The Other Side of the Dale Read Online Free PDF Page B

teachers’ courses. I just did not know where it was going to end.
    ‘And it gets worse,’ said Julie bringing me the fourth mug of tea that day.
    ‘I’ve never seen so much paper in one place in all my life,’ I groaned, stretching my arms in the air.
    ‘You haven’t seen anything yet! Wait until the inspection reports come in. Piles and piles of paper, reams and reams of records, heaps of files, mounds of mail, stacks of documents. Sometimes I think that you inspectors ought to take saplings around in the boots of your cars.’
    ‘Saplings?’
    ‘You know, little trees – to plant in place of all the trees cut down to produce the tons of paper you go through. Somebody once told Mr Clamp on one of his art courses that every time he spoke a forest fell.’ She smiled and continued to chatter on. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not that bad. It’s just that a lot of things have piled up over the weeks. It’s always like this after the summer holidays. You’ll soon have it cleared.’
    ‘Do you think I should give Mrs Savage a ring?’ I asked. ‘It might be important.’
    ‘If it was that important she’d have been over in person. No, it’ll just be to fix a time to see Dr Gore to talk over a few things.’ Julie paused and stared at me for a momentbefore adding, ‘I didn’t imagine that you’d look as you do. Your name sort of conjures up a very different picture. I imagined you’d be sort of French looking – dark and swarthy with an accent.’
    ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ I laughed.
    ‘Mr Clamp thought you would be a huge, red-headed Irishman and Mr Pritchard, a little, shy, bearded person. They had a bet on what you would look like.’
    ‘And who won?’ I asked.
    ‘Dr Yeats. He said you would be just an ordinary, pleasant, agreeable chap.’
    ‘Damned with faint praise, eh?’
    ‘Actually, I reckon he’d seen you at the interview and had inside information. Anyway I’m sure you will settle in here. It’s a very happy office. If there is anything else, Mr Phinn, anything at all, just ask.’
    ‘You’ve been really helpful, Julie,’ I replied. ‘Thank you. I think you must have covered just about everything.’
    ‘Did you find some digs, by the way?’
    ‘Yes, on Richmond Road. I’ll stay there until I find a flat to rent. I’m not in any hurry to buy at the moment. I want to look around a bit before buying a place up here.’
    ‘And is there a Mrs Phinn and lots of little Phinns?’ she asked.
    ‘No, there’s no Mrs Phinn and no little Phinns,’ I replied.
    ‘Foot loose and fancy free, eh? “The world’s your lobster”, as my mother would say. Well, I’ll let you get on.’ With that, Julie disappeared.
    There nearly had been a Mrs Phinn. I had met Carol at the Rotherwood Royal Infirmary when I took a pupil to the casualty department after his collision with a large opponent on the rugby field. I had been helping out teaching gamesat the time, coaching the under-thirteens. This particular game had been fast and furious and there had been quite a few knocks, grazes, cuts and collisions during the course of the match. The ground had been rock-like that Saturday and, had I been refereeing the match, I would have cancelled the game or, at the very least, abandoned it when the hailstones began to fall like bullets from the sky. Added to the bitter cold of the day, the icy wind and the hail, the opposing team had been much better than ours and arrogant with it and had thrashed us sixty points to nine.
    I was not in the best of moods, therefore, as I sat impatiently with ‘Little John’, as we called him, on an uncomfortable, plastic-covered seat in the casualty department waiting for attention. John was very big for his age: a large, solid, amiable, easy-going boy and rugby was his life. In lessons he was quiet, amenable and slow in his work but when he was on the rugby pitch he transformed into a raging bull. He threw himself unrestrained into the game, metaphorically and