class, he struck me as rather an unpleasant person.
He confirmed it for me one day in the following manner, which is, I think, the only time I ever had any direct experience of him in my entire time at secondary school. I was approaching the doors of 'New Block' and caught sight of him coming up swiftly behind me in the reflection in one of the door's glass panels. I opened the door and stepped aside, showing due deference to my elders as I had been taught by my parents.
However, because the doors were set in an alcove, I could only stand back as far as the side wall allowed, which meant he would have to detour around me by a couple of inches. Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders and contemptuously flung me aside. I stood, literally stunned by the man's rudeness and aggression, as I watched him stride down the short corridor beyond the doors and, as he turned the corner, glare back at me through the thick-rimmed spectacles perched on his beak-like nose as if I were a bad smell.
It was probably my experience of similar bad attitudes during the impressionable years of my life, both in and out of school, that eventually made me determined to stand up and confront behaviour of this kind whenever and wherever I encountered it. Once upon a time, I was bewildered by such misanthropic manifestations and didn't quite know how to deal with them. Nowadays, at the first sign of them, I tackle them head-on. I sometimes ponder whether that's a good or bad thing though.
THOMAS MORELL once said that "The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example." I sometimes wonder what kind of impression it would have left on my young psyche had some of my teachers (and other adults) practised such a philosophy in their day-to-day dealings with me.
I'm probably not the only one, eh?
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| Mr. Willie Russell, I believe |
