Edgar muses...
Number Three Matron is my wife, Mrs Janice Evans. As the song goes, ‘I used to love her but it’s all over now.’ Take a bow Mick Jagger and his Rolling Stones. She’s having an affair with Macnab, the brutish groundsman, or, as the boys so aptly call him, ‘The Bugger’. It’s only a matter of time before I catch them at it and when I do ... Excuse me while I crack open another beer ... now, where am I?

Of course, 1974. The question is, how many of us will still be here in ‘75? You think I exaggerate? Last term Lord Wallace Niven tried to burn the school down, with everyone in it, and then there was Scott whom we’re not allowed to talk about. Talk about going to the dogs - gone to the dogs more likely and that’s an insult to out four-legged friends.

I’m Edgar Evans and I teach the brutes French, when they let me. The boys are feral. It’s a fact. And Stonehaven is a rotting cesspool - the building is a crumbling wreck; gargoyles crash to the ground so regularly that the termites have invented something called the, ‘Dragon Suicide Sweepstake’. The clever money is on the Harpie, perched, as she is, high above the headmaster’s study. (I must remember to place my bet with that shameless embezzler Tweedie Brewster, 12, when he delivers my weekly ration of booze.) As I said, Stonehaven is a cesspool both literally and metaphorically, because its very heart is corrupt and stinking, like a bloated corpse or an evil spirit.

And then there’s the little man, the leprechaun, the malignant gnome, in his shiny shoes, starched white shirt, and his spotless black suit. The abominable maths teacher runs the place like his own personal fiefdom. Culp. What I’d like to do to Collier Culp ... and his sycophant-in-chief, that unbearable child Johnny Menzies, such an oily slippery, toadying toad, currently scurrying across the lawn, leaving behind a trail of squashed worms the second years have just conjured out of the earth via the magic of soapy water and are currently on their knees harvesting. He’s on his way to give the ‘Rules And Regulations’ chat to the sprogs where he’ll no doubt scare them witless by telling them never to go to the old graveyard because the bodies are infected by incurable Black Plague and that the outdoor pool contains the ghost of a drowned indigeree and never, ever, on any account, even if your life depended on it, go to the Top Of The World ... fair point ... I can see them quaking in their wellies. Why ... he’s even made one of them cry. Still, give them a few weeks and they’ll be battle hardened thugs like the rest of them.

And as for the monstrous head boy - surrounded as he now is by his hyenas, his cruel little eyes flicking this way and that way searching out carrion - take a bow Finnigan Bunce, the wiry, spotty reptile with blond brillo pad hair, a permanent vicious streak and a ripening alcohol problem. Someone should put him out of his misery before he cracks and does some real damage. And there, by the Loch Walk, picking its way through the woods like a frightened traveller in a fairy tale, is the bandit king himself, Niven, the mad lord, with his army of hooligans and swindlers.

We’re survivors of a ship-wreck, adrift in the middle of nowhere, all at sea in the remote Scottish Highlands, and all I do is drink, watch the Tour De France and take abuse from the boys while it all unravels gloriously. The headmaster, Donald Stark and his frosty wife, Veronica, have lost the plot. They can’t wait to get out of here; you can see it in their eyes; and they’re scheming. I can smell it and the thing is Veronica has a crush on one of the boys which is farcical, embarrassing and begs the question. Will they or won’t they?

And then there’s my new drinking buddy, Tawse Bannerman, aka Dr Jekyll, the classics teacher, with his NHS glasses that make him look like a scrawny old owl. I like him but I wish he wouldn’t hit the children so much, I mean, at least he could use his fists instead of the bicycle chain.

But what to do? Stonehaven is wrought out of violence. Even the pupils have their vicious, ‘Boys Own Laws’. I’ve seen them at it - makes the blood run cold - and one day it’s going to blow up in our faces, like a volcano. (But we masters turn a blind eye to this daily dose of savagery on account that it makes men out of boys - monsters more like.)

Us teachers aren’t any better. I’ve told you about Tawse and I’ll tell you about Tolmie Baxter, the geography man, who prefers a nice heavy blackboard duster and has spilt many a boy’s skull with his lethal shot. But as for me, as for good old Edgar Evans the very Welsh French teacher, silly soft old Edgar, they all take advantage, think I’m ridiculous, or, as my estranged wife likes to say, a ‘fucking disgrace’. Well, we’ll show them who’s a fucking disgrace, when push comes to shove, when the shit finally hits the fan, we’ll show them.

But, I stray ... it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s the delectable new matron, Matron Number Four, Margueritte Slater. If only I was younger - such shorts skirts, such tight jumpers - and all the boys craning their greedy beady little eyes to get a better look up her skirt. Embarrassing, but am I any better? Definitely not. Then there’s the new older boy - Scott’s replacement, so angelic. I fear for him, I really do. What’s his name? Luke ... that’s it. And the Maths Club have already got their fetid hooks into him and still I do nothing ... I wallow in my shame like a septic stew. Luke Mackie ... he’s safe now, but for how long? God help us all.
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