“Yes, DO try not to hinder them, William.”
“Me?” he said indignantly. “I’m going to help!”
“If William’s going to help,” remarked his father, “thank Heaven I shan’t be here. Your assistance, William, always seems to be more devastating in its results than your opposition.”
William smiled politely. Sarcasm was always wasted on him.
Now this was more like it, even if William Brown actually lived in an English village, still it was rather more like life as I knew it than the alien world that American TV tried to tell us was normal life. I have no idea how many of the William books by Richmal Crompton I read—most of them I think—and although he might have been mistaken for my role model of the time, the only difference was that I don’t remember possessing any of his good intentions. I seemed to manage to get into as much trouble as he did without any intentions at all.
The whole idea of school is a complete failure. You only have to look at the way grown-ups have turned out to know that.
There it is! The most profound statement I’ve ever encountered to describe the fundamentals of my early life.
My parents were not at all displeased with this state of affairs. Plumbers and electricians, my mother knew, must surely make an utter fortune if the bills they periodically sent her were any guide. The simple reality of my general awkwardness and total lack of interest in things mechanical was considered irrelevant—surely after a few years of such schooling I would have to learn something. And best of all was the possibility that carpentry and craftwork might serve to provide me with new interests and thus subdue my fairly constant and singular passion for poking my nose into books; which, my mother was sure, could serve no purpose other than the ruination of my eyesight. Therefore the fact that my bookish, imaginative character was far better suited to a high school education was never an issue. But she is not to be blamed, for it was a democratic household and the final decision lay with me. I was not without certain misgivings about Moorabbin Tech.
