April Fool? By Steve Way

 

Perhaps if I’d had yesterday morning’s slot I could have tried out an April Fool trick on you. Possibly I could have claimed they’d discovered that Roald Dahl’s books were all written by a prototype bot commissioned by the MOD, so it’s all their fault and not his, or that The Society of Authors had made a bit on our behalf to buy Manchester United…

But of course I can’t now the day after… or even the afternoon of April 1st. Who made that rule up? Someone who didn’t like April Fool pranks I imagine. However, the timing has made me think about April Fool’s Day tricks and such like. It’s probably because I’m an ignorant under-read oaf but I don’t know of any children’s stories based around, or even involving April Fool’s Day. If any of you know of any perhaps you could enlighten me (though possibly you should only be allowed to convey that information via a flying giraffe.)

I was recently called upon to teach the meaning of ‘pulling someone’s leg’ to my classes of Spanish students learning English via the internet. I used the example of the time my dad successfully ‘pulled my leg’.

When I was around 10 or 11 years old, it was my job on getting home from school, to repeatedly fill up a watering can and water the plants. I’d been doing this day after day for some time when I got home on a rainy afternoon. “As it’s raining, you’d better put your raincoat on before doing the watering,” my dad suggested as I entered the house. Dutifully I did so and after filling up the can strolled out into the now driving rain to water the plants. It was as I was pouring water into the sodden ground at the base of a rose bush, with my back to the house that a sense of something not being quite right began to dawn on me. I turned back to the house to see dad and my two sisters standing at the window watching their daft son/brother watering in the rain.

It seems it took me a long time to grow out of being naïve. When I first started at university I was billeted with some of the third year students with a couple of other wet-behind-the-ears first years. In the bar of our pretend college there was a pinball machine which was a focal point of activity and discussion. One of the third year students explained to us that in recognition of the gradual decline in the number of pinball machines in pubs etc. in tangent with the university’s desire that they not be lost to posterity that within the centre of the university library the ‘Pinball Memorial Library’ had been instituted with the aim of preserving the rarest and most significant examples of their kind. I can only be grateful for being unable to find a member of staff at the library to ask where to find the memorial library when I first visited the library and after located the book I needed. Just as it had done in the pouring rain all those years ago the penny finally dropped!

At least in later life I managed to play a couple of April Fool’s tricks of my own.

In the good old days before mobile phones, I called my best friends, Roger and Linda from a callbox. Linda answered. “Good afternoon madam,” I began, making my best attempt to imitate something like a Mediterranean accent. “Zis is Pablo’s Exotic Pets. I am delighted to tell you that ze Boa Constrictor zat you ordered is ready for delivery. She iz a beauty! We with be able to deliver ‘er zis afternoon…”

Hearing the panic in Linda’s voice as she insisted that they had never ordered a Boa Constrictor I had to come clean.

In days long gone by, that my doctor would have approved of rather than glaring at me, as he does now every time I stand on the scales, I used to regularly go jogging in the woodland close to our village. On returning home one April 1^st I adopted a concerned expression when my wife asked how the run had been. “Well, you wouldn’t believe it,” I replied. “The woods were full of police officers, firemen and people from a zoo.” Naturally Jan demanded to know why and I continued, “It seems that at the traffic lights at the bottom of the hill, two zebra that were being transported from York Zoo* to Chester Zoo escaped from the van they were in and ran into the woods.”

“Oh, the poor things, what can we do should we go and help?” Jan demanded, always the first to support the unfortunate. If only I had been able to keep a straight face, she would probably have tried to muster together a rescue to team of friends and neighbours…

One other year we had been invaded by the gas board. They dug a trench in our back yard in order to replace the old pipes. The pipes were replaced but the trench remained unfilled for week after week. Not only was the hole unsightly, it was barred off by warning barriers that we had to walk around in order to get into and out of the house. It was like living in a permanent building site. We even got the local paper, The Wakefield Express, to do an article about it (our neighbours had all suffered the same fate) though the cowards failed to name the company responsible.

April 1^st that year happened to fall on a Sunday. While making the morning cuppa to take up to Jan I knocked on our door and pretended to have a conversation. As I passed Jan her tea, I told her how impressed I was that anyone would work on a Sunday.

“What to you mean?” Jan asked.

“Well, it’s a bit like how the guides and scouts used to do jobs for people but this time it’s trappist monks. They’re going from house to offering to help with any jobs they need doing. They saw our trench and they’ve volunteered to fill it for us. They’ve just gone off to find a cement mixer…”

I didn’t actually finish the last sentence because Jan leapt out of bed like a rocket on steroids.

“I’m not having trappist monks working on my house!” she roared, ready to take on the High Priest in a fist fight if necessary by the looks of it.

Well frankly after the zebra incident she should have known better.

*I was pretty sure there isn’t a York Zoo but I gambled on Jan not knowing that – they needed to be crossing Yorkshire somehow to end up passing through our village!

