Green ink

tales from the past

when did I become a writer? a week after my 11th birthday. I base this assertion on the evidence of a green exercise book, decorated with an arc of ink spatters worthy of ronald searle - a sign that meant either quiet rebellion or incompetence with a fountain pen.

Name J.Wrathall

Subject English

Form M6B

Philip & Tacey Ltd England

five english exercise books have survived from my schooldays. the first was quite an effort to reread - my ‘creative’ stories were mainly from world war 1 or 2, recycled from ones my father used to tell. the last page of that exercise book is headed:

Books I Have Read

Date Started 13.3.74 Reach For The Sky P. Brickhill Date Finished 28.5.74

28.5.74 Enquiry R. Francis 29.5.74

only two books on the list - but from that you can tell it took me two-and-a-half months to read the life of douglas bader but only one day to polish off the latest dick francis. I don’t know if that ‘r’ for richard instead of ‘dick’ was a joke, fastidiousness or some reluctance in writing my father’s name? I *do* remember reading francis’s Odds Against & asking my mother what a ‘sado-masochistic femme fatale’ was. (I don’t remember her answer, which inevitably disappointed.) I’d basically skipped children’s literature, going straight from roger lancelyn-green’s Tales Of The Greek Heroes to alistair maclean (& before long, mary renault).

in a second green exercise book, though, there’s a breakthrough. on 6 november I had written (with the usual unexciting diligence, covering a page & one line of the exercise book as if ‘getting over the page’ was a thing in homework as well as thankyou letters): ‘Appreciation of ‘The Wiper’ and ‘Restaurant Car’, by Louis Macneice’. on 28 november’s ‘corrections’ there’s - believe it or not - the word ‘boredom’ written out 5 times.

but in between, on 25 november 1974, is:

Reporter “on the spot”

Straight from Rhineland

Rats Get Their Revenge On Bloodthirsty Bishop!

This story was uncovered in the early hours of the morning, on the 23rd November, when Frau Inge Schmidt discovered the body (if it could be called that) of a man. The corpse was later identified as that of Bishop Hatto of Mainz. All that was left of the man was a gnarled, bloodstained skeleton. There were a few bits of dried flesh lying on the partly blood-covered bedclothes. Through enquiries the following information has been uncovered.

On the night the Bishop died on, a sufferer of insomnia who inhabits a farmhouse near the bank of the Rhine, altogether roughly one hundred metres from the tower on the island where the Bishop died, admits hearing a scratching noise with a simultaneous patter which sounded like thousands of small feet…

& so it goes on for 7 glorious pages, finishing with the word: Reuter.

the english teacher mr wincott (who wore a bow tie & marked in green ink) wrote: ‘a delightful re-writing of the poem. quite the best i’ve read!’ but had we really studied the poem, which is (wikipedia tells me) by robert southey, a poor 3rd behind wordsworth & coleridge? I think I remember a children’s magazine that told the story in graphic-novel from, but it’s only very dim. something about the assignment attracted me, however, in the same way that a screenplay of the gunpowder plot, say, did in the 1990s; not entirely made up, but embroidered - & with a definite taste for gore.

on the final page of the exercise book, neatly stapled, is a photocopy: ’T.W.’s Marking Code’ (T.W. being Terence Wincott). in 20 numbered entries, the document suggests a training in subbing - until it gets to the last 2 pronouncements: ‘19. N.I.B. NOT IN BIRO. 20. F.F.P. FILTHY FELT/FIBRE PEN.’

for Terence Wincott, only green ink would do.