Mrs Perkins - a Very English French Teacher

Here is a piece I came across in my own group that was written by a member who attended a boys' school in England . . .


I remember her introducing herself during her very first lesson. She explained that, as much as she spoke fluent French . . . "I am a Berkshire lady born and bred and know among many other things the rules of cricket, how to make a decent cup of tea and how to deal with English boys such as I see before me!" She then pointed to a row of brass hooks along the wall of her classroom and, as she opened her register book and leafed through to what must have been a handwritten list of our names, she explained how blazers were to be removed and placed upon the same hook each and every lesson before making for our desks.

"Baxter" she called out scanning the room, "First hook, please. . . Bishop, second hook . . . Chapman, third hook" and so on until her index finger had run down the entire list of names. This was quite obviously Mrs Perkins own classroom rule and be it summer or the very depths of winter, we worked on our French verbs in shirt sleeves without complaint. She was also a very dedicated teacher of French if the truth be known and had never been fully satisfied with the dry, arid tomes that taught the language as though it had died alongside Ancient Greek and Latin a few thousand years before. Therefore, she had created her own book, tailored made for English boys at a school such as ours.

The format would have been obvious enough by today's standards, but in 1954, it was quite innovative for a school book; each chapter covered a typical situation such as meeting a French pen pal, shopping, buying a ticket. Moreover, she had even added very neatly drawn illustrations alongside each dialogue with a boy wearing our school uniform so that maybe we could make believe it was us!

I should think that the printing charges of such a limited publication far exceeded those for more common scholastic text books that were then on the market. But Mrs Perkins had insisted on having her own book just as she had insisted on brass hooks being put up in her classroom and that every boy in her classroom should sit bolt upright and be listening attentively.

"Marchant!" she called out across the classroom during one lesson just a week or so into our first term with her. "Est-ce que vous m'écoutez, Marchant?" she asked the boy who had clearly not understood. "Stand up, please and tell me what we have just been talking about."

No reply. The boy just stood before his desk looking completely a blank as he shuffled nearly imperceptibly from one foot to the other and then lightly cleared his throat.

"Approchez, s'il vous plaît" she commanded, "Yes, that's right, Marchant. To the front of the room, if you please."

In the meantime, a cane had appeared in Mrs Perkins' hand, it was smaller and lighter than the type used by our housemaster and was more akin to those used further down the school in the prep school section.

"Hand, please."

Mrs Perkins raised the cane and then, with absolutely no warning, quickly brought it down and up again; all in the flash of a moment. Its very end had `kissed' Marchant's palm for what must have been no more than a fraction of a second, nearly too fast for our eyes to see. Yet, it had been long enough for Marchant to emit a very sharp yelp of surprise, jerk his freshly stung hand towards his mouth and then return to his desk, sucking and blowing all the while upon a thin burning line that fast appeared across the palm of his blighted hand.

"Take your hand away from your mouth, Marchant!" ordered Mrs Perkins, quite displeased that such an unsightly spectacle should occur in her classroom. "Chapman," she then called out, diverting her attention to the other side of the classroom, "I would like you and Palmer to read out the dialogue on page four, please. Chapman can be the French pen pal and Palmer can be the English pen pal. . . I'm sure you can manage that at least, can't you, Palmer?" she added with a faint smile.

"Yes, mam," replied the boy as he looked to page four and began to read before the class in his very best of schoolboy French.

Bishop