Turning the clock back: Malcolm Hardee at Colfe's Grammar School in the early 1960s – The memoirs of Stan Wolfson

(Stan Wolfson 1962)

The problem which always faced me as a teacher was the reluctance to accept that children grow old. It's OK for adults to grow old - they are already halfway there, if not there already, - but not children. A photo encapsulates a moment in time, whether it's a face, a class or an entire school, and, when I look at such a photo, I see faces which are perennial, ageless, innocent. That's how I remember the children I taught. I like to pick out a face in an old photograph and attach a name to it. It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle when you are faced with a form or panoramic photo. One familiar face can lead to the identification of an entire group. This works even more effectively if you still have your old mark-book. The young rogues and angels may have matured over the years, and respectability and responsibility have replaced the carefree camaraderie of the classroom and playground. I simply cannot visualise those youngsters being OAPs and grandfathers, and I doubt that they themselves ever thought so far ahead. 3A and L4B (now years 7 & 8) are always 11 and 12 years old. That's how it's supposed to be. My early years at the school were taken up mostly by the junior classes and I can still visualise the innocent faces, even if I may have forgotten some of the names. Sometimes I can remember the names, if not the faces. But talented youngsters always leave an impression, whether it's Richard Grover, Mark Forrest or Stephen Hollingdale. Their images persist. The

1 Stan Wolfson August 2016 list of such boys is endless. In the case of Malcolm Hardee in the early 60s the spirit of childhood never really left him. The laissez-faire posture which he showed as a child accompanied him all the way to maturity or immaturity, whichever way you look at it. Whenever I start reading about his life, his actions, his comic presentations, I see very little change in attitude from what he displayed as a schoolboy in L4B. Over fifty years have lapsed since I last taught him. The anarchic behaviour didn't change over the forty years after he left Colfe's Grammar School. Only the scale was different. The chaotic direction of his life was as dramatically poignant as it had been in the classroom where he stood out for the wrong reasons. He may have converted into a visual tableau the Latin for "six", which always raised a laugh during lessons when boys had to recite the Roman numerals from one to ten, and his priapic interpretation of President Charles de Gaulle's nose may have done nothing to improve Anglo-French relations. Little was left to the imagination. But all this ostentation merely emphasised his belief that the world revolved around Malcolm Hardee. He went out of his way to make himself the centre of attraction. He had been a magnet all his life, and the entourage which was drawn to him never really knew much about him. They saw the facade of a bloated drunkard. He kept quiet about his childhood or exaggerated the reality. The myth was more important than the truth. That he was able to convince others of this stance is testimony to that indefinable quality which distinguishes the ordinary from the extraordinary. Peter Pan never grew old. Malcolm Hardee had a puerile attitude in an adult body; that childish spirit of anarchy, rebelliousness and defiance of authority never deserted him. He took comedy to the limit. What he couldn't do in class, he did on the stage. One expected any minute uniformed officers or men in white coats to carry him off and put him in handcuffs or a straitjacket. The boundary between genius and lunacy is difficult to discern. But Malcolm came closer to the latter than to the former. Albert Einstein was a genius, Spike Milligan was a lunatic. A "conic section" is a geometrical term. But a "sectioned comic" is a psychiatric term. You cannot predict what a lunatic will do. "Mad Malcolm", as one of his classmates aptly referred to him, was no Spike Milligan, but he shared the same indifference to the social environment, and the same disrespect for authority. Today the unpredictable actions of such people are glorified as extremism, or even terrorism, if their motives are destructive. Malcolm was as extreme and unpredictable as they come. Terrorist? Maybe not. Terrorists are normally aware of the possible consequences of their actions. Malcolm never visualised the end-product. Teachers certainly don't like facing the unpredictable. They love regular routine;

2 Stan Wolfson August 2016 they feel safe with regularity. The unexpected may prove more challenging and threatening. Teachers don't mind the challenge; it's the threat which disconcerts them.

Malcolm Hardee is one of Colfe's more famous or, perhaps, more infamous products. He never achieved notoriety as a murderer, like former school chorister, Colin Richard Forman, who would be fairly categorised as a lunatic. But, like Forman, he met an untimely end. The names of such former pupils won't appear in the history of the school. They don't appear on the school website in the list of Notable Colfeians. There ought to be a list of "Not Ables", infamous people who are notable for being social misfits. But on reflexion, no school would wish to advertise its achievements with references to its "failures". Such "celebrities" are swept under the carpet. The name would crop up at reunion dinners when a past eccentric elicited a few laughs at the recollection of his classroom capers. Few people outside Malcolm's family circle know about such, and even the family are probably unaware of the true details of his school years. In any case, the possibility that Malcolm Hardee had once been a child didn't bear thinking. Did anyone ever see a photograph of the Colfe's schoolboy? His "autobiographical confessions" show photographs of the 9 yr-old primary schoolboy and a family group, taken a year later, but nothing to suggest any link to Colfe's Grammar School. "Cui bono?" as the legal expression asks. Are we to rely solely on his recollections? never realised how accurate his comment was when he referred on the back cover of the autobiography to "bare-faced lies". There was a reality behind that double-entendre. Press reports are not interested in the childhood of a . Has anyone ever seen a photo of a young Bruce Forsyth or Spike Milligan outside of an official biography? How many teachers have drafted an account of Lenny Henry or Benny Hill? How many schoolmasters are still around to reflect on and recall in detail the events of the distant past? The childhood of "personalities" is of no interest even to the gutter press, unless some scandal is attached to it. The irony is that Malcolm Hardee's childhood adventures - or misadventures - would have filled the pages of the local press, or even national press, if in later years the word had got out about his escapades. If even a fraction of his activities were true, he would have spent most of his boyhood years, not at Colfe's Grammar School, but at an asylum for delinquent children. "Once a villain, always a villain" may sound commonplace, but I can assure you that some of the "naughty" boys I taught became the most agreeable adults you would ever wish to meet. Don't judge all Old Colfeians by the activities of Malcolm Hardy. I feel sorry about Forman for taking his own life as well as the lives of others, and often wonder how he would have fared in

3 Stan Wolfson August 2016 later years. I feel sorry for Malcolm Hardee - but not in the same way. His unintentional demise is almost black humour, part of the act, as if he had planned his exit that way. He would certainly have appreciated the consequences; his adoring fans continued the tradition in their irreverent treatment of his funeral. They wanted something to remember him by. Perhaps they anticipated Malcolm suddenly leaping out of his coffin. You never could tell what he would do next. But when one of the invited guests gets up to sing "Nessun Dorma", while dressed in a blonde wig and playing a toy guitar, you know that the occasion is special.

(Malcolm Hardee’s funeral wreaths)

Many people outside the world of variety have never heard of Malcolm Hardee. If they had, they might have wished they hadn't. Mention of a comedian by that name conjures up visions of Laurel and Hardy. But his brand of slapstick usually involved slapping his stick and waving it around the stage. His reputation is based on a form of anarchic, often crude - euphemistically described as alternative - comedy which had a widespread appeal to the circles in which he found himself before ending up as a corpse in the Thames during a drunken spree in 2005. Never was the expression "drowning one's sorrows in drink" more appropriate. "The godfather to a generation of comic talent", as described him, was 55 yrs old. The term "godfather" conjures up visions of Marlon Brando chewing his way through a

4 Stan Wolfson August 2016 script. Whether the reviewer intended that analogy is unclear. But incoherence is a mutual characteristic. Reviewers should be treated with caution, as will be emphasised later, especially in making unverifiable judgements. One thing is common to all; they testify to a comic genius, i.e. a lunatic, who influenced the lives and careers of many others. 's poetic eulogy barely scratches the surface. But as a former psychiatric nurse she must have had a certain empathy with Malcolm. The details of his career, the photographs and the adulation which attended his presence are easily accessible on the internet. I am merely adding to his CV some of the missing parts of his childhood at the school where I once taught him. My experiences are taken from a personal viewpoint and corroborated by his classmates. I taught Latin in those days and, believe me, Malcolm's awareness of its form and use was only marginally better than the alleged comment of American Vice-President, Dan Quayle, prior to his visit to Latin-America, namely that he "wished he'd studied Latin harder in school so he could converse with those people". Malcolm Hardee was the sort of boy that no Latin teacher could ever forget. The club with which he was most associated in later life, "Up the Creek", bears a title which ironically might have described his classroom performances, and from what the other teachers and former pupils told me, I wasn't the only one to be concerned about his attitude towards school life, or even life in general. Yet there were signs of a "different" Malcolm from the one we were used to seeing in the classroom. I'm informed by one of his classmates, Brian Edwards, that Malcolm's musical talents came to the fore during coach trips when he organised the singing sessions with "alternative" words. Malcolm's title as the "Father of " gains substance from this episode which tallies with the alternative words, applied to the school song by generations of Colfeians, the very school song which Malcolm claims was being sung in the hall at the precise moment he "blew up the organ". Malcolm Hardee actually was involved in blowing up organs, but on stage. Usually the sight of these priapic balloons produced shrieks of laughter which reflected the expectations of the audience for whom Malcolm's genitalia provided the climax of the show. There was nothing new in this. Aristophanes had produced leather versions of the same in fifth century Athens. The only difference was that the Greek comic playwright created a risible and ribald plot, often political. If Malcolm had developed his zany ideas into a similar format, something along the lines of "Spitting Image" or "Blackadder", he might have attracted responses from a wider, more refined section of society than that which merely guffawed at the sight of a giant phallus, artificial or not. But Malcolm knew the limitations of his audience. "Get it out!" was the popular demand of the spectators; audience participation was a normal part of the

5 Stan Wolfson August 2016 proceedings. They weren't asking for anything sophisticated. They were used to such frolics in SE10. Bawdiness has been the basic characteristic of comedy throughout the centuries. Malcolm duly obliged. I can assure the reader at this point that such demands and responses never occurred in the classroom - not to my knowledge anyway.

