Small Is Beautiful

The more time I spend back in Hull for the Comedy Festival the more I feel like I’m existing in some kind of eighties fantasy film or sub-Tolkien incubus. Hull proudly claims its place as Britain’s Middle Earth, but finds itself more Mordor than Shire. Although the vast majority of Hull’s population are perfectly normal and well-rounded (at least more so than Middlesborough’s) there is a small demographic of grotesques who trample the city’s streets clad in pink tracksuits or hideous purple wooly jumpers. Surrounded by queer oddities with sunken jaws or floor-scraping knuckles, one suddenly becomes a seven out of ten (a safe seven at that) when in Brighton one might have been a six…or maybe a five. Yet it’s only when you look closer at the people that you realise that these are your people. They’re people you grew up with and – if you look closer in your wardrobe – you can still find those three-stripe Adidas trousers that fit you like Cinderella’s glass slipper.

And so Hull got me thinking about my past – my friends, my family and my school. I went to William Gee School for Boys. When I first joined the school our motto was “Aiming for Excellence”. By the time I left, the school motto was “Being the Best You Can Be” and the GCSE pass rate was 11%. It seemed that some people weren’t taking the motto seriously and it won’t surprise you to know that the school closed a year after I left. Yet my time at school remains one of my happiest periods and seeing old school mates around town reminded me of one old school tale.

Dean Barnes was a slip of a boy. With the rest of the year towering at just under the six foot mark, poor old Dean hovered around the five foot area. As he watched his peers shoot up and out of sight, Dean’s height stagnated and drew to an unfortunate halt. But Dean’s height wasn’t his only lamentable affliction – Dean was cursed with the darkest of dark eyelashes. In a mixed school, Dean may have been able to use these long, luscious, ebony hairs to his advantage but appearing like you wear mascara in an all male school is not a good look. The combination was to have wicked and terrible results for Dean.

Now, it may surprise you to know that the biggest bully in our school was a teacher – Mr Anderson. In one particular Maths lesson – as we worked less than intensely at our desks – Mr Anderson whipped out a large piece of card and proceeded to fashion himself a large cone. Giggling to himself, he then took the thick, wooden board ruler and attached a long piece of string to the end. Grabbing his makeshift items, he ordered Dean to his feet (it transpired he was already standing) before placing a chair on one of the desks.

“Get on the chair,” Anderson bellowed as the dazed Dean scrambled onto the desk and mounted the chair.

“Put on the hat,” Anderson ordered as he shoved the cone onto Dean’s head and thrust the board ruler with attached string into his hand.

“Now pretend to fish,” Dean just sat there bemused. “Pretend to fish, dwarf!” Anderson bawled.

And so the impish Dean sat hunched over on top of the desk. The cone hat sunk over his forehead and finished just above his mascara eyes which gave Dean’s baby-face its fairy-like quality. His cheeks began to glow a fiery red as his eyes began to swell with tears. But this mascara would never run. As Dean’s pole swung limply from his wrist like the fishing rod of a garden gnome, the class erupted in laughter and Dean the Dwarf took his place amongst Hull’s hobbits, elves and other fantasy creatures. He sat there for about ten minutes before the bell rang. To this day I wonder how long this bizarre picture would’ve persisted had it not been for that French lesson.

So was Mr Anderson being cruel? Well let me just say this: In the sixties a man of Dean’s stature and facial curiosities would’ve been used to carry round lines of cocaine on his head for people like Andy Warhol or Elton John; in the late-nineties he was used to mimic a fictional creature in a failing inner-city comprehensive. I think it shows how far we’ve come.

Dan