Art imitates life
Original Fiction – for adult eyes only
Good afternoon this is Raymond Fotherinton-Poke
and welcome to Picture-goer, a weekly wireless programme exploring the
latest films to be viewed at your local cinema. Today, I’m speaking with Mr Laurie
Languid, who features in the new drama Seven Days at St Austin’s.
Thank you for inviting me Mr Fotherinton-Poke
Mr Languid, please tell us a little about
the story in this film.
Well, it’s about a group of
schoolboys who set about trying to steal a diamond that has itself been stolen
by a gang of crooks.
It is a bit of a romp isn’t it, but
there’s one scene that has caused a lot of conversation, isn’t there?
You mean, the one with me in the
headmaster’s study.
Yes, tell us about that.
Well, without giving away too much of
the story. I play a school prefect who gets mixed up in it all and the police
are involved and I’m reported to the headmaster.
Yes, it’s quite a dramatic scene. Tell us
more.
Well, as you might imagine the
headmaster is none too pleased that one of his pupils has been involved with
the police and my character soon finds himself spread-eagled across the
headmaster’s desk and he then proceeds to do what headmaster’s do in such
circumstances.
Critics and viewers alike have remarked
that the scene is very authentic. Very little is indeed left to the
imagination.
Yes, I get six-of-his-best, as they
say, and the head who is rather annoyed with my character lays it on with some
vigour.
Judging by the expression on your face
each time the cane lands across your backside the thrashing looks very genuine.
Thank you Mr Fotherinton-Poke. It is
only acting.
If so, you will surely be on the shortlist
for an Academy Award this year. That cane fairly bounced off you. We even saw
dust fly. Are you perhaps being a little bit modest. In the cause of your art,
did you not suffer a little?
No, I assure you I was unharmed.
Not, even padding down the back of your
bags?
No, no really.
One newspaper reported that the scene in
the film was uncannily like a real experience you had at school. You were
yourself beaten by the headmaster. Would you care to tell us about that.
Hee-hee! Well, Mr Fotherinton-Poke you
might say the film was life imitating art. No, I mean art
imitating life don’t I? I was indeed a visitor to the headmaster’s study ….
Would you care to elucidate? For what
offence were you summoned.
Indeed, I was caned on more than one
occasion. It was that type of school …
I am sure many listeners-in would be
familiar with such an institution.
Yes, there were rules for everything.
It was a boarding school, of course. And with rules come sanctions. And the
cane was the first port of call for many masters.
I understand you were last caned only a
few days before you were due to leave the school.
Yes, that’s true. I would have been
in the sixth-form.
So, eighteen years old?
Very, nearly nineteen ...
Do tell us what happened.
Oh, it was the usual thing really. A
group of us left the school without permission. Being out of bounds was an
offence in itself, but we took ourselves off to a local hostelry and enjoyed a glass
of mild beer. We were spotted by a master who was himself enjoying a bottle of
pale ale. We were reported …
And the inevitable happened?
Yes, yes.
Was it very much like the scene in the Seven
Days at St Austin’s.
Yes, the film is very realistic. Mine
was a traditional school. Lots of ivy on the walls and mullioned windows. The
headmaster’s study was all dark panelling. He kept an old leather armchair in
one corner. I doubt that any visitor ever sat on it. That wasn’t its purpose in
the room.
Yes, I think I can see that room in my
mind. My own headmaster’s study was very similar.
They do seem to have certain
similarities don’t they.
Was there a rack on the wall with a
selection of canes?
No, not in this case. There would be
three or four curve-handled canes of various lengths and thicknesses dangling
from a hat-stand.
Ah, yes, I can see it now. So what
happened next?
There’s always a ritual isn’t there.
In this case, one was required to remove one’s jacket and lay it on the
headmaster’s desk. Then you were required to take hold of the leather chair
which had its back to a corner and you had to swivel it round so that the back
was now facing towards one.
And what was the headmaster doing all the
while?
Glaring! Headmaster’s always glare
don’t they. He was watching me like a hawk.
Was he not flexing one of those canes and
swishing it through the air.
Hee-hee! No, that’s rather rum acting
isn’t it. Only a ham would do something like that.
Oh dear, my headmaster did that all the
time. But, yes, you are quite correct, he was a ham. So were you required to
select which cane from the set available the headmaster should use to beat you?
No, nothing like that. Indeed, I
doubt there was really much difference between them. It’s not the weapon itself
that causes the damage it’s the strength of the master who is wielding it that
is important.
Yes, that’s true, I suppose. I ought to
remark here that you were eighteen years old when this incident occurred, did
your headmaster not think you were a tad too old for a tanning?
Ha! You should tell him that. No, I
really believe that he saw every boy in that school as an incorrigible
thirteen-year-old and treated him accordingly. My age was of no account to him.
You could have refused to be beaten. What
could he have done about that?
Good heavens, no! I could never do
that. The chaps would never let me live it down. You committed the crime and
you did the time. I broke the rules, I was found out, I would take my
punishment like a man.
Well done. Very spirited sir. So then?
Then, it was a curt command. The one
that chills a boy’s blood. ‘Bend over the chair, sir.’ There was no question
about it. The headmaster commanded ‘Bend’, and bend one did. It was a smelly
old chair, drenched in the sweat of the generations of schoolboys who had folded
over its back.
Yes indeed, the traditions of Olde
England. Tell me, it was rumoured I believe that before assuming the position
for punishment you were required to lower your trousers.
Bend over bags down! No, indeed not.
I think those days had long gone. I believe they were still using birch rods
twenty or so years earlier and that, naturally requires the haunches to be
bared.
Yes, maybe in deference to the ladies
listening-in we shouldn’t dwell on that.
No, perhaps not. So, my trousers
remained resolutely up.
The headmaster delivered a good set of
marks regardless of the clothing?
Hee-hee! Indeed, they call it
six-of-his-best for a reason you know. I had
to take my tea standing at a mantelpiece.
I don’t suppose when you hobbled from the
headmaster’s study that afternoon you thought you would be drawing on the
experience in an acting role only a few months later?
Indeed, not.
And you continue to maintain that the
scene in the film is entirely acting?
Indeed, I do.
Well, we will allow picture-goers to make
up their own minds. Seven Days at St Austin’s is in cinemas now. Good
afternoon.
Picture credit: Generated by
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
Comments
Post a Comment