Head and Shoulders

This could be a post about our man with a title like that, but it isn't.

Over the last couple of days, there has been a lot of publicity about a primary school headteacher in "East London" who earned £231,400 last year.

The facts appear to be less astounding, with back pay, "overtime" (since when did any teacher get overtime, especially Heads?), advisory pay for the Government and a few other odds and sods added in.

Today I was amazed to discover that the "East London" school was actually my old school in South East London, a place called Tidemill. And I'll bet it was a much tougher place when I was there between 1958 and 1964.

This is the school building, which is just about to be replaced by a new-build, and will then be demolished.


The school is in Deptford, a poor suburb of London, now (but not then) in the London Borough of Lewisham. It was close to the London docks, and was heavily bombed in World War II. Education was not at the top of most people's ambitions for their kids. I remember there was one whole class that was what would today be called Special Needs, where the children, even aged 9 or 10, were struggling to read. But they all could get by before they left.

When I started there, we had two headteachers, one for Infants, one for Juniors. Miss Faithfull, head of Infants, was everything an infants school head should be - gentle, slender, with wispy white hair in a french roll. Everyone adored her. To be invited to her office to read to her was a keenly sought honour.

Then up we went to Juniors, where the head was Mr Parkhouse. He was a big, bluff teddy bear of a man, who took my class in the library once a week to read us Beowulf. We worshipped him. When he had a heart arttack while reading to us in assembly one morning, and died, we were devastated.

Mrs (May) Wellard, the deputy, took over during this troubling time, and kept us calm and focussed. A couple of years ago, I read in the local newspaper that the council which owns the block in which she bought her flat was trying to get a huge amount of money out of her for spurious maintenance work. She was at that time 86. I've heard nothing more - presumably the shock killed the old lady off.

Our new Head was Sheila Lane, a very impressive woman, with all sorts of experience behind her, which she later put into a book. Many years later, she could talk to me about my own and my sister's progress after leaving Tidemill, even though my sister left several years before Miss Lane arrived.

They were all wonderful, and worth much more than they will have been paid. But the one person who was worth more than everyone else put together was our class teacher, Averil Silson. Although she left before we did, she was a major influence in all our lives, with her interest and ability in music being passed on in a big way both to me and to my best friend Jill. She was truly priceless - and still is. In her mid-70s, she is still going strong, and enjoying an active retirement.

I imagine that this headteacher's success is likewise largely thanks to the staff who deliver his plans for the kids at the chalk face. The parents outside the school today have been defending him vociferously. Maybe they are right - but I know I would resent it if my dedicated hard work resulted in my Head being paid a fortune while I struggled to get by, as so many non-teaching support staff do.