(Brian Edwards, L4B 1962)

Adding one fabrication to another diminishes rather than enhances any anecdote about his schoolboy capers, and the paradoxical association of the "inspirational" school song with the alleged attempt to destroy the organ on Inauguration Day in 1964 brings little credit upon either Malcolm or those willing to believe such dross. Yet the ability to organise a singing session on a coach-trip illustrates the burgeoning talent which became the prevalent feature of his later life among the clubs and of SE . The young impressionist needed an audience, whatever the environment, and in his professional years he would rise to the occasion. Despite his choral background at St Stephen's Church (p.26), he would never have appreciated the value of being a member of the school choir; the only member he valued was his own; the addition of an extra voice would, in any case, have made little difference to the euphonic qualities of a somewhat unenthusiastic assemblage which was experiencing a gradual decline both in interest and in numbers. So he found himself in a milieu outside the classroom where he could project his personality among his age-group of boys who were otherwise wary of getting too close to him, in case they found themselves embroiled in the same cycle of trouble and aggravation. If he lit the fuse, everyone would go up with him. His scholar contemporary, Dave Nutting, summed him up in one word, "trouble". That could well have 6 Stan Wolfson August 2016 been his middle name. Anyone who befriended him or associated with him ran a high risk of being tarred with the same brush. "Amusing, but dangerous", as another of his scholar contemporaries, Terry Gates, described him. "Dangerous”? Definitely. "Amusing"? Occasionally. But the funny side tended to wear a bit thin after a while. The only pals he was really comfortable among and who appreciated his company were those with whom he mixed outside of school hours, the kids he had known since his primary school days at St Stephen's, but who were not bright enough to see the danger-signs. The autobiographical photograph, taken on Ramsgate beach in 1956 (p.213), when he was "nine years old" - how can he be nine years old if he was born in 1950? - is the idyllic "calm before the storm". The enigmatic expression betrays little evidence of the shape of things to come over the next few years as he switched schools. This Machiavellian mischief-maker must have believed that he was the "cat's whiskers", the exception to the rule. Exceptional he certainly was in one sense. The need to impress his classmates would compensate for the tendency to depress his teachers for whom Malcolm was one clown too many. To some extent one feels sorry for this young man whose personality and desire for recognition and acceptance took him ever away from the regular routine of classroom life. It was like climbing up a downward moving escalator. He was getting nowhere. At school Malcolm Hardee was a fish out of water. He stood out like a sore thumb and did nothing to conform with the rest of his peers who seemed to get on OK with their work, whatever the quality of the production. He would bide his time and wait for the opportunity to cause mayhem without so much as blinking that lazy eye. The desire to exploit those who succumbed to his "leadership" is more redolent of the business world than of schoolboy ambition. But ostentatious behaviour is superficial. It may command temporary admiration and provoke a few laughs, but anyone with perception can see through it. To take centre-stage is a daring step. If the audience doesn't react favourably, the star attraction is no longer attractive. So attractiveness has to be replaced with outrageousness. It requires less talent to outrage than to attract. There is a difference between being flash and being a flasher. Subtlety is not a word to use in describing Malcolm Hardee's brand of attention-seeking which applies as much to the classroom as it does to the stage. The only difference is that the class is a captive audience. It cannot simply get up and walk out. If a pupil wants to play the clown, he must play him convincingly. The class reaction will tell him whether or not he has succeeded. Malcolm's attempts at comedy did not convince his classmates. They didn't bombard him with missiles as his hecklers later did. They found him tiresome rather than entertaining. There is nothing more tedious than repetitive "showmanship" for boys who want to get on with their

7 Stan Wolfson August 2016 work. Thus the seeds of Malcolm Hardee's schoolboy antics, whether as a potential comedian or phallic impressionist, fell on stony ground. The growing frustration and failure to achieve any form of recognition led up to the circumstances which culminated in his expulsion.

My account is not intended simply to focus on Malcolm Hardee, but to use him as a hook on which to hang my coat, as the saying goes, and to offer a teacher's viewpoint on the whole picture of classroom life which revolved around him and in which he evolved, and to resurrect the flavour of what school was like more than half a century ago. Malcolm Hardee is symptomatic of the malaise which infected the 60s. There was no antidote for it and no cure. At a time when role models were needed, there were few who rose to the task. It was the job of teachers not only to teach, but to set an example. Parents often delegated their own responsibilities for disciplining their children to the "pastoral" care of the staff. "If he plays the goon, whack him!" I was told bluntly on several occasions by indifferent fathers who treated the staff as baby-sitters or policemen. The phrase "in loco parentis" took on a real meaning. But "whacking" wasn't necessarily the solution. It was the parents who were the problem. There was no one else of authority or distinction for the kids to look up to. The "Profumo Affair" had virtually obliterated the status of politicians. The "Great Train Robbery" had proved that crime really could pay. The drug-fuelled antics of the Rolling Stones were hardly moral grounds for optimism, rather an excuse for anyone to jump on the bandwagon of anarchy. They merely represented the musical equivalent of what Malcolm was later to reproduce on the stage. Are these the role-models we seek? Are school-children supposed to respect the likes of these? The "Age of Aquarius" had not yet arrived to dismantle the old traditions completely, but changes would be on the way before the decade was out. Old Colfeians who are still alive today will recognise situations and people which impacted on their own lives at the time. Their own survival is testimony to their refusal to be sucked into this quagmire of hedonism which brought down the Government and ushered in the flowery age of liberalism. I don't recall any boy who met a premature death in his school days from being seduced by drugs or drink - or even girls. Of course Sixth Formers might get a little "disorientated" from time to time, but so did the staff. Brian "Dan" Seery's access to the Bunny Club was always an open invitation to all of us for a night out. But relaxation is different from overindulgence. The veterans among the OCs are a living testimony to what happened in those days. They may even be surprised at some of the revelations. Those who were acquainted with him will certainly recall Malcolm as the boy who tried to "buck the system".

8 Stan Wolfson August 2016

Malcolm Hardee is only one of many children who tested my patience, and, believe me, I was young and equally green at the time. But I never took amphetamines or drink to boost my confidence or to send me on an ego-trip. I was impervious to Malcolm Hardee's brand of attention-seeking. I distinctly recall the advice from one doyen of the staff-room whom everyone admired and respected, Basil Worthington. He had invited me round to his house in Horn Park Lane for tea, and to meet Dorothy and the family. "Ignore the individual!" he said. "Just concentrate on the group!” I concurred; the rest of the class were more deserving of my input. Teaching Latin is as much an ordeal as learning it. The experience works both ways, even if the prejudice is unilateral. You learn from your mistakes - unless you're Malcolm Hardee. It wasn't my intention to highlight the career of a former pupil by focusing on his weaknesses; his brand of humour didn't appeal to me whether it was in the classroom or on the stage. The reason for this retrospective account is simple. After more than half a century of teaching in the same school I've reached the age where the body is rapidly failing and the future is bleak. But as long as dementia keeps its distance, as long as the marbles are still rolling, as long as I'm reasonably coherent and as long as my memory remains as good as it ever was, the story will be told, warts and all. As Charles Dickens famously once said, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness".

Malcolm Hardee's life at Colfe's Grammar School, spent mostly on the site at , extended from September 1961 to the summer of 1965 when he was "asked to leave", a euphemism for expulsion. How he managed to survive four months, let alone four years, still baffles me. His autobiography, written when he was 46 yrs old, was published in 1996 under the bizarre title "I Stole 's Birthday Cake", which sounds incredible enough to be true. This anecdotal catalogue of scabrous, and mostly fictitious, recollections contains a chapter (2) wherein he highlights the events which ultimately led to his dismissal from the school. No photographs of the young Colfeian schoolboy appear in this book and no photographs of the school where his offences were alleged to have been committed; the allegations contained only a minuscule modicum of truth. Malcolm embroidered the "details" and John Fleming, his collaborator and "standard-bearer", provided the literary veneer. Malcolm on his own probably lacked the capacity to stitch a single sentence together. The only sentence he understood was what the judge handed out. His vocabulary was limited to good

