The teaching staff at Diadem Road were an odd lot. Rather like teachers are everywhere, I suppose. I never had much use for the breed, that’s for sure.

The headmaster was an aloof figure called Mr Trench. He taught history and geography to the seniors and hardly spoke to any of the pupils outside the classroom, except during morning prayers. He peered at us over half-moon spectacles, intoned the Lord’s Prayer, announced the hymn for that morning which was played, badly, on the old upright piano in the corner of the school hall by Miss Simple, the school secretary, and then made whatever announcements were necessary for that day. At other times, though, he seemed to avoid us as though contact with his charges might somehow contaminate him.

The day to day running of the school was taken care of by his deputy, Mr Swape. He was the mathematics teacher but he also was the chief organizer, horse trader and enforcer. He was Trench’s right hand man, and probably left as well. A force to be reckoned with.

            This suited me not at all because it did not take Mr Swape very long to cotton onto what I was up to. I did not welcome his intrusion into what were turning into very healthy little rackets. Healthy for me, that is – I can’t say the same for my victims.  

            To start with, after I had dealt with the twin threats of Cyril and Elsie, I picked up where I had left off with the people who had moved up from St Cyprians at the same time as me. They knew what was expected of them, so they began to cough up with little protest. I think they had begun to regard me as a fact of life and there was little they could do about it. As for the rest, it was easy enough to move in on the younger ones. They may have seen Cyril and Elsie’s power wane, but I wasn’t going to let them believe that they were going to have it easy. I simply took over. A penny here, a halfpenny there. It all mounted up. I made sure that I never took too much. Little Freddie could afford to pay me a penny or two a week. But if I took all he had, then Little Freddie’s mother or father might notice, and I had no wish for inconvenient questions to be asked.

            As for the larger children, in years senior to me, I had a bit of a tougher job. but I had one or two real advantages. I was built larger than most, though not an outsize lump like Cyril, and I was genuinely not afraid of a fight. I knew how to handle myself in a scuffle, and I did not impose upon myself the unnecessary restraint of having to fight fair. Also, I knew that just about everyone is afraid of pain. A punch in the kidneys when you are not expecting it is very painful – far easier to hand over the odd halfpenny to avoid having to put up with that again. There were a couple of boys in the year above mine who liked to believe they were my friends and I let these toadies believe this because they were tolerably useful. They didn’t fancy a pasting, so they tried to ingratiate themselves with me. One was a red-haired squirt called Derek Cheeseman, who made himself useful by telling me whenever he had heard of anyone with anything worth pinching, or of anyone who said anything at all about me, good or bad. Derek was practically illiterate, and was destined like so many to leave school and go straight to the unemployment lines. The other was George Drake. As it turned out, he and I had a long association which resumed some time after we had both left 25 Diadem Road. George appointed himself my friend and also chief collector. It became known that he worked for me and people would pay their protection money to him, knowing that it was on my instructions. For this, George received a few pennies from me. I told him quite plainly that if he ever held back on me I would break both his arms.

            And so, for the expenditure of a few bruised knuckles and little else, I had managed to set up a very lucrative business for myself. The pennies mounted up and became shillings. Shillings eventually became pounds, and after a while I had enough to go to the post office and change the coins for a five pound note. Not one of those small, sad notes you get today. I mean a big, white fiver, one that made you believe that the Bank of England really did owe you five pounds and that you could collect it any time you wanted to. For one of my years, it was treasure indeed. I kept it and my coins in a box at home, well hidden. Not least from my mother – I did not want her borrowing any of it in my absence to buy gin. She was drinking more and more of it as her customers became fewer and fewer. She was coughing incessantly, and every day of her age showed on her face now.

            I was onto a good thing and I wasn’t about to let anything or anyone bugger it up. I was helped here again by the unwritten law of schoolchildren everywhere – you never tell tales. Some of the staff may have suspected what was going on but they never actually caught me at it. Until one bright, sunny Monday afternoon.