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In light of the awful and tragic events associated with Ofsted I wanted to remind you about my story cum criticism of the pressures placed on teachers, including the dreaded inspections, Escape from Schoolditz. (ISBN 1720047944 ASIN B07H2KSBJB) Each night the four teachers who are locked in the staffroom each night plan their escape. The visiting Ofsted inspector accidentally discovers and destroys one of their escape routes that are inspired by the escape attempts made at Colditz.

Separate thinking by Steve Way

I’ve not really noticed the phenomenon in other cats, but our cat Bella literally chases her own tail. She seems to have two separate brain functions; one that causes her tail to move and one that locks onto any nearby moving object and activates her hunting instinct. It is the funniest thing to watch, especially when she’s lying down. To begin with she glares at her tail as though it is affronting her dignity by waving around so freely and disrespectfully in her close vicinity, like a mouse dancing around nearby and sticking its tongue out at her. To begin with she flicks at the tail with one of her front paws, as though trying to swat an irritating fly but as this doesn’t seem sufficient to prevent this independent tail of hers from continuing to taunt her, this only serves to increase her sense of annoyance. She then lurches towards her tail with the front part of her body and does a summersault because of being prone to begin with, in her failed attempt to catch her errant tail. This either leads to more unsuccessful attacks or a period of self-cleaning, her displacement activity for whenever she makes a fool of herself – I recently saw her charge up the garden at the peg basket that was still bobbing up and down slowly after Jan had got the washing in, only to find of course that the basket was high above her when she reached her target.

I mention my cat’s apparent double-brain function, where there seems to be no communication between the two separate sections, as it’s made me wonder if the same disconnection occurs in people – specifically in this case teachers – and in search engines – especially the one used by Amazon.

A few years ago, I was responsible for taking my eldest grandson to primary school in the mornings. I mentioned to the infant teachers responsible for him that I was a children’s author and offered to work with the children for an hour for no charge. The staff asked to see some examples of my work and I lent them a couple of my science story books. When I returned the next day, still holding my grandson’s hand, one of the teachers affirmed that they’d appreciate a visit and then in the next sentence declared, ‘Oh and by the way we photocopied your books… you don’t mind do you?’ Now if I hadn’t had a small hand in my own at the time, I may well have suggested that actually, both my publishers and I would mind rather a lot – but I did, so I didn’t. To add further insult to injury when I turned up to work with my grandson’s class – and the parallel class – it turned out that the teaching session was two hours long, rather than just one. Still, I didn’t mind – did I?

I’ve had a few similar experiences where schoolteachers have blatantly photocopied my work – or the work of other authors – and in each case have been placed in an awkward position, either by protesting or biting my lip.

This is where my disconnected brain theory comes in. Having been a class teacher I understand the unrelenting pressure to collate – essentially aggressively hoard – material and resources to use with the children. That brain function I sympathise with. The disconnect seems to be with the part of the teacher’s brain that must know that what they are doing is not only illegal but immoral. I’m an ardent defender of teachers in most instances, my book Escape from Schoolditz about four teachers who attempt Colditz-style methods to escape the school they get locked in every night, is testament to that. Whilst teachers’ salaries could never be described as excessive, they can rarely have them robbed or reduced by the actions of others. Surely everyone knows that on average full-time teachers earn considerably more than full-time authors – and of course don’t necessarily have to buy the book themselves, since – hopefully – a portion of the school budget is spent on books!

Thank goodness for organisations such as ALCS that help ensure that we receive some compensation for our material being photocopied.

That brings us to the Amazon search engine. Now I realise I’m not in the strongest of positions having abbreviated my name to Steve. Just shout ‘Steve’ in a crowded place (when you can again!) and watch half the people turn around. Even if they aren’t called Steve themselves the know someone who is. Then there’s my surname – ‘Way’ – which of course is a common word, often integral to the sub-titles of tomes dealing with religious or spiritual issues. Nevertheless, you would think that when typing a name into the ‘book’ category of the Amazon search that it would initially focus on where these two words are found adjacently. Apparently not.

First on the list now is a dog training book by author Steve Mann. Second a motivational book that includes the word ‘way’ in its long title, followed by another motivational book authored by Dr Steve Peters. So it goes on  – the tenth in the list is the most interesting as it’s a book by Billy Connolly, the title of which is entirely devoid of the words ‘Steve’ or ‘Way’. Not that I particularly trust search engines of course but supposedly the most common female name in the UK is Mary. I wondered if I was named something like Mary Quest I would suffer the same problem being located as an author by Amazon. (I tried it and I suspect my imaginary Mary would remain as obscure to searchers as I clearly am already.)

Writing this has been quite aggravating – I think I need to go and watch Bella chasing herself!

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Escape from Schoolditz ISBN 978-1720047940 Inspired by the prisoners in Colditz, four teachers attempt to escape from the school they are locked in every night.

PS If you’re at all interested search the book title not the author