Miss Dalrymple
Miss Dalrymple was small, rotund and talcum’d
She had a halo of rouge and walked in a pastel haze.
She had never married.
Her sweetheart was a gunner in a Lancaster bomber.
Every morning was religion, followed by maths, religiously.
Every afternoon ‘Famous Five’ stories, read with an accent like the Queen.
We were confused by Julian....
He had the attributes of a boy and the name of a girl.
In the corridor hung a photo - ‘School outing, 1934’
She stands by a skipper with a union jack. She is surrounded by gremlins
and cod.
On an ink-tattooed table was her ‘Pride of East Yorkshire’ Display
A pink plastic Suffolk, a balsawood trawler, a Wilberforce bust....
A chunk of shrapnel had vanished long ago.
Only its ghost and a caption remained.
She told us she’d been to this school herself and was indentured at
seventeen....
We thought she’d lost her teeth early.
She told us she was descended from an earl who was a norman....
We thought her dad was Norman Dalrymple....
It was a fine education. Thanks to Miss Dalrymple I can count, recite the
creed,
And can tell you that, in East Yorkshire, there were far more pigs than
men....
Page(s) 121
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