Landlocked Navy Dreams

After the plane crash, our teachers came round to check that we were OK. Mr Snowkey specifically said 'OK' because that was the way he always spoke. If he shouted at one of us he would always ask later whether we were OK. We all knew he did this because he had less confidence than we did. He shakily put his arm around one of the girls who pretended to be upset and then removed it in the confusion created in his head by his Liberal and Conservative parents. I was still wearing my really cool mirror shades and this seemed to throw Mr Snowkey a bit. Where another teacher would have told me to take them off he tried to tough it out and see through to my eyes but had to turn away. We loved him just the same because he let us drink beer - or more likely cider - at the school parties. At lunchtime we would sneak out to the pub across the street where the head girl lived. If she felt generous we would return with cold cider and swig it in the garden. If not we would make tea using an old sock and an antique teapot left by our temporary German Physics teacher when he went back to Hamburg.

All the best teachers are the ones of your own age though occasionally you must get a good one who is a bit like a favourite uncle and says 'mate' a lot. At our school this was Mr Jones (his real name possibly) who had been the source of several rumours about inappropriate behaviour with female pupils and still we liked him, especially the girls. Svengali or Slightly bedraggled uncle? I chose then but you can never see him so you will never know. Knoxxy Eugenia loved him and still does. He once caught a group of us with gunpowder we had made using the relevant ingredients found in the old science lab. Rather than turn us in to the head master, he helped us light it and though the bang was pitiful, we all remembered it as much louder, probably because it had been set off by a teacher.
I have no idea where he is now and no idea why he is here in this story apart from Knoxxy being besotted with him. At the age she was then, she was easily swayed in one direction or another and Mr Jones was a cinch.

I like this story. Knoxxy Eugenia is joining up everything though she is not in the plane crash stuff. I could just lie back with my eyes closed and try and find where she was when the plane crashed. She would obviously like to think that she was the cause and had brought the machine down just by thinking it but that is just her. I want to make up a poem just for her at that moment. I know she was outside, probably under a tree somewhere with a book. She will say that she read about a plane crashing just as we heard the first crumps of the engine failing but I know she was still reading The Kon Tiki Expedition. Just the thought of reading under a tree makes me so happy now. We did it all the time at school and never thought about how lucky we were. To be able to do that now would be so wonderful. Did Knoxxy Eugenia cause the plane crash. It really happened. I will find you the number. Find me a tree with a broadband connection.

Disabled by the light, we make our way to the shop. We have our own pathway and only we are allowed out. The younger children think it is unfair that they cannot use this path at break times and so did we. We do not realise the responsibilities that our guardians have towards us. We just think that they want to be horrible to us. They think of us dead in ditches while we just think of the sweet shop at the other end. It is a pleasant walk at any time of year but now, with the trees fully greened up, it is heaven. Even we realise this between our thoughts about girls and boys and confectionery. We think we are so cool and maybe, in this small county we are. We are to young to love anyone properly but we think we love each other. This is just the season making its way into our heads. The sun dapples the ground and tries to shake us awake but this is England before we worried about anything. The weather has no chance with us and we will live for years before the darkness of the rest of the world sneaks into our minds. In the future we will think back to these days just to help us get to sleep when all the illness and despair gets too much.

The music is just the sounds of the last great, undiscovered country, the birdsong and the wind in the trees. In the distance, there is the fingerprint of this part of the world, the gentle roar that we could record and analyse to determine its source better than any satellite navigation. There are farm machines in the distance and the occasional swoosh of a car on the main road. The weir on the river adds its own white noise. We top off the sound with giggles and happiness. We are the teachers' grand design for the world and will take all their prejudice and dislikes out to rule the world.