THE DEBUT OF BERNIE THE BARD(Bernie Martin) The fifth year of grammar school beckoned. I had some friends but I had started my internal journey at a young age. Family was something I had to endure rather than enjoy. I'd got used to the smell of cigarette smoke and the stale aroma of drink. The remnants of arguments hung like low lying clouds over the kitchen table.
I was always kind of alone.

I had come to the school in 1961 with no particular aptitude for any subject apart from sport and trouble. Because I was big I was shunted down the rugby route which I hated. Science was regimented, history was a list of dates, English was rules and literature was Shakespeare which was, with French and German, a foreign language to us.
A few weeks into the new term Stumpy, who enthused over our correct use of a subordinate clause or the dreaded apostrophe, gave us the task of writing a piece of work, prose or poetry, which we would have to read out. I, like many shy people, when given another persona to adopt, would come alive. Poetry to me wasn't Keats or Byron, it was Dylan, Lennon and McCartney. The class was in a soporific state given what had preceded me. Time to wake them up.


TEACHERS

Who are these people we trust to educate our children?
They live in a cloistered world, resent and fear intrusion.
Their classrooms have become a modern form of battleground.
Anger and hostility colour the emerging sound.
Theirs no longer the automatic right to be obeyed.
Sinking in the quicksands of stress are the old and staid.
They bear the weight of prejudices that are deep seated
Struggle to control ....

"Right Martin that's enough," Stumpy said. "Come with me. The rest of you be quiet."
"I haven't finished yet sir. There's more." A cheer from the class, so loud it could be heard down the corridor.
"Enough," Stumpy bellowed, marching me out. He took the poem from me. I followed him down to Brucey's office. Even teachers had to knock and wait. I was already nearly 6 feet tall and towered over Stumpy's 5 feet 3 inches. It surprised me when he said. "Don't give up writing your poetry Martin. I may not agree with its content but it has some merit."
"Thank you sir," I said, "it's not Shakespeare but then that doesn't mean it can't have value."
"Indeed," Stumpy replied as the door opened.

Brucey looked like we'd interrupted something, sporting his gown and mortar board. He snatched the poem from Stumpy. His office looked out over the front playing fields and beyond them to Manchester Road Secondary Modern. I had only experienced this room vicariously. The reality matched the image. A place where the sun never made an appearance, where smoke loitered over every square inch, where dust covered the books haphazardly littering the shelves, where the instrument of punishment was permanently on display, recumbent on his desk. I'd never been this close to him before. Slightly taller than Stumpy, which meant I looked down on him as well, this was not a room I wanted to visit again. The atmosphere was similar to the one at home with remnants of other pupils' time spent here hanging like clouds making it stuffy and airless.
Brucey spoke. "Remind me again Summerfield, who is this?"
I answered. "Martin sir, into my fifth year, easy for those with no vision to miss."
"Martin? Have you visited my office before? This, this doggerel is nothing but an insult to poetry."
"Your opinion that's all. No I haven't been here before and I'll not be here again. Prepare yourself for times that will be incendiary."
I mean I was headed for the cane anyway. Why not fire a few shots of my own. He screwed up the poem and threw it on the floor.
"That's my property sir. I will need that back."
"Bend over boy."
As I bent over to receive the blows, along with the smell of coffee and what I swear was jam roly poly, I couldn't help but notice Paris Match on Brucey's desk. The front page headline said it all - "nos parents ne nous comprennent pas" (our parents don't understand us)

I returned with my poem as a hero to the class. Strangely enough Stumpy never asked us to write something again but it didn't stop me. Mixed in with the protest poems I developed a sideline writing acrostics based on girls' names for my fellow pupils out to impress. The fabric of my life may have been battered and torn but out of that the legend of Bernie the Bard was born.

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