9 Stan Wolfson August 2016 old Anglo-Saxon words. Had he paid some attention to his Latin during his formative years, he might have extended his range of expression. Destruction rather than construction was his "modus operandi". No one at that time bothered to check the accuracy of his account. What did John Fleming know except what Malcolm Hardee fed him? He was the unwitting partner in a scam. Co-conspirator would be too strong a term. Malcolm was the one who knew all about conspiracies. John Fleming was merely the dupe. But he should at least have done some personal research; it costs money to engage researchers to do the work you should be doing yourself; I would happily have provided the requisite testimonials. So instead of accurate data we get drivel. Tawdry sensationalism sells books as well as newspapers. Entertainment is more important than enlightenment. The truth is immaterial. People would rather be excited or amused by a pack of lies than anaesthetised by the truth. If I didn't believe Malcolm Hardee back in 1962, why should I think differently now? When I was contacted some months ago by Jody Vandenburg of Tunnel Films which was making a documentary about Malcolm Hardee, I gave him a very brief outline of Malcolm's school days at Colfe's - and never heard from him again. Other "stars" were interviewed, but I was passed over, probably because I wasn't a "star". Malcolm Hardee's real school days apparently did not merit the status of the fictional "Tom Brown's School Days". Colfe's Grammar School wasn't Rugby School, Herbert Beardwood wasn't Thomas Arnold, and "fags" were either what you smoked behind the cycle- sheds or boys you didn't like. The truth was immaterial to Malcolm Hardee's current crop of admirers and sycophants who felt that his autobiography said it all. What could a boring old iconoclast like me have to say about their hero which wasn't already in the realm of popular fancy? The illusion remains. The delusion is suppressed. People who decided to read this book were, perhaps, seduced by curiosity. What was the connexion between the weird title and the contents? What could possibly link Freddie Mercury to any part of Malcolm's life? But no one was really in a position to judge what Malcolm said about his school days - or any other days, for that matter. If Malcolm had claimed an Eton background, no one would have batted an eyelid. As long as it made people laugh, what difference did it make whether or not it was true? But no creators of undiluted junk should ever be "let off the hook" so easily. The reviewers lacked the credentials to review it. The "Independent" newspaper described the book as "blindingly funny". "Blindingly"? What is that supposed to mean? Malcolm might have used a coarser adverb to describe his brand of humour. In fact, he could probably tell you from experience about the possible causes of blindness. The reviewer was merely going through the motions - literally, and regurgitating it. Colfe's Grammar School had been reduced to a

10 Stan Wolfson August 2016 caricature, a background scenario for a few cheap laughs. He might just as well have been reading the Dandy comic. Gerald Houghton, writing his review for "The Edge" in 1996, hits the nail on the head when he says "very likely outright lying". If we omit "very likely" we may draw the line between fact and fiction. Publishers don't care about the difference. Since when have publishers ever been motivated by anything other than profit? A "celebrity" pops up, a "humorous" idea is suggested and the cash-tills start ringing. I never pay much attention to reviews, just as I pay no attention to critics. Go directly to the source. Never rely on the judgement of others who get paid for producing garbage. Use your own judgement. Don't believe what you read or hear until you have firm evidence. Never was the expression "No news is good news" more appropriate. The word "media" is a Latin word; it means “things in the middle". Any form of the "media”, whether radio, television or newspaper is supposed to relay genuine information from the source to Mr & Mrs Joe Bloggs. But actually its main purpose is to make money, not to relay the true facts. I want the facts, not opinions. I'm capable of making up my own mind. I don't want distortions. But instead of it being offered to me uncontaminated, the meat, already indigestible, goes through the mincer and comes out as an equally indigestible sausage, fit only for dogs. Publishers are not charitable institutions. They prey on the gullibility of people who can't distinguish between fact and fiction and who are merely looking for titillation or amusement, the sort of people for whom Mills and Boon and the comic-book culture are the limits of their literary horizons. But there is a difference between reading a comic and digesting an "autobiography". Malcolm Hardee's anecdotes and jokes can be pulled out of Christmas crackers as well as his imagination. His school days deserve better. He admits himself that he "was seen as difficult" at school (p.24), but is much mistaken, if he thinks he "wasn't classified as wild" (ibid.). The general feeling among the staff was that he needed close watching. Perhaps the fear of contamination was foremost in their minds. One wild spark can cause a general conflagration. The metaphor of fire is not misplaced in this context. He may have thought that his spectacles gave him a scholarly veneer and protection against bullying. But it didn't stop him getting into playground scrapes, and he gave as good as he got. You didn't mess with Malcolm Hardee if you knew anything about his background. My one concern, however, was his propensity to pick on boys, like Robert Wearing, who were much smaller than himself, boys whose suburban "comfort-zone" was totally alien to the boisterous life of Grover Court in Lewisham, boys who were not as "streetwise" as Malcolm.

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The impact of the book (I hate using the term "autobiography" in reference to a work of fiction) on the general public is hard to gauge. I had originally read it on line, but the web version was unpaginated and had no photographs or index. So the original printed version was essential, if I was to refer to specific incidents. The copy which I was able to access first appeared in Bromley Public Library in 2006 and wasn't taken out until 2012. Perhaps the general public was more astute than I imagined. It wasn't catalogued under the heading of fiction. It didn't even appear in the biography section between Tony Hancock and Oliver Hardy. So where was it? In the reserve section in the basement. The assistant librarian told me that I would have to wait five days at least before I would be notified of its availability. I felt a mixture of frustration, disappointment, suspense and anticipation, like a child waiting to unwrap a birthday present. I couldn't wait to get my hands on this literary masterpiece of the English language and sample once again this fluent, elegant paradigm of prose and phraseology. A week passed and I returned to Central Library where I had first come across a reference to it in the catalogue. The assistant librarian confirmed its availability, and with a broad grin she brought it to me; she had obviously read the title. Had she read the contents, she wouldn't have been grinning. When I told her that Malcolm had been a former pupil of mine, she expressed her commiserations. I made no mention of Colfe's; I didn't want the word to get around that Colfe's had once been a lunatic asylum. I could end up as "persona non grata" and be ranked among the other deadbeats and alcoholics who took sanctuary in the comfortable armchairs, clutching newspapers which they pretended to read. But the reaction of that smiling librarian had "made my day". I can't describe my pleasure at the thought that I wasn't the only sane person in London. It had never crossed my mind to inquire in a bookshop whether they had a copy in stock. I could visualise the look on their faces, if I said "I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake". The likely response would suggest that their customer was as much a fruitcake as the author and subject of the book. The embarrassment would be too much for all concerned. So the idea of purchasing it was thrown overboard. Not that I ever considered purchasing it in the first place; for that sort of money I could buy my own birthday cake. As I was later to discover at Waterstones and W.H. Smith, the book was actually out of print, and as my previous dealings with Amazon, EBay and PayPal had been as fruitless a mission as trying to secure Malcolm Hardee's homework, the only alternative was the local charity shops or the Central Library which catered for the "Mills and Boon" mentality of the local population. I felt quite at home in the "Help the Aged" shop, and "Barnardo’s" reminded me of Malcolm's own background. But the proliferation of books on cookery and gardening

12 Stan Wolfson August 2016 was more than I could stomach, and the thought of asking for "I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake" was a non-starter; there were enough lunatics already roaming Eltham High St without adding another to the list. The library it had to be. At least I had three weeks to read it - which was about three weeks more than I needed.

(Hardee's "autobiography")

At this stage I would like to set the record straight and strip away the embellishments, exaggerations and concoctions so as to reveal the facts behind Malcolm's Colfeian fantasies. The school undoubtedly had its weaknesses - fewer, indeed, than most schools - but not such as to merit being caricatured like some sort of Dotheboys Hall where every teacher was a replica of Wackford Squeers. Why cheapen it with fabrications? I feel it almost a duty to do justice to the past, to defend the reputation of an institution which has outlived the likes of Malcolm Hardee, and to revitalise the fading voices and images before they are finally consigned to the shelves of history. Everyone has to die. History never dies. Colfe's will live on long after Malcolm Hardee has been consigned to oblivion, if ever anyone outside his circle remembered him at all. Hackneyed descriptions and farcical scenarios are merely a house of cards which comes tumbling down under close scrutiny. The trouble is that age eventually takes its toll on all of us, and, as long as there's no one around to corroborate the course of events which happened over fifty years ago, fact and fiction are interchangeable. Nothing should go unchallenged. What I record happened long ago and is part of the school's

13 Stan Wolfson August 2016 unrecorded history. I am much indebted to those former pupils who confirmed my own impressions with quotations and anecdotes. They, along with Malcolm Hardee, can still be pictured in my mind as the little boys they once were.

In the first instance masters did NOT wear mortar-boards in 1962 (p.23) either in lessons or on formal occasions. They had disappeared in the nineteenth century where the imaginations of Messrs Hardee and Fleming still resided. Some teachers still wore gowns, myself included. The practicality of the gown, to which I often referred in lessons as the "toga atra" (black gown), was not so much to do with tradition which tended to portray teachers as pompous martinets as with the need to protect one's clothes from the clouds of chalk-dust which drifted from the blackboards. The earliest chalk we used often fragmented on impact with the board and certainly fragmented on contact with a boy's head. The room was filled with the stuff. Teachers weren't duly concerned with the effect on their red-faced charges who coughed and spluttered their way to the windows in search of fresh air. Pneumoconiosis was a word that few people could pronounce, let alone spell. At least the rooms were generally free of tobacco smoke which polluted the atmosphere in some schools. The carcinogenic effects of inhaling tobacco smoke were barely known. Only on rare occasions did the effects of a teacher's pipe raise a few eyebrows. Joe "Doc" Wilkinson and Peter "Fred" Follett, were generally oblivious to the potential risks. Pupils were more worried about fire hazards than cancer. The hilarious legend of Alf Horrocks' apron catching fire in the chemistry lab is best left to another occasion. Fire drills were held from time to time in the playgrounds on both sites, usually if some clot deliberately set off the fire-alarm. The resulting chaos would have made even Malcolm Hardee, a potential suspect and arsonist, rub his hands with glee. If someone had in fact torched the Nissen huts it might have been a blessing in disguise; it would eliminate the possibility of a slow death from asbestosis or compensation claims from survivors. A few teachers wore gowns to draw attention away from the leather patches on their threadbare sports jackets, a sure identification of the impecunious pedagogues who furtively plied their trade in grammar schools, as if ashamed to be recognised as teachers. Being a teacher in those days wasn't a recommendation for joining the social elite. George Bernard Shaw summed it up nicely in "Man and Superman" when Bob utters the famously disparaging words, "Those who can, do, those who can't, teach". Other members of staff, believe it or not, actually used the ends of their gown as board-dusters, especially if the regular wooden-handled eraser had already been launched as a missile against some