            I was in the act of extracting a threepenny bit from a fourteen-year-old called Martin Yanch. He had been one of Cyril’s customers and I think he had allowed himself to believe that his troubles were over when Cyril stopped demanding protection money. Poor deluded fool! He was surprised and then indignant at being approached for money by someone two years junior to himself and at first he tried to dismiss me with the contempt he thought I deserved. Maybe I did deserve it, but I didn’t accept it. I was stronger than him, and I persuaded him where his wisest course of action lay by the simple means of a kick to the stomach and, while he was winded, slamming two of his fingers in the classroom door. He never gave me any trouble after that. He had a newspaper round which he did before school each day. A chap like him, with regular paid work, was cornucopia for me. Never mind pennies or halfpennies; he was good for sixpence or even a shilling a week. And I made sure he paid up.

            It was when I had cornered him after lunch one Monday to transact our weekly business that things began to go pear-shaped. Martin handed me a threepenny bit. I looked at it in the palm of my hand.

            “Is that all?” I said.

            “Yes,” he replied, “It’s all I have today.”

            “Balls! It’s Monday. You get paid by old man Murphy for your paper round on Saturday. You can’t have spent it all.”

            “Yes, I have.”

            “Well that’s too bad for you. Because next week I shall expect one and six, or I’ll really break your fingers. And don’t think I won’t.” I meant it, and he knew it.

            “What is all this?” It was Mr Swape. He was behind me. I had no idea how long he had been there or how much he had heard. I suspect Martin had seen him, but it was in his interests, he thought, to let me carry on. He thought he would give me enough rope and let me hang myself. Well, he was about twenty years too early for that.

            Martin didn’t say a word so I chipped in with “Nothing, sir. Just messing about, like.”

            “Messing about?” He seemed disbelieving. I nodded. “What have you got in your right hand, Hakesley?”

            Fool that I was, I had the threepenny bit still clutched in my hand. I opened my fist and showed him.

            “Threepence, sir. It’s mine.”

            “If it is indeed yours, why did I see you take it from Yanch a few moments ago?”  

            “He owed it to me, sir. He was just paying back what he owed.”

            “He owed it to you? And when did you lend it to him?”

            “About two weeks ago, sir.” I replied.

            “Is this true, Yanch?” Mr Swape looked at my customer, who appeared to be under some dreadful mental burden. As indeed he was. He could lie to Mr Swape, and risk getting into trouble that way, or he could drop me right in it, but then I would always be here the next day to settle all and any accounts.

            I think Martin reckoned that my wrath was worse than Mr Swape’s. “Yes, sir,” he muttered, staring at his shoes.

            Mr Swape nodded to himself for a second or two. Maybe he thought it made him look wise.

            “I don’t believe you, Hakesley. I think you were extorting money from Yanch. I think you are a bully and a coward.”

            I wasn’t having that. I was a bully, that’s for sure, but I wasn’t a coward. And any number of fellow pupils who had believed that if you stood up to a bully he would leave you alone would have been able to testify to that.

            “Sir,” I began.

            “Be quiet. You’re coming with me to see the Head.”

            As I walked with him towards Mr Trench’s study I realized that I was probably going to have to put into action the plan I had thought of some time ago for just this eventuality.

            Mr Swape stopped outside Mr Trench’s door and told me to pull my socks up. Then he knocked.

            “Come!” A barked command from the other side of the door, not a friendly invitation.

            We went in and I stood in front of the headmaster’s desk.

            “Well, Mr Swape,” he said after a moment or two, “Why have you brought this boy to me?”  

            So Mr Swape then told the Head all about how I had bullied Martin out of threepence, how I had threatened violence if one shilling and sixpence was not forthcoming the following week. Mr Trench looked at me over those little spectacles of his for a few moments.

            “Well, Hakesley, what do you have to say for yourself?”

            I reckoned it was best just to get on with things, so I didn’t try to defend myself and I certainly wasn’t going to grovel to them. So I kept silent. Mr Trench regarded me again for a moment or two, then he looked up at Mr Swape.

            “Six.” was all he said, then he turned his attention back to the papers on his desk.

            “Thank you, Headmaster.” replied Mr Swape. “Come along, boy.” That last bit was to me.

            I had just been sentenced to six strokes of the cane. Mr Swape was responsible for administering corporal punishment at Diadem Road, and it was to his study that we next went. Now, I had been caned many times at St Cyprian’s and had always deserved it. I didn’t enjoy it but I took it as part of the general burden of life, but enough was enough.

