We're thrilled to bring you our second exclusive extract from the as-yet-unpublished memoirs of a top prep school head - our lips are sealed...
Our headmaster has been ruminating on the challenges of appointing his head boy and head girl, and the fury of parents when their own little treasure isn’t picked for the honour...
It was at the annual carol service that I faced the wrath of a disgruntled parent, Mrs Pardiggle, whose son had not been given the opportunity for a recent promotion. Picture the scene: there were candles, the frosty air outside made the warmth of the church a blessed relief, the parents were arriving full of joy and Christmas spirit. I was at the front door welcoming the congregation. ‘Happy Christmases’ were shared and there was lots of goodwill to all men being offered. Suddenly, Mrs Pardiggle appeared, full of ire; she made a direct beeline for the convivial and smiling headmaster who proceeded to give her a Christmas kiss on both cheeks. Why, you might ask, as he had not proffered his lips to anyone else, not even the yummy mummies who had arrived, even earlier, to secure a pew at the front of the church? Once kisses had been given, she embarked on a tirade of abuse about her son’s lack of promotion; the unfairness, the outrage and all the hyperbole that people resort to nowadays. She also made a rather mean comment about one of the other children who had been successful.
‘Was it because his parents are getting divorced and the school felt sorry for him?’ she blurted.
Wow! How harsh was that?
There was that moment when the cheery parents began to scuttle away from the scene like crabs to the comfort of the pews. The headmaster was alone again. A final merry Christmas did not help matters and so the Green Mile to the front left pew of the church was to be my refuge; a silent prayer was given but one felt that no God was going to agree to the terms. I felt completely drained, as if my Christmas cheer had been extracted by a death eater out of a Harry Potter novel.
I was later to realise I was not alone in dealing with this difficult woman. A fellow head admitted to me that he once hid under his desk when he saw her heading up the drive; he couldn’t face another lengthy conversation. What was that all about? A headmaster managing hundreds of children and staff and still to be found cowering under his desk to escape this crazed and opinionated woman.
I did observe my bursar jumping out of my first-floor study window once when a parent was on the warpath. We were chasing unpaid fees and we had decided to play ‘good cop, bad cop’ as a way to secure a favourable outcome. I was the first port of call and Miss Bray didn’t have enough time to escape my study by the door. The things we do.
What was it about Christmas and these carol services? The following year, I was standing again by the front door of the church giving out the order of service with my suit covered in dried wax as I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to light all the candles in the church. A rather tall, thin and endlessly angry grandmother had arrived with her four grandchildren and her brow-beaten son-in-law in tow. Mrs Todgers just about said ‘Happy Christmas’ to me, quite disarming saying those words…can’t really not reply. What then followed was a berating of her son-in-law.
‘Charles, I don’t want to be sitting behind a pillar like last year,’ she growled.
She paid the school fees, so he followed on, wondering what had happened to his life and hoping that she would choke on a mince pie after the service.