14 Stan Wolfson August 2016 malefactor in the back row. I once remarked to a colleague that he looked as if he'd spent the morning in a bakery, up to his armpits in self-raising flour. His reply was sarcastic and, perhaps, logical, "If the Romans wore white togas, why can't I?" I didn't expand on the methods used by the Romans to achieve their sparkling whiteness. My pupils in the Upper School already knew about urinals outside laundries in Rome. But the impression given by those who were totally unacquainted with Colfe's Grammar School was totally misleading and straight out of the comic books. Colfe's was not Greyfriars School and masters were not all cloned versions of Mr Quelch, although some might not object to the comparison. We didn't "flap about the corridors like crows". There was a quiet and purposeful dignity to the movement of the gowned staff as they passed from one classroom to the next in the new buildings. It was Malcolm Hardee and his ilk who were "in a flap" at the prospect of being detected in some unsavoury incident. "Watch out! He's coming!" shouted the look-out, peering around the door; a sure signal that something was amiss. The masters were fully aware that the interval between periods offered scope for mischief. The occasional "Batman!" might echo down the corridor. Good-natured banter was well-meaning. No offence was intended, and none taken. Nor for that matter were Ma Hazeldine's dinners in Lewisham likely to produce Colfeian versions of Billy Bunter. Such boys existed already. Malcolm must have drawn his imagery from "The Magnet" comic or the "Beano". Boys, including 6th Formers, wore caps with a ONE gold-circle design, NOT three. So any suggestion that they were like dart-boards, fair game as target practice for yobs from local comprehensives is ludicrous. There was greater risk from passing pigeons or loose roof-tiles. Boys usually removed their caps at the school gates because they didn't want to look like "nerds" on their way home. There can be nothing more embarrassing than wearing a school cap. Even in the 1960s the school cap was an anachronism, and the incongruous image became more ridiculous as boys' hair grew longer. Today one would consider the idea of the school cap as totally absurd. John Tenniel's image of the Humpty Dumpty-like twins, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, instantly springs to mind. A boy didn't need to wear a cap in those days to identify which school he attended. The blazer badge said it all.

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(L to R: Mr Quelch and Billy Bunter, Colfe’s School Cap, Tweedledum & Tweedledee)

The "Welsh teacher", as Malcolm irreverently describes Trevor "Joe" Davies, was named after "Uncle" Joe Stalin, NOT the snooker player, Joe Davis (p.29). Malcolm was correct about the type of corporal punishment that Davies dished out to offenders, whether as a geography teacher or as Deputy Head. I can't vouch for any treatment meted out to Malcolm. Only his classmates can verify that. But I've no doubt that, if he did fall victim to Davies' wrath, he deserved what he got. In fact the disciplinary measures, taken by Davies, were affectionately known as "The Treatment" or the "Face-Warmer", as any Old Colfeian who had experienced or witnessed it will remember. The grey-haired, granite-faced Davies, who made the Mount Rushmore presidents look like jelly babies, virtually ran the school. Although collectively the senior trio were a formidable combination, Herbert Beardwood usually left the "dirty work" to his two lieutenants of whom Davies took seniority as Deputy Head. His discipline in this role extended even to the prefects who should have remembered to remove their spectacles before being called to account. His responsibilities became increasingly greater as Herbert's absence on the magistrates' bench became more frequent. Accordingly he grew in status until he felt that he was really the boss. Even Herbert had to acknowledge that Davies' organisational skills were indispensible. Davies enjoyed his new-found powers. If he told Herbert to "jump", Herbert jumped. For all the dedication to his job Davies' predilection for the land of his fathers became noticeably more pronounced, and he defended his Welsh heritage staunchly in any staffroom discussion. Whether he was a paid-up member of Plaid Cymru I don't know. Many staff members would provoke him on the issue of Welsh nationalism, and he would take the bait. He "blew a gasket" when I tried to "wind him up" by giving him a medal which commemorated in 1969 the investiture of "Charlie" as Prince of

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Wales. "What? Dumbo at Caernarfon? How dare you?” I was almost expecting a "Face- Warmer". But Bill Weir, who was as anti-royalist as the "Welsh teacher", - Who else could refer to Anthony Armstrong Jones as "Lord Kodak of Ilford”? - interceded to defuse the situation and reduce the tension. It wasn't the first time that I had seen the prickly side of the old campaigner. Despite his apparent aloofness Davies, believe it or not, was a discreet supporter of Welsh soccer of which he had a pretty good knowledge. So naturally his favourite player was a striker, the centre-forward Trevor Ford of Aston Villa, Sunderland and Cardiff City. But whereas Wales in the 50s and 60s never exactly set the world alight - a metaphor of which Malcolm Hardee would have approved - players such as Ivor Allchurch and John Charles commanded international respect. I well recall around Christmas in 1959 having one of those rare conversations with Davies, when he "let his guard down" to reveal his human side. It was the first time I had seen his softer nature. Boys never really saw what lay behind that crusty mask of intransigence. He could be more like Santa Claus than Joseph Stalin. It was nice to discuss soccer with him in those early days as long as you didn't mention Wrexham. I never did dare ask him about the relevance of Wrexham. He insisted that Welsh terms should be used where Christian names of footballers were concerned. So I gave ground; it was Trefor Ford and Ifor Allchurch. Anything for a bit of peace. In the course of time his interest in everything began to wane. He cut a pathetic figure as a totemic symbol of traditional authority. He had no family around him to remind him of happier days. The loneliness of his house in Wricklemarsh Rd eventually gave way to a care home in where he lived out his remaining days among the very people he had spent his whole life trying to avoid. But I still recall that stiff, formal pose even in his later years when his stentorian Welsh accent resounded along the corridors as he called out to a master or pupil. It's a good thing that he had retired years before Philip Cantwell arrived on the scene!

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(The "Triumvirate of Terror" 1959)

Dakum (sic), who appears in the index to the book as "the slipperer at Colfe's" (p.221), was Harold Dacombe, the "censeur", affectionately known to the staff as "Dake", Head of Junior School, and not even Malcolm Hardee would ever pull the wool over his eyes. Dacombe had honed his interrogatory skills during World War II when he worked for British Intelligence. There was nothing he didn't know about "intelligence,” whether it was provided by the narks in the Lower School or manifested in the activities of Malcolm Hardee, official or otherwise. If Malcolm thought that he "knew it all", he was mistaken; Dacombe was always one step ahead. I had occasion to send him to the "censeur" for bullying offences committed against another boy on the school site. He would have felt the after-effects for some time. There's a big difference between being smart and smarting from the attempt to be so. Dacombe took no prisoners. The story about Malcolm Hardee padding his trousers with extra layers of PE shorts to avoid the painful effects of a slippering is fictional. No one ever escaped a hiding in that way. This is straight out of the comic books. The likelihood is that Malcolm was reduced to a quivering jelly - or Wibbley Wobbley, to cite his own brand-name - the moment he was told to bend over the desk. This type of beating is something he would never forget, and he was clearly determined in later years never to use corporal punishment on his own children (p.32). There is a certain irony here, in so far as his belief that such treatment led to criminality did not apply to those, like himself, who were already predisposed to crime. The issue as to whether corporal punishment should be corrective or retributive was entirely a matter for the school at that time. The word "punitive" is perhaps more apt, in that it covers both. The punishment book was supposed to record each detail of the punishment meted out,

18 Stan Wolfson August 2016 but no one ever used it, neither Dacombe, Davies nor probably even Herbert. All the teachers devised their own methods for dealing with offenders. Pupils who complained of sadistic treatment might well have a point. Corporal punishment should be corrective. No teacher had the right to sadism. But the current educational climate merely emphasises the fact that taking away such options from a teacher is tantamount to taking away a spanner from a mechanic. The ideal solution is mutual respect. Unilateral respect, such as exists in south- east Asia, hardly exists in south-east London. When Malcolm was transferred to Sedgehill Comprehensive School, he came across a "hard bloke" in the Deputy Head. The very description of the gentleman in question suggests that Malcolm had met his match; Peter Dawson, like his Colfeian counterpart, "Joe" Davies, wasn't the sort of chap to be trifled with. Malcolm may have felt intellectually superior among his new class-mates; he may well have enjoyed the chaotic environment in his new surroundings before he was once more expelled. But he knew where to draw the line.