            When we got to Mr Swape’s study he shut the door behind us. “Right, boy, you know what to do.” So I obediently walked over to the armchair in the corner and bent over one of its arms. I heard Mr Swape swish the cane in the air a couple of times. I don’t know why. It was hardly to see if it still worked. Just to frighten me, I suppose. I wasn’t frightened. I was nervous, and excited. I was about to wipe the smile off his face.             He hit me once. It hurt, but it was bearable. And more than enough, I thought. So I stood up and stepped away from the chair.

            “Get back, boy,” he said, “We’re not finished yet.”

            “Yes we are, sir.”  

            “Nonsense! You still have to receive five more strokes.”

            “You are not going to hit me again, sir. Not now or ever.”

            I could see he was astonished. I don’t think any pupil had ever spoken to him like that. In fact I’m sure they hadn’t. He was not much bigger than me, and as I stood square to him I could see a frisson of anxiety pass over him.

            “Have you taken leave of your senses, boy?” he cried, “Bend over again or it will be the worse for you, I assure you.”

            “No sir, I don’t think so.”

            He tried a more conciliatory tone. “Now look here, old chap. Just take your punishment like a man and we’ll say no more about this. What do you think you are doing?”

            His last question was because I was unbuttoning the flies on my pants and untucking my shirt. I also did something else that I was very good at in those days – I was making myself cry.

            “I am going to leave now,” I said. “I am going to run out of your study in tears. What’s more, I’m going to make sure enough people see me. And believe me, they will remember.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            “I will look very upset, which is normal for one who has been caned, I suppose. But look at the state of my clothing.”

            “You look half undressed. What has that to do with being caned?”

            “Because, sir, if you ever interfere with my business again, or try to punish me in any way. I will tell people all about how you brought me here to cane me and instead you tried to kiss me and you put your hand inside my pants and tried to touch my cock.”

            Well, that shut him up. He opened and closed his mouth a few times in approved goldfish fashion, but no sound came out.  

            “Enough people will remember seeing me this afternoon and they’ll believe me.” “You’re mad! Now, do up your clothing and go. We’ll say no more about this ridiculous matter.”

            “You know as well as I do” I went on as though he had not spoken, “That enough people will believe me to ruin your career. You’ll probably go to prison. I’ll swear in court you tried to molest me.”

            “You are obviously unwell. Now you just do up your buttons and I’ll –”

            “You’ll do nothing. There’s nothing you can do.”

            He said not a word. He just stood there, holding the cane in one hand, staring bleakly past me.

            “Remember,” I said, “Leave me alone to get on with things my own way and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

            He nodded absently. I squeezed out a few more tears then nodded at him. Then I yelled “No, pleased don’t do that to me!” as loud as I could. Mr Swape flinched. Then I ran to the door, flung it open and ran out into the hallway, sobbing my heart out. I didn’t care how many of my customers saw me – it wouldn’t affect our future business, and I knew they’d remember this day if I needed them to. As my good luck would have it, I ran almost straight into the arms of Miss Simple, the headmaster’s secretary, who was talking to Mr Crowe. She was always friendly to us pupils, possibly because she didn’t have to teach us.

            “Good heavens, Elijah, what on earth is the matter?” she asked. My response was to sob loudly and fling my arms round her. Instinctively she put hers round me and held me to her.

            “Come, come. Whatever it is, it’s over now.” And she began to rock me ever so slightly. Mr Crowe watched in silence. Neither of them would forget this moment for a long time. The school secretary comforting a junior pupil in tears, his clothes in disarray.    

            “Good gracious!” she said, “You’re half undressed. What on earth has been going on?”

            My reaction to that was to look into her eyes for a moment and then burst out sobbing even louder.

            Well, Mr Swape never again interfered with my business. I had a free run of the school, and because I was consistent but never too greedy, the pennies and shillings mounted up. If anyone ever complained, either to a member of staff or to their parents, Mr Trench delegated Mr Swape to deal with them. and Mr Swape knew that I had pulled the pin from the hand grenade and could toss it at him any time I liked, so he quashed any and all complaints. I never had to carry out my threat. When I left school two years later I had several five pound notes to my name, a good start to any young man staring out in life during the Depression.

            I don’t know what happened to the staff over the years. I was hardly the sort of person anyone wanted to see at school reunions, even supposing we had such things. But I do know that many years later I read with grim satisfaction that in 1944 Diadem Road Secondary had received a direct hit from a V-1 flying bomb. Scarcely one brick was left upon another. I wondered if Mr Swape had been inside at the time.