What stopped him from being terrifying and served to make him that much cooler was the fact that he was funny, really funny. His approval or his amusement were achievements to be savoured because he always made you feel as though you had earned them. Such was the edifying power of his laughter, I all but forgot I had just scraped half my face off as we filled the sinks with blood in the boys’ toilets on the day Denise Miller drove me to destruction. And the final piece in the jigsaw of cool that made Mr Skinner so hip in our young eyes: he looked great in a tracksuit. It’s perhaps more superficial than some of his other winning attributes but it cemented the physical aspect of his authority. He was clever and sporty, what is often referred to as an all-rounder, and this Clark Kent/Superman duality really upped his stock.
Although not a fan of either playing or watching league football (I half-heartedly supported Liverpool as a kid), I clearly recall the first football lesson I ever attended as a child and a piece of sage advice given to us by Mr Skinner that has stayed with me to this day, which was ‘remember the rope’. This spatial awareness aid served to remind us to consider the proximity of opposing players when passing the ball to fellow team members. We were asked to imagine a fictional rope, stretching between the player we intended to pass the ball to and ourselves. If a player from the opposing team is able reach the rope, then the ball is vulnerable to interception. It makes complete sense and I keep meaning to include it in a letter, which begins, ‘Dear England . . .’
I don’t play football myself but I do use the strategy when kicking balled-up socks across the kitchen to my wife while Minnie tries to intercept. I have also used the expression when watching national games, yelling at a player whose lazy pass has been foiled by a defender. ‘Remember the rope, you fucking prick!’ I will scream with a mouthful of lager and dry-roasted peanuts. This is just one of a number of Mr Skinner-based incidents that have inspired me throughout my life, the biggest of which was the day we both performed an elaborate comedy sketch in front of the entire school.
I wasn’t enjoying swimming lessons at school, and although I had displayed a certain amount of aptitude for a nine-year-old, my aforementioned wariness of swimming pools had rather slowed my progress. Nevertheless I had moved from the beginners group taught by Mrs Hortop, through to the intermediate group taught by Mr Miller, and eventually, and reluctantly, to the advanced group, which was of course taught by Mr Skinner.
My first lesson as an aquatic A-lister didn’t go so well. The group was populated by the kind of sporty kids who had been swimming since they were babies and possessed cool goggles, nose clips, bathing caps and unusually broad shoulders. The lesson required us to swim an alarming number of widths, wearing a pair of nylon pyjamas, which was exhausting and tiring and in my mind pointless, since I usually made an effort not to sleepwalk near large bodies of water.
Psychologically speaking, I couldn’t shake flashbacks to that all-consuming sense of panic I had felt struggling, rubber-ringless, beneath the surface of Gloucester Leisure Centre’s ‘big pool’. After a few lessons of feeling exhausted and literally out of my depth, I approached Mr Skinner and asked him if I could return to the intermediate level. I felt a little pathetic; it was hard to ask for voluntary demotion from a teacher whose respect I craved, but I didn’t really have a choice. Mr Skinner considered my earnest expression for a moment, and obviously detecting something other than laziness in my entreaty, granted my wish. He did, however, make one proviso, this being to buy him a Mars bar as compensation. He smiled at me and sent me off to change, unaware that I had taken his condition very seriously.
But I didn’t want to just hand him the Mars bar
Although not a fan of either playing or watching league football (I half-heartedly supported Liverpool as a kid), I clearly recall the first football lesson I ever attended as a child and a piece of sage advice given to us by Mr Skinner that has stayed with me to this day, which was ‘remember the rope’. This spatial awareness aid served to remind us to consider the proximity of opposing players when passing the ball to fellow team members. We were asked to imagine a fictional rope, stretching between the player we intended to pass the ball to and ourselves. If a player from the opposing team is able reach the rope, then the ball is vulnerable to interception. It makes complete sense and I keep meaning to include it in a letter, which begins, ‘Dear England . . .’
I don’t play football myself but I do use the strategy when kicking balled-up socks across the kitchen to my wife while Minnie tries to intercept. I have also used the expression when watching national games, yelling at a player whose lazy pass has been foiled by a defender. ‘Remember the rope, you fucking prick!’ I will scream with a mouthful of lager and dry-roasted peanuts. This is just one of a number of Mr Skinner-based incidents that have inspired me throughout my life, the biggest of which was the day we both performed an elaborate comedy sketch in front of the entire school.
I wasn’t enjoying swimming lessons at school, and although I had displayed a certain amount of aptitude for a nine-year-old, my aforementioned wariness of swimming pools had rather slowed my progress. Nevertheless I had moved from the beginners group taught by Mrs Hortop, through to the intermediate group taught by Mr Miller, and eventually, and reluctantly, to the advanced group, which was of course taught by Mr Skinner.
My first lesson as an aquatic A-lister didn’t go so well. The group was populated by the kind of sporty kids who had been swimming since they were babies and possessed cool goggles, nose clips, bathing caps and unusually broad shoulders. The lesson required us to swim an alarming number of widths, wearing a pair of nylon pyjamas, which was exhausting and tiring and in my mind pointless, since I usually made an effort not to sleepwalk near large bodies of water.
Psychologically speaking, I couldn’t shake flashbacks to that all-consuming sense of panic I had felt struggling, rubber-ringless, beneath the surface of Gloucester Leisure Centre’s ‘big pool’. After a few lessons of feeling exhausted and literally out of my depth, I approached Mr Skinner and asked him if I could return to the intermediate level. I felt a little pathetic; it was hard to ask for voluntary demotion from a teacher whose respect I craved, but I didn’t really have a choice. Mr Skinner considered my earnest expression for a moment, and obviously detecting something other than laziness in my entreaty, granted my wish. He did, however, make one proviso, this being to buy him a Mars bar as compensation. He smiled at me and sent me off to change, unaware that I had taken his condition very seriously.
But I didn’t want to just hand him the Mars bar
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