The story about the window "designed by Sir Basil Spence", in the new school hall, is another of Malcolm's concoctions. No such window ever existed. Malcolm is referring to the mural which faces you as you enter the atrium. This impressive design was created by the artist, Steven Sykes, who had established a reputation a few years earlier with his work in Coventry Cathedral. The mosaic, depicting life at school, comprised many different pieces of coloured glass and plastic which frequently fell off or were broken off by disrespectful boys who were looking for a place to dispose of the wrappings from their chocolate-bars or crisp packets. On one occasion I reprimanded Malcolm for leaning against it while waiting his turn to be "interviewed" by Herbert Beardwood. Perhaps I should have frisked him first for contraband souvenirs of coloured glass. But the crucial event in Malcolm's school career, blowing up the organ on a memorable day, is straight out of Cloud-cuckoo-land. The only occasion when the Mayors of Lewisham and , together with other dignitaries, attended the school in those days was the opening of the new premises by Lord Harding on Thursday afternoon, November 26, 1964. I don't recall the school song being sung on that occasion. The familiar "alternative" wording might have upset the guests, and Herbert was fussy about appearances. The anthem "Soli Deo Gloria" (an echo of the school motto) was sung by the choir. Prize- giving (Visitation) days continued to be held in Lewisham Town Hall for years afterwards. But the afternoon in question passed without a hitch. If Malcolm Hardee had committed such an outrage, as he alleges, he would have been expelled virtually at once. Why did his expulsion

19 Stan Wolfson August 2016 occur eight months later? I've no doubt that Malcolm was expelled for malicious damage, and the organ may well have been targeted, but certainly not on that Thursday. To Malcolm's credit he devotes a considerable section of a page (p.30) to a large-print version of the school song - with the original wording, NOT the alternative version. The irony is that the alternative wording was one which Malcolm would have appreciated. He "missed the boat"; exactly as he did on the day he died. There were many "music lovers" who would have shared Malcolm's feelings towards the organ, if not his methods, and would happily have attempted to sabotage the system themselves. Some had actually tried. But there is a difference between stale buns, ping-pong balls and "detonators". The story of the detonators is not totally implausible, but may have derived from different contexts, involving other boys, around that time on the old school site in Lewisham. Malcolm Hardee was well capable of developing the ideas of others, - it takes something really explosive or catastrophic to downgrade an organ - or he may have merely extracted and concocted what appeared as suitable for his own fantasies. Wishful thinking is no substitute for reality. But the sad fact is that the more outrageous the anecdote, the greater credence and applause it received from his readers. If Malcolm's career at Colfe's was to go out with a bang, far better to take the Mayor and Corporation with it and become a modern-day Guy Fawkes. After all, it was November! Now you might ask how it is that I'm in a position to contradict such absurdities. Unfortunately for Malcolm I happened to be there at the time and can confirm or reject his version of the course of events. So this section of his official autobiography is worthless and casts grave doubts on the veracity of the rest; those reviewers who had challenged his account were probably right. Malcolm Hardee was expelled with the minimum of fuss; not so much a bang as a whimper; the details are not recorded in the log-book which merely states "was asked to leave", although his school record-card refers to malicious damage to the organ. The boys would have known all about it. Bad news travels fast. It might have been casually mentioned in assembly which teachers seldom attended in those days, even in the new hall; the so called registration period was inadequate for the form- master to complete his duties before the assembly bell rang. No one on the staff was given the full details of Malcolm Hardee's exploits, although there were some wry smiles at the mention of the organ. Only Norman Wilson, Head of Music, rubbed his hands with relish at the thought of Malcolm's demise; not too much relish - he was due to "play" the organ the following morning. But I imagine that the relief was as palpable among the subject teachers who had had just about enough of Malcolm and his "attitude" as it was among the boys who no longer felt the need to be "entertained" by Norman's "efforts". Everything was "swept

20 Stan Wolfson August 2016 under the carpet", as if such conduct were infra dig. Malcolm Hardee doesn't even get a mention in the leavers' list which appeared in the school magazine in January 1966; the onIy boys in the L5th to leave officially that summer were Newth I.R. and Thompson E. It was common school policy to suppress bad news. It was as if Malcolm Hardee had never existed. The whole episode was too ignominious, too "trivial", to merit a reference. So the slate was wiped clean. The only person who may be able to shed some light on the true facts of the damage to the school organ is Malcolm's L5th classmate, "Stinks" Newman, so named for his expertise in chemistry, to which no doubt Alf Horrocks would have attested. Malcolm's expertise in that branch of science extended to the experimentation, so he alleges, with hydrogen and iron filings which he planned to use for making a hot-air balloon and which, by his account, ended up in an explosion at the Coca Cola factory (p.25) in Lewisham. If this sounds fantastic, it probably is. "Stinks" Newman, Malcolm claims, got off lightly for his scientific contribution to the organ "incident". Only Peter Newman would be in a position to verify the facts. One thing is certain; more cockroaches will emerge from the woodwork before the truth about the organ is revealed.

(Steven Sykes mural in the entrance hall 1972 and below, today)

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There can be no doubt that Malcolm Hardee was an intelligent boy. He would never have got into a grammar school otherwise. He was proud of the fact that he had passed his 11+ (p.22). The examination was rigorous and the interview with Beardwood and Dacombe would have made a Gestapo interrogation sound like a prayer-meeting. The reasons for his earlier rejection by St Dunstan's is not something I'm qualified to comment on, although they don't sound particularly plausible. Nothing which Malcolm Hardee claimed was ever convincing. I first came across him in the summer of 1962 in an incident outside the classroom which resulted in him being "grilled" by Dacombe, with the inevitable consequences. I didn't know him then. He was in 3D. But he had guilt written all over his face, as well as someone else's money in his pocket. I was teaching two other Third Form classes in those days, 3C and 3B. In the following year (1962-3), when he was 12 years old, he was put in L4B. The selection of boys was arbitrary, although Departmental Heads were canvassed as to their views on whether "miscreants" should be put together. The idea of putting all the "bad eggs in one basket" didn't exactly appeal to the teachers who had enough on their plate with individual offenders. Even the balding, experienced and dry Dennis Nicholson opposed that suggestion

22 Stan Wolfson August 2016 on the grounds that younger members of staff should be encouraged, not deterred, by the planned timetable. The only occasion that it was a good idea to separate boys was in the case of Peter and Philip Cheverton who, though unrelated, shared the same rare surname and initials and had caused utter confusion the previous year in 3C. Although I can identify both of them by sight, I still can't tell which one was put in L4B and which one in L4C. The brightest kids from the previous year, like Graham Lawlor, David Sanders and Pete Venner, were put in L4R. But the "Remove" system, designed to take the children to GCE O-Level in four years and create an extra year in the 6th Form for potential Oxbridge candidates, was basically flawed. The children who found themselves in the L5th the following year ended up in sets with boys who had served their time in the U4ths the previous year, The age difference didn't matter so much, but co-existence could be on a knife-edge because the "Remove" boys invariably out-performed their senior counterparts; the development of cliques could be dangerous, if frustration set in; teaching in the newly acquired house didn't improve the situation. Furthermore, some children who deserved promotion to L4R were overlooked and, if the authorities so decided, you could be relegated from L4R at the end of the year. One such unfortunate victim, who was reduced to tears when he heard the bad news, became a distinguished professor of astrophysics. So much for the system. But L4B and L4C were my allocated timetable in 1962-3. Some of those boys I had taught the previous year and I knew them relatively well. It's always a comforting prospect to see the same faces in the following years, and to watch the young minds develop. Unfortunately many had to drop Latin before they "reached the promised land". Learning Latin is like climbing a hill. You don't appreciate the view until you get to the summit.

L4B was my first experience of Malcolm Hardee's attitude towards the rigour of Latin. I had been warned about him by his previous form-master who emphasised his shortcomings while concealing the major underlying problems. The advice was quite informal. It wasn't gratuitous; I had to ask for it. There were no other channels for acquiring private data. The secretariat was very fussy about allowing access to school records. The Head of the Classics Dept, "Doc" Wilkinson, who was responsible for the period allocation, had an almost apologetic smile on his face when he broke the bad news to me. It was all right for him and my other colleague, Ron Impey; one of them would be teaching L4R. It wasn't until 1964 that I would be given the opportunity to teach L4R again, five years after I had started at the school. But now I felt as if I was in a relay race where I'd been handed a hot potato instead of a baton. The comforting

23 Stan Wolfson August 2016 promise that by July both Malcolm Hardee and Peter Newman would most likely opt for chemistry instead of Latin may not have boded well for the school organ, but it did a lot to restore my faith in human nature. That and the promise of a new school by Herbert was all that stopped me from looking around for a new job. L4B itself, as it turned out, was a jolly good class to teach, and I look back in fondness to the likes of Rolfe, Chaplin and McGregor; Homer, perhaps, bore no resemblance to his classical counterpart, but, compared with Malcolm, he had a chance to shine. And how can I forget young Knutzen ? His performance as father to Alec Toms and Keir Elam in the Junior Players' version of "The Golden Hypotenuse" is as fresh in my mind as if it were yesterday. It was only the image of Malcolm Hardee, lurking in the background, which dampened my euphoria. I may have "drawn the short straw", but there were other boys to think about. The system which operated in those days was amateurishly organised. There were no official regulations about honest and frank assessments, no written reports on potential "trouble-makers" for the incoming subject-teachers. I was, like the rest of the teaching staff, left to my own devices. There was no counselling for the boys, let alone for the masters. So when the dust had settled, I found myself still in the dark with only Malcolm Hardee's style of illumination to look forward to. So began the academic year in September 1962.

