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  Rumour had it that the constant twitching and jerking and snorting was caused by something called shell-shock, but we were not quite sure what that was. We took it to mean that an explosive object had gone off very close to him with such an enormous bang that it had made him jump high in the air and he hadn’t stopped jumping since.

  For a reason that I could never properly understand, Captain Hardcastle had it in for me from my very first day at St Peter’s. Perhaps it was because he taught Latin and I was no good at it. Perhaps it was because already, at the age of nine, I was very nearly as tall as he was. Or even more likely, it was because I took an instant dislike to his giant orange moustache and he often caught me staring at it with what was probably a little sneer under the nose. I had only to pass within ten feet of him in the corridor and he would glare at me and shout, ‘Hold yourself straight, boy! Pull your shoulders back!’ or ‘Take those hands out of your pockets!’ or ‘What’s so funny, may I ask? What are you smirking at?’ or most insulting of all, ‘You, what’s-your-name, get on with your work!’ I knew, therefore, that it was only a matter of time before the gallant Captain nailed me good and proper.

  The crunch came during my second term when I was exactly nine and a half, and it happened during evening Prep. Every weekday evening, the whole school would sit for one hour in the Main Hall, between six and seven o’clock, to do Prep. The master on duty for the week would be in charge of Prep, which meant that he sat high up on a dais at the top end of the Hall and kept order. Some masters read a book while taking Prep and some corrected exercises, but not Captain Hardcastle. He would sit up there on the dais twitching and grunting and never once would he look down at his desk. His small milky-blue eyes would rove the Hall for the full sixty minutes, searching for trouble, and heaven help the boy who caused it.

  The rules of Prep were simple but strict. You were forbidden to look up from your work, and you were forbidden to talk. That was all there was to it, but it left you precious little leeway. In extreme circumstances, and I never knew what these were, you could put your hand up and wait until you were asked to speak but you had better be awfully sure that the circumstances were extreme. Only twice during my four years at St Peter’s did I see a boy putting up his hand during Prep. The first one went like this:

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  If homework is done at home, then what is the name for homework that is done at school … ? The answer is prep!

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  MASTER. What is it?

  BOY. Please sir, may I be excused to go to the lavatory?

  MASTER. Certainly not. You should have gone before.

  BOY. But sir … please sir …I didn’t want to before … I didn’t know …

  MASTER. Whose fault was that? Get on with your work!

  BOY. But sir …Oh sir … Please sir, let me go!

  MASTER. One more word out of you and you’ll be in trouble.

  Naturally, the wretched boy dirtied his pants, which caused a storm later on upstairs with the Matron.

  On the second occasion, I remember clearly that it was a summer term and the boy who put his hand up was called Braithwaite. I also seem to recollect that the master taking Prep was our friend Captain Hardcastle, but I wouldn’t swear to it. The dialogue went something like this:

  MASTER. Yes, what is it?

  BRAITHWAITE. Please sir, a wasp came in through the window and it’s stung me on my lip and it’s swelling up.

  MASTER. A what?

  BRAITHWAITE. A wasp, sir.

  MASTER. Speak up, boy, I can’t hear you! A what came in through the window?

  BRAITHWAITE. It’s hard to speak up, sir, with my lip all swelling up.

  MASTER. With your what all swelling up? Are you trying to be funny?

  BRAITHWAITE. No sir, I promise I’m not, sir.

  MASTER. Talk properly, boy! What’s the matter with you?

  BRAITHWAITE. I’ve told you, sir. I’ve been stung, sir. My lip is swelling. It’s hurting terribly.

  MASTER. Hurting terribly? What’s hurting terribly?

  BRAITHWAITE. My lip, sir. It’s getting bigger and bigger.

  MASTER. What Prep are you doing tonight?

  BRAITHWAITE. French verbs, sir. We have to write them out.

  MASTER. Do you write with your lip?

  BRAITHWAITE. No sir, I don’t sir, but you see …

  MASTER. All I see is that you are making an infernal noise and disturbing everybody in the room. Now get on with your work.

  They were tough, those masters, make no mistake about it, and if you wanted to survive, you had to become pretty tough yourself.

  My own turn came, as I said, during my second term and Captain Hardcastle was again taking Prep. You should know that during Prep every boy in the Hall sat at his own small individual wooden desk. These desks had the usual sloping wooden tops with a narrow flat strip at the far end where there was a groove to hold your pen and a small hole in the right-hand side in which the ink-well sat. The pens we used had detachable nibs and it was necessary to dip your nib into the ink-well every six or seven seconds when you were writing. Ball-point pens and felt pens had not then been invented, and fountain-pens were forbidden. The nibs we used were very fragile and most boys kept a supply of new ones in a small box in their trouser pockets.

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  Ball-point pens were first developed in 1888. But it wasn’t until 1938, when László Biró – a Hungarian newspaper editor – came up with a better model, which stopped ink going everywhere.

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  Prep was in progress. Captain Hardcastle was sitting up on the dais in front of us, stroking his orange moustache, twitching his head and grunting through his nose. His eyes roved the Hall endlessly, searching for mischief. The only noises to be heard were Captain Hardcastle’s little snorting grunts and the soft sound of pen-nibs moving over paper. Occasionally there was a ping as somebody dipped his nib too violently into his tiny white porcelain ink-well.

  Disaster struck when I foolishly stubbed the tip of my nib into the top of the desk. The nib broke. I knew I hadn’t got a spare one in my pocket, but a broken nib was never accepted as an excuse for not finishing Prep. We had been set an essay to write and the subject was ‘The Life Story of a Penny’ (I still have that essay in my files). I had made a decent start and I was rattling along fine when I broke that nib. There was still another half-hour of Prep to go and I couldn’t sit there doing nothing all that time. Nor could I put up my hand and tell Captain Hardcastle I had broken my nib. I simply did not dare. And as a matter of fact, I really wanted to finish that essay. I knew exactly what was going to happen to my penny through the next two pages and I couldn’t bear to leave it unsaid.

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  Here is ‘The Life Story of a Penny’ from Roald Dahl’s essay book. (He wrote it in 1926, aged nine and a half.)

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  The Life Story of a Penny

  One hot day in the month of July, when the men of our copper mine in South America were digging into the depths thereof, I felt something hard strike me underneath. I was shovelled up into a truck, being only a small lump of copper, and was conveyed to Rio de Janeiro where I was shipped to England amongst a heap of copper.

  The ship having arrived at Liverpool, I was taken to ‘the mint’ in London, and in a merciful manner I was cast into a roaring furnace. I was left there till quite white hot, when finally I began to melt.

  I was taken out and had a picture of King George V’s head stamped cruelly on one side of me and Britannia on the other.

  I was then sent to be put in a drawer in the Midland Bank, looking very shiny, but soon got that brown colour that pennies get, when mixed up with a great many other coins. A large and fat lady came into the bank one afternoon, and handed the man a cheque for a penny.

  I was handed to the lady who dropped me carefully into her purse. Having remained in the purse for a certain time, I was taken out, greatly to my astonishment I found myself i