Fame at last! (Well Almost!)

I was taken by my youngest daughter to the Christmas Show of Gervase Phinn. He was appearing in Darwen, so it was something of a novelty to be chauffeur driven. Never having been to the library theatre before, we set off in plenty of time so we could find the place. It turned out quite easy to find, being well signposted once you entered Darwen, so it was, that we were in the theatre foyer killing time, when Gervase Phinn appeared, mingling with the people who would make up his audience.

He eventually came over to Hannah and I and during the course of conversation he asked us what we did. I told him I was a retired head teacher and Hannah was a teacher. In his introductory patter about parents supporting children and helping them decide the course of their working life he made mention of the fact that there was a retired teacher in the audience who had encouraged his daughter to go into teaching!

Those of you un-familiar with Gervase Phinn may like to know that he is billed as the James Herriot of the education world, and he really is just as funny, with his tales being firmly rooted in school life.

One of the pieces he does is about what droll and strange names some children have to suffer these days. He mentions a boy in his class called Duane, and eventually tells you his surname was Pipe [Duane Pipe - Drain Pipe] He then goes on to tell you about a boy in a Catholic school who had been Christened Innocent. When he asked the head teacher of the school how came to have such an unusual name, and how embarrassed he must be with it, the head responds with the fact that he was named after the pope, but unfortunately his family surname causes even more embarrassment. It is Bystander [Innocent Bystander!]

The real "gem of the night" was the story about the infants teacher who takes all her class to York Race course. Soon one of the children requests to go to the toilet, and being a teacher wise to the ways of infants, she takes all the boys along to the toilet. The first child goes in to the urinals, and comes out complaining that they are too high for him, so the teacher has to go in. She lines all the boys up and in they troop. One by one she pulls down their trousers and underpants and lifts them up the height of the urinal, carefully shaking them at the end of the time. She picks up the last child and notices that he seems extremely well endowed compared to all the other boys. When she puts him down she realises that he is not one of her boys, and asks who he is.

"Well madam", the boy replies, "I'm Frankie Detorri, and I'm riding in the 3.30!"