(Peter Newman, L4B 1962)

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Anything which required a degree of intellectual effort didn't appeal to Malcolm. Thinking involved too much work. Analysing a Latin sentence was too much for a day-dreamer whose eyes were fixed on the clock and whose thoughts were focused on the next plans for "upsetting the applecart". This class of 25 boys ran alphabetically from Andrews P.K. to Wearing R.T. with two boys, named Edwards (Stephen and Brian), to complicate the register. Philip Andrews, the diminutive Robert Wearing and Brian Edwards were generally the best all- round scholars in that class. Latin offered a challenge which some boys relished, especially John Syrett who achieved the highest mark in the mid-year exam. Unfortunately he transferred to a different school at Easter that year and Colfe's lost a potential classicist. During those months I had been allocated five junior classes which occupied 19 periods a week, more than half of my timetable. Thus I was assigned to teach Latin to L4B - in four different rooms in the terraced hutments and, believe me, if you didn't carry an umbrella on a rain-swept day, you would be soaked to the skin, simply in walking from one classroom to another. It didn't matter to the boys. They never wore raincoats in any case - only "wimps" wore those or carried brollies - and competed with each other for who could be the wettest or used the downpour as an excuse for turning up late for lessons. Malcolm was just one of several "drowned rats" who exploited the situation. It was infinitely worse when I was teaching 3D in rooms 13 and 14 that year. If the rain didn't swamp you, the rumble from passing trains was the last straw. The upward trek to the staff-room from the bottom terrace would have taxed Sir Edmund Hillary. The timetable for the Junior School was very generous; four periods of Latin a week for the 11 and 12yr-olds with two homeworks for each class. I would set L4B a learning homework on Thursday and test it the following day by writing questions on the blackboard. I clearly recall one such question which said "Decline MARE", and one misguided boy assumed that both words were Latin and gave them both the same treatment. You don't get extra marks for being inventive. It should be remembered that these were the days before computers allowed teachers to issue printed hand-outs. A written translation homework, usually half a dozen sentences from the "New Approach to Latin", would be set on Tuesday, collected on Wednesday and returned, duly marked, on Thursday. My perennial advice to the pupils was that they should write a version in their roughwork books first and then transcribe it neatly into their exercise books. I wasn't looking for a calligraphic masterpiece, just something that looked tidy and presentable. Any late alterations or crossings-out were regarded with suspicion. It was not unknown for boys to "correct" each other's work in the early morning before the start of registration. A surprise visit to the relevant form-room was

25 Stan Wolfson August 2016 like turning over a stone in the garden. One boy who shall be nameless - but for argument's sake let's call him Burrows - had the habit of sticking tiny slivers of paper over words he had crossed out. His attempt to obviate a potential mess ended up with a translation which resembled a patchwork quilt of origami. I always arranged for a boy to collect the exercise books during form registration before morning assembly and bring them up to the staffroom at the top of the terraces. I myself rarely attended assembly. Hardly any teacher did. Herbert Beardwood didn't mind. In fact he preferred it that way. The hall was simply a large hut and scarcely big enough to accommodate the boys, let alone the staff. In any case the religious content was always subordinated to the announcements of results and to the "bollocking" of offenders by Dacombe and Davies. It was the anticipation of some wretched boy being called to the front which made the whole process so exciting for the kids. God played second fiddle in this orchestrated charade. The conductor merely went through the motions. If this sounds cynical, it's only because the passage of time has allowed me to take an objective view of the 1960s. The "Age of the Beatles" did a lot for pop music, but it spelled the beginning of the end for the educational system. Comprehensivisation delivered the final blow. Recidivists, like Malcolm Hardee, were resilient, sponge-like in their capacity to absorb whatever was thrown their way, whether a piece of chalk, a board rubber or a slipper. You can still find them in any classroom today. I just hope and pray that they don't get drunk in the Wibbley Wobbley and end up floating down the river.

Malcolm Hardee admitted himself that he had never worked hard at Colfe's (p.31). He was quite happy to ease his way through the system. There were several others like him. But their weaknesses didn't lead to the type of behaviour which gave Malcolm a bad name. He was by no means the worst Latinist in the class when he started in L4B. That distinction fell to his fellow conspirator in the organ incident, Peter "Stinks" Newman, whose scientific inclinations prevailed over his linguistic capabilities. I can't vouch for Malcolm's "efforts" during the first year because fortunately I didn't teach him then. He was only just below average by spring in his second year, except for a period of four weeks in May 1963 when he chalked up a grand total of 1%, the worst spell of "work" from any boy that I can recall. Even Billy Burgess never plumbed such depths in my French lessons (sorry, Bill!). But by the end of the school year his form position was firmly anchored at the bottom of the class. It wasn't only the quality of his written work which let him down. It was the fact that he rarely handed it in. If his work was missing on Wednesday morning, he would be summoned to explain why. His excuses were

26 Stan Wolfson August 2016 marked by the same brand of fantasy which permeates his autobiography. If he produced a note of explanation, it was often written by himself. I suppose the moral is that if you write your own note, make sure your spelling is up to scratch and that the excuse is plausible. A "broken finger" didn't require a doctor to see that nothing was amiss, and a "dislocated elbow", Well... I sometimes wonder if his career as a comedian began here. I did occasionally laugh at his ludicrous attempts at deception, if I could overcome my indignation at the thought of being conned. One can't help but be amazed at how far he would go to avoid producing his Latin homework. You might have imagined that he never had a home life, or even a home. I don't recall ever meeting his parents, Frank and Joan, on the appointed Parents' Evening. Perhaps the prospect of bad news acted as a deterrent. They weren't the only parents who avoided facing the inevitable. If no parents of any child appeared before 8.00pm, Dacombe would simply say "Don't worry. I'll send a note to the orphanage". Dacombe, contrary to the general perception, did possess a sense of humour, and the boys were always ready to back him up. If some unfortunate victim was due for a slippering, there was no lack of response to the question "Any boy got a slipper?" The word "empathy" was rare; the word "sympathy" even rarer. Boys relished these dramatic interludes, and Dacombe took his time in removing his gown and jacket, rolling up his sleeves and sizing up the backside of the offender. The suggestion that Dacombe felt his bottom in a search for padding (p.29) is another of Malcolm's fantasies. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. Yet boys can be as cruel in their observations as teachers in their "responsibilities". The spectacle reminded me of the women sitting at the side of the guillotine, knitting while the aristocrats were introduced to the "national razor." I often wonder why huge crowds were drawn to public executions in olden times, why gawping spectators stand close to the scene of terrible accidents, even taking photos of the carnage. You can't blame everything on the Romans. Vicarious pleasure has been a ghoulish pastime for every generation. I looked on in fascination with the rest of the class when Dacombe "got to work"; he did a professional job. It was the same prurience, the same curiosity which seduced readers to pick up Malcolm Hardee's "autobiography" before they realised what garbage they were reading. The one observation that I would make is that Malcolm Hardee must have felt as much pain as was experienced by those unfortunate enough to read his "life-story".

One only has to talk to Malcolm's contemporaries to discover that he was as much a perpetrator as a victim. If Malcolm Hardee had channelled his skills at evasion into positive situations, he might have ended up by being an MP. After all, there is little difference between

27 Stan Wolfson August 2016 an MP and a comedian. There was certainly something irresponsible about his actions. Did he ever consider the consequences of what he did? The Times obituary in 2005 summed him up concisely "throughout his life he maintained a fearlessness and indifference to consequences". Exactly, but it started much earlier than is generally known. I can't vouch for his activities at St Stephen's C. of E. Primary School, but he was anti-everything from the moment he started at Colfe's Grammar School, definitely anti-establishment, almost to the point of being psychotic. But lunacy is not really an acceptable excuse for erratic behaviour; Malcolm Hardee could never plead insanity. He would have resented the word "nutter", whatever other appellation his class-mates may have used to describe him. He didn't have to justify his anarchic attitude to anyone, either to his fellow-pupils, or to the teaching staff, or to the police. But an anarchist is no role-model for anyone. Self-esteem must have been at a low ebb for a young boy to adopt this stance. Adherence to the school rules must have been anathema to a non-conformist, and strict obedience to the school dress code was hard for him to accept. Even when the school was firmly established in later years and the school cap was abolished, boys would immediately loosen or remove their ties the moment they boarded a bus. Conservatism gave way to liberalism as soon as the bell marked the end of the school day. Misbehaviour on London Transport was the norm rather than the exception. Released from the shackles of the school environment, they displayed the true meaning of liberalism. My advice to the boys was simple: "If you want to mess about on the bus, do it discreetly. But if ever you should get caught and asked which school you attend, say 'Eltham College’!". Liberalism isn't the same as anarchy. It's the halfway-house between permissiveness and nihilism. Nihilism is the ultimate goal of the anarchist. The word is derived from the Latin "nihil", meaning "nothing" ("nil" for Charlton supporters), which takes us back once again to Malcolm Hardee's Latin homework.

The subject of misbehaviour on public transport re-introduces us to Malcolm Hardee and to an anecdote which typifies his irresponsibility and irrational behaviour. This story was told to me by Graham Lawlor whom I had first taught in 3B the previous year. Graham was a conscientious scholar and his attitude to his Latin was as commendable as Malcolm's evasion of it was ludicrous. His description is so graphic, revealing and well written that that it merits a verbatim paragraph on its own. Consequently the following account is set out exactly as it was relayed to me:

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‘One afternoon I hopped on the train at Lewisham to take the brief two-station hop to Lee Green for school games. I was in one of those single compartments on my own. But just as the train was moving off, Hardee came sprinting on to the platform and dived into my compartment. "Oh, no!" I thought. "It's mad Malcolm". As it was only two stops, I consoled myself with the thought that even he surely wouldn't have time to do anything daft on such a short trip. But I could see there was mischief on his mind and, as the train sped over the A20 by the Dutch House, he opened his sports-bag and produced three school glass milk bottles. Down came the window and at lightning speed, rather like depth charges going off the back of a minesweeper, he lobbed all three on to the busy traffic below, before slamming the window shut and sitting down with a contented smile. I got the distinct impression that this was something he did on a regular basis, "Oh, God!" I thought. "He's going to get me expelled for causing a multiple pile-up" and for days I lived in fear of a police car calling at my house or a summons to see Herbie, followed by a public caning and expulsion to a secondary mod. I still have cold sweats at the thought of what might have been the repercussions.’

