The School Concert (standard:humor, 1965 words)
Author: Ian Hobson	Added: May 28 2010	Views/Reads: 3210/2133	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Based on a true story – I should know, I was there. Very strong language from the start.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

about the most musical sound we were capable of making. 

'He must be joking,' Atkins whispered to me.  'We can't sing.' 

'If we're in it,' Johnson chipped in, 'I'm gonna be away with a cold or
somethin.' 

'Be quiet!'  Mr Scott glared at us.  He obviously hated us as much as we
hated him and, for a moment, I thought he was going to have one of his 
bad-tempered tantrums, but he just gave us another evil look and said, 
'revenge is sweet,' before handing out a set of dog-eared and faded 
copies of a songbook titled Songs from HMS Pinafore, by Gilbert and 
Sullivan. 

Apparently HMS Pinafore was an operetta – whatever that meant – and we
were to sing the song on page seven, about a young lad who became the 
ruler of the Queen's Navy by polishing a door handle; which, of course, 
made no sense to me.  But then, little of this thing that adults 
referred to as education did. 

Smith began to pick at something at the top of the page.  'Someone's
left snot in mine.' 

'Oh, sung it before, have you, Smithie?' I said. 

'HMS means her majesty's ship,' Atkins said, 'but who'd call a ship
Pinafore?  It's what my sister wears for Cookery.' 

'Quiet, Class!'  Mr Scott silenced us once again, hit one of the keys on
his piano a few times and then, waving his finger at us as though we 
were an orchestra and he its conductor, he sang the first four lines of 
the song. 

'When I was a lad I served a term As office boy to an Attorney's firm. I
cleaned the windows and I swept the floor, And I polished up the handle 
of the big front door. Now, Class, on your feet, it's your turn.'  We 
grudgingly got to our feet and, with  Scotty doing his best impression 
of Russ Conway, some of us began to sing - for want of a better 
description - while the rest of us just mouthed the words.  It was 
dreadful; like a dozen cats, all suffering from laryngitis, being put, 
simultaneously, through my mother's washing mangle.  I wondered again: 
he's not really going to put us in the concert, is he? 

*** 

Three or four weeks went by, and each Tuesday morning, at some point
during the so-called Music lesson, we'd practice our song.   But we 
weren't getting any better, and I felt sure that we'd be dropped from 
the concert; which, unfortunately, proved to be wishful thinking. 

When the fateful day came, we were to be the thirteenth class on stage
out of a total of sixteen, and the first in our age group.  The stage, 
of course, was the one at the front end of the hall, where the choir 
sat during Assembly.  Thankfully, the concert was just a school thing, 
with no parents or other people attending.  And as usual, our class, 
along with the others in our year, sat on the floor near the back of 
the hall, with those a year younger in front of us and so on, while the 
teachers, like linesmen at a football match, stood or sat on chairs 
around the perimeter. 

At first, it wasn't so bad; like a very long version of Assembly but
without the prayers.  And some of the classes could, as far as I could 
tell, sing okay.  Though the songs were predictably boring: soddin' 
Frere Jacques, knick-knack paddy-bloody-wack, and that dreadful 
Jacky-boy, sing-e-well, very well, load of crap.  But the worst thing 
was having to sit on that wooden floor for almost two hours.  My 
backside was so numb I was actually glad when our class was called and 
we all made our way towards the stage. 

But I wasn't glad for long. 

'Come along, boys, we haven't got all day.  Quiet now, children!'  The
headmaster, Mr Crosby, ushered us onto the stage and then brought the 
hall to order and, consulting his typed list, announced our class 
number, the title of the song, and then left us and Mr Scott, who was 
seated at his piano at the corner of the stage, to get on with it. 

By then, our song books had been distributed by two girls, both
prefects, one of whom went to stand beside Scotty in order to turn the 
pages of his music. And so, with a rather disconcerting smile in our 
direction, he played the intro and then nodded at us at the point where 
we were supposed to come in; which we did – sort of. 

'When I was a lad I served a term As office boy to an Attorney's firm.' 

My mouth was so dry that even if I'd had any kind of a singing voice,
still nothing would have come out; and I'm sure I wasn't the only one 
suffering from stage fright. 

'I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor, And I polished up the
handle of the big front door.' 

Think about it: a class of nineteen lads, minus three away with the kind
of ailments normally reserved for PE lessons, up on stage in front of 
the whole school, and hardly any of us making enough noise to be heard 
over the sound of the piano. 

'I polished up that handle so carefullee That now I am the Ruler of the
Queen's Navee!' 

It was a disaster.  Before long, two or three girls in the second row
began to giggle. 

'Of legal knowledge I acquired such a grip That they took me into the
partnership.' 

And their giggles were infectious, fanning out in every direction until
every child and teacher in the hall were laughing or desperately trying 
not to. 

'And that junior partnership, I ween, Was the only ship that I ever had
seen.' 

I noticed Mr Green, with one hand over his mouth, trying to stop himself
laughing, while Miss Parker, the girls' PE teacher, was having 
hysterics; and even the Headmaster, though trying to keep a straight 
face, looked ready to burst. 

'But that kind of ship so suited me, That now I am the Ruler of the
Queen's...' 

'BE QUIET!' 

Scotty leapt to his feet, slamming the piano case shut with a resounding
bang, and turning on his captive audience like a guard dog that had 
just woken to find intruders on the premises.  From where I was 
standing, I couldn't see the expression on his face, but I didn't need 
to; the back of his neck was bright red, he was visibly shaking and, as 
his head turned from left to right, his stare cut through the laughter 
like a scythe through a hayfield. 

‘THIS IS A CONCERT, NOT A CIRCUS! 

Everyone looked cowed - even the teachers and the headmaster - and you
could have heard a pin drop.  I was relieved, thinking that we were 
about to be ushered off stage, and the next class ushered on.  I was 
wrong again. 

‘We will start again from the beginning.'  Scotty, regaining his
composure, returned to the piano and reopened its case.  And, with a 
look of pure hatred for me and my classmates he, once more, began to 
play the intro. 

Would our ordeal never end? 

Oddly, second time around didn't seem quite so bad.  And don't ask my
how, but some of us found louder voices and, thankfully, the headmaster 
and the teachers that were closest to the stage, sang along with us 
and, as we came to the end of the song that I will never forget for as 
long as I live, we even got a polite ripple of applause. 

But I was right about one thing: Scotty, in tantrum-mode, had made
himself look a right pillock.


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