It should be remembered that these events occurred over fifty years ago, and consequently require a little "fine tuning". It was common practice for boys to travel to games by bus or rail. But to find oneself alone in a train compartment with a maniac is the stuff of nightmares. I can understand the need for a communication cord in some situations. Why Malcolm didn't pull it is somewhat strange, considering the overall effect such a prank would have on the entire SE railway network. Perhaps the effort of putting his hand up, which he never did in class except to ask permission to go to the lavatory, was too much of an effort. Perhaps he realised that there would be no escape route for him if the train were brought to a sudden standstill. But then how would he dispose of the bottles in his bag? I can visualise a scenario where Malcolm had already made up his mind about a "dropping-off" point somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hither Green. He wasn't the sort of boy to keep mum about his plans. I suggest that he got involved in a long conversation, possibly a heated argument, on the morality of his proposed action, with his fellow-passenger with the result that both boys missed their stop and travelled on to Mottingham. The railway line crosses the A20 soon AFTER leaving Lee station, not before. It was at this point that the frustrated "mad Malcolm" decided to unload his cargo. It takes precise timing to achieve such accuracy and he had probably honed his technique on previous occasions, as Graham suggested. This vivid description illustrates that Malcolm's irrational behaviour extended beyond the classroom and posed as much a threat to the general public as if he had been a "soldier" of the Islamic State today. That incident alone

29 Stan Wolfson August 2016 would have merited an expulsion. You are NOT supposed to recycle milk bottles in that way. The fact that he had three bottles in his bag tells us what his intention was. "Mischief on his mind" is well put. As I said previously, Malcolm Hardee never thought about the consequences of his actions, and we shall never know whether those bottles crashed through the windscreen of some unfortunate car or merely exploded harmlessly in the middle of the road. Since there were no press reports of traffic pile-ups or casualties, we must assume that apart from the shock which must have been experienced that day on the A20, no further action was taken. But I'm certain that some stunned drivers would have taken stock of the situation to down a pint or two at the Dutch House. The incident was conveniently omitted by Malcolm in his autobiography, although he mentions the Dutch House as the where his parents first met (p.12). Drivers today along the A20 are more concerned with the speed cameras than missiles, launched from passing trains. Graham was too scared to report the incident and probably didn't want to "grass" on a fellow pupil. But I can assure him now that no blame would have attached to him for happening to share a compartment with "mad Malcolm". Whether Malcolm Hardee's thoughts at the time of the explosive impact of milk bottles led later to the idea, fictional or otherwise, of using detonators to demolish the school organ is something which we shall never know. "Mad Malcolm" revelled in chaos. He couldn't cause it in the classroom where he would be totally ignored. So his anarchic behaviour reached its full potential where no authority was around. One thing I am certain of is that if he hadn't become a professional comedian, he would have qualified for a high-ranking post in the NUR. Any form of irregularity or disruption on the railway network would have made him eminently suited to the post. I never had the opportunity of seeing him "with a contented smile". A smugness, certainly. There was nothing about the classroom environment to suggest that any contentment was genuine. Any smile from Malcolm would have been the natural consequence of wind. I can just imagine the conversation when Malcolm got home. "Well, Malcolm, did you have good time at school today? No. But I had a smashing time on the train". What surprises me is not so much the potential horror of Malcolm's actions as the picture of him sprinting for the train. I can't imagine him displaying any form of energy - except when running away from the scene of a crime. The relationship between Graham and Malcolm was hardly improved by the latter's expulsion. Malcolm still owed him five pounds for a quality fishing rod which Graham in one of his generous moments had offered to sell him when they encountered each other during the summer holidays, while fishing at Brooklands Lakes. Malcolm enjoyed fishing in those days, and his willingness to break into a warehouse to steal fishing-tackle was one of

30 Stan Wolfson August 2016 the highlights of his young criminal career (p.25). I can imagine the problem of trying to get money out of someone as evasive as Malcolm Hardee. Graham was right. Malcolm was "a master of excuses". The likelihood is that he flogged the fishing rod in the Swap Shop where he was a regular customer (p.26). The concept of Malcolm Hardee as an angler is hard to take in, but it does reflect another side of his character. I suppose that for someone who was averse to team sports fishing was the only form of recreation, apart from pyrotechnics, which he was likely to enjoy. I can visualise the satisfaction on his face as he twisted the hook from the mouth of the unfortunate prey. To reach the Lakes Malcolm would have to travel by train from Lewisham to Dartford. One possible route was the Sidcup line which crossed the A20. But this was the school holiday season. Malcolm never showed off unless there was someone around to witness his behaviour. But at least it might provide him with the opportunity to see the lie of the land for future reference.

(Graham Lawlor, L4R 1962 and his Latin workbook from that time)

Malcolm Hardee certainly didn't display any form of intellectual energy when it came to homework. I honestly don't know what was worse, marking his translations which were normally set for the class and which on rare occasions he handed in (usually copied from others who shared his intellectual aspirations) or marking different work which compensated for the homework he was supposed to hand in. The latter circumstance created extra work for me because I had to find something different to set him as well as the time to mark it on Thursday and then discuss it with him personally at the end of the lesson. Either way the amount of red ink was the same. It reached a point where the very name on his exercise book made me shudder at the prospect. On one occasion he handed in a piece of homework which 31 Stan Wolfson August 2016 he had clearly copied from another boy. The only problem for him was that he had copied it from one of the dimmest boys in the class and his version contained far more errors than if he had translated it himself. The red ink, expended that day, used up almost two ball-point pens. It wasn't simply a question of putting crosses against the offending errors or underlining the mistakes, but of writing explanations which doubtless went unheeded. I might just as well have been addressing a brick wall. The moral here is that if you copy someone else's work, choose the best. Unfortunately for Malcolm the best scholars kept their distance. Everyone knew that aiding and abetting a felony rendered you equally guilty in the eyes of the law - and I was the law. Just imagine the consequences if Malcolm had scored 20 out of 20! Pages, torn out of his exercise book, which got thinner by the week, suggested that he had either been taken short on his way to school or that his roughwork book was already full-up. It was an unwritten rule in the stationery department that the orange-covered roughwork book would not be replaced if the pages were filled with idle doodlings. It was supposed to last for a year, and if it didn't, you would have to pay for a replacement. Boys regularly removed pages out of their exercise books for that reason. An exercise book contained about 40 pages. Two or four pages, missing from the centre, might go unnoticed, but double that number and your luck would run out. You didn't have to be a maths teacher to calculate that 16 pages is a bit over the top. At least in those early days I hadn't yet resorted to the type of sarcasm which I employed later on in the year, such as "Hardee, your exercise book is looking a bit thin. Is it getting enough to eat?” Although he may have made people laugh in his post-school career, his impact on me as a teacher was quite the reverse - despair and frustration. When I thought of all those other boys whom we had rejected after interviews, my heart sank. In class his appearance might be described as "shifty" or evasive. He never looked you in the eye, as if he had a squint which he was trying to hide. Although he never misbehaved during lessons, he was constantly fidgeting. The other boys tended to ignore him, and his inability to make an impression on either me or his peers gave him the excuse to flop all over the desk. At times it was difficult to distinguish between him and the desk above which his head occasionally emerged, like some periscope, to survey his surroundings and create the impression that he was alive to what was going on. The truth was quite the opposite. It might just as well have been a corpse which was sitting there. "Hardee!" I once shouted in outburst of angry sarcasm which I could no longer control, “You can come out of the teapot now. The danger's over". According to his classmate, Ian McGregor, he was "an excellent mimic, albeit a slight oddball". Perhaps the word "slight" is an understatement. But his ability to "take the mick" was par excellence. The only positive

32 Stan Wolfson August 2016 achievement I can recall is when I once asked him to clean the blackboard. He relished the opportunity to show off and occasionally erased sentences, leaving just a few words rearranged for some indecent connotation. Perhaps I was thinking charitably by offering him this opportunity to show his "alter ego". Perhaps I was anticipating a possible career as a window-cleaner. But on second thoughts he was more inclined to break windows than to clean them. He was fully aware at the time of the fact that his spectacles might make him look like a swot or a "wimp", a term which ironically he used in later years to describe his former school-mates. This might explain the bravura in his "autobiography". He felt that he needed to prove a point. The "working-class" boy was mixing with the "posh", as he puts it, although there was nothing "posh" about grammar schools in those days. For those who are unfamiliar with this "working-class" boy, Malcolm Hardee, you will find below this paragraph an expanded photograph of him as he appeared in 1962 on the only school panoramic photo of his time at Colfe's. The image may appear vague, but, believe me, the subject was even vaguer. I wasn't too keen to remind people of my own appearance at the time, but I've added myself to the list, as well as the "Triumvirate of Terror" (l. to r.). "Joe" Davies, Herbert Beardwood and Harold Dacombe, taken from the panoramic photo of 1959. A staff photo from 1972 appears at the end so that readers may see how the ravages of a decade have affected the well-being of those mentioned in the story. Of all the boys and staff whose images I've drawn from the 1962 photo only Tony Morley had to jog my memory. The rest I remembered. It doesn't sound probable that Malcolm purchased a copy of his U4th form photograph from 1963 or even an individual portrait from his L5th year in 1964. A permanent reminder of his school days? Hardly likely. I doubt very much that any of his family or fans have ever seen this childhood version of Malcolm. Malcolm was very conscious of his appearance and would not have wanted himself to be seen wearing spectacles; he preferred to create them than wear them. Did Malcolm Hardee really care about the impression he made during his time at Colfe’s? Probably not. He would have used his customary catchphrase which marked his presence on the stage: "F... it". But one thing I can say with certainty. He impressed me. How otherwise could I remember details which most people have either forgotten or been totally unaware of? You don't have to be a paragon of virtue to make an impression. For a 12yr old to make such an impact on me illustrates what a remarkable chap he was. Did he ever think of joining the fire-brigade? I suppose he was already a member.

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(Malcolm Hardee, L4B in 1962)

Malcolm Hardee posed as much a threat to the environment of the streets of Lewisham where he lived as he did to the school which he attended. His autobiography depicts somewhat imaginatively what he got up to. But without confirmation the doubts still linger. His accomplices have long since dropped out of sight. But fortunately there are still people capable of distinguishing fact from fiction, people who witnessed what Malcom Hardee got up to outside school hours, people whose recollections are as fresh as the day when they saw what happened. The landscape of Lewisham has changed considerably over the decades and continues to evolve, and Malcolm's involvement with the Odeon cinema is one of the highlights of his early years. So any reference to it by others should be taken seriously. The following story was recounted to me by Tony Morley, a reliable source, one of Malcolm's classmates. This "bright shining star from the world of comedy", as Tony aptly describes this eccentric, is worthy of being remembered word for word:

‘I do recall the time Malcolm thought it would be a good idea to partake of a large water-melon which was on display at the greengrocers which was one of the shops of the parade between the railway bridge by the Odeon (all of which are now gone). The greengrocer cut the melon into segments and wrapped it in a newspaper, as requested, and by the time Malcolm had reached the steps of the Odeon, he had left behind him a trail of sodden newspapers and various bits of melon.’ 34 Stan Wolfson August 2016

There is nothing wrong in purchasing a water-melon to eat. In fact one can visualise Malcolm eagerly eyeing it in the window and contemplating what possible effect it might have if it came into contact with the face of one of his class-mates. The decision to eat it may have been based on the need to wash away the taste of Ma Hazeldine's midday fare. Tony says that the train of events was very funny at the time and somewhat indicative of what he was apt to get up to. But did young Malcolm ever think of the consequences of his action? What if some old lady should slip up on his trail of litter? And who would have to sweep up the rubbish he left behind? It was typical of Malcolm Hardee that someone else always had to clean up the mess he left. He didn't care. I am not saying that his behaviour was premeditated. Dumping litter in a casual fashion isn't the same as launching bottles from a train window onto the A20. But what if somebody had witnessed the occurrence, had made a note of the school badge and had reported it to Herbert Beardwood? The last thing the school needed was to be identified with the thoughtless actions of one of its pupils. The local residents already had their suspicions about the ramshackle institution on the hill. The activities on the hutted site, was in their view already, a scene of bedlam. The cacophony of the classroom gave the impression of chaos. What they didn't want was the inmates being let loose on the streets. The school rules stated quite clearly the procedures each boy was to follow. "Vandalising the landscape” was not one of them. If Hardee had been brought to book for this mindless incident, he wouldn't have been expelled, but would certainly have been slippered by Dacombe. The image of Colfe's Grammar School could not be compromised in this way. Malcolm was fortunate to get away with it. I often reflect on young Malcolm when I take the train up to town. No, I'm not referring to the incident with the milk bottles, nor to the fact that the Bexleyheath line takes me directly past the bottom of the old school site. It's the images of the graffiti which "decorate" every vacant space along the line. Who in his right mind would risk his life on the electrified rails? The legacy of Malcolm Hardee lives on. The aerosol spray may have replaced the phallic symbolism. But the desire for public recognition hasn't changed.

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(Tony Morley L4B in 1962)

I shall end this account with a story of my own. I don't usually indulge in anecdotal reminiscences. I only use the anecdotes of others when I know that they are telling the truth. I don't want to incur the charge of reducing literature to a fragmented conglomeration of minutiae (a figure of speech known as "oxymoron"). I haven't the slightest intention of following in the footsteps of Messrs Hardee and Fleming. But its relevance will soon become apparent. My apologies here for introducing grammatical terms. "Once a teacher, always a teacher" they say. You may have already noticed the number of Latin-based English words which illustrate, illuminate and elucidate this reflective and retrospective narrative. I wouldn't want everyone rushing for their nearest dictionaries at a moment's notice. But old habits die hard. In the summer of 1965, about the time that Malcolm was expelled from Colfe's, Tony Leggo, the TV cameraman, was working on a new series, "The Troubleshooters", a story-line which involved a fictitious oil company called Mogul. Now I am not implying that Malcolm Hardee would have posed the sort of problems that a "troubleshooter" of that kind would need to tackle, although he would have made a fitting subject both at school and in his later

36 Stan Wolfson August 2016 life. The idea of Malcolm Hardee sabotaging an oil well is not extravagant for someone prepared to sabotage a school organ. Besides, the "Triumvirate of Terror" was well capable of handling any "situation" which might arise at school. Well, Tony was the father of Michael Leggo, the film producer and director whose neighbour in Lewisham Malcolm in his autobiography claimed to be (pp. 3 & 45) and whom, as he claims, he met later in Edinburgh when Michael was directing "Pick of the Fringe" for Scottish television (p.146). Whether this is factually accurate or whether the two knew each other only by sight, I can't say; only Michael can answer that one. But I sincerely hope that if ever they did meet and shake hands, Michael washed them afterwards and checked his pockets. Malcolm was an inveterate "name-dropper". In fact, the first chapter in his book is entitled ““Near Someone Famous". This particular need to bathe in the reflected glory of others is ubiquitous in his autobiography. To associate oneself with a celebrated name is an attempt to elevate one's own status, whether it happened to be Val Doonican, Paul McCartney, Norman Wisdom or the less familiar Mark Knopfler and Michael Leggo. Michael was one of those figures "in the background" on whose hard work those celebrities of stage, film and television prosper. You don't have to be "pushy", like Malcolm Hardee, to create a reputation for yourself in the entertainment world. Talent will always rise to the surface, whatever aspect of it you choose. The unsung heroes behind the scenes may appear in the list of credits, but they deserve more than just a mention. Malcolm never realised that Michael was the direct antithesis of himself. Furthermore, and what is worse, is his failure to dig deeper and establish a connexion which might have added greater weight to a simple allusion; Michael Leggo was a Colfeian. This eloquent young man had joined the school in 1966 and his spell in 3A endeared him to all his teachers. I'm not sure if I knew him then; I was form-master of 3C. But I do recall his performances with the Junior Players under "Bill" Bailey. I certainly came across him later and I well recall him in L5C during 1968-9 when he distinguished himself with 87% in the summer Latin examination. He may be a sexagenarian now, but his photos make him instantly recognisable. He has hardly changed since his school days. Other members of that set, such as John Weatherill, Steve Holby, Colin Chapman and John Donovan, a real oil company former executive in Texas with whom I am still in contact, will testify to his amiable nature. He was as delightful a pupil to teach as Malcolm wasn't. But it is fascinating to see that both continued their careers in the sphere of popular entertainment, albeit at different ends of the spectrum. If Michael ever gets the chance to read this, I want him to know that I still remember him with great fondness, just as I remember all the other members of that group. It's a great consolation to look back at the

37 Stan Wolfson August 2016 past, to remember the boys and girls you once taught. It's a great privilege to have been part of their lives and to have shared their experiences. Rarely does the "bad egg", like Malcolm Hardee, maintain that status. In his case the bad egg turned first into a cheeky chick, then into a conniving cockerel. But the "normal", and even mischievous, Colfeians become remarkable people in their own right, respectable and responsible members of society, a credit to their parents and to their alma mater.

(Michael Leggo as an adult)

It isn't often that the education of a "celebrity" like Malcolm Hardee is examined "under a microscope" by one of his former teachers. Such "distinguished" Old Boys fondly remember their schooldays and may even recall humorous classroom situations which the teacher has forgotten. But if you are expelled, you either erase it totally from your memory or concoct an elaborate explanation for your fans who will swallow unquestioningly whatever you feed them. Fandom is blinkered to the failings of its idols. As Virgil once said of Rumour, "mobilitate viget viresque adquirit eundo" (it flourishes in its movement and gathers strength as it progresses). Latin is not to everyone's taste, and very few students ever reach the stage where they can read Virgil, but 100% effort is appreciated by the teacher, even if the final result is well below par. You can only ask of pupils that they do their best. Three hours of Latin a week are designed to assess not only the intellectual capacity of a pupil, but also the determination to

38 Stan Wolfson August 2016 compete with the peer-group. In Malcolm Hardee's case the easiest escape route was the softest option - avoid being noticed in class, don't bother to put your hand up, let others show their paces and simply duck the challenge. But written homework has to be handed in the following day. There can be no exceptions or exemptions. As I frequently told my classes, "The only excuse for not handing in homework is your death". It was not my purpose to downgrade the education of Malcolm Hardee, but to state the facts. The school has much to offer the residents of SE London without its role being caricatured in anyone's autobiography. This was Colfe's Grammar School over 50 years ago, not Hogwarts Academy today. Let me state quite categorically that I admire the way that Malcolm forged a career for himself as a comedian - far more successfully than the notes he forged as a schoolboy - with "novel" ways of presenting his acts, and I'm saddened to learn what ultimately befell him. There can be nothing worse than watching a talent self-destruct, even if his outrageous brand of comedy had more in common with Aristophanes than Moliere. At least I am gratified that on two occasions in his autobiography he mentions Latin, albeit somewhat disparagingly. I just wish that I'd had the opportunity of meeting up with him in later life to compare notes, resurrect a few memories and reinterpret a few misapprehensions. But there again, I suppose that he might not have wanted to be reminded of the circumstances under which he left.

(School staff in 1972) 39 Stan Wolfson August 2016