Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns, he said;
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered;
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do or die;
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well;
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.

    Mr Demetre was a stout stern man with devilish eyes both bloodshot and black and, unusually for those times, he wore a big black bushy beard that doubled and redoubled his menace. As an educator he considered lack of memory to be the ultimate human failing and it can be supposed he was successful for he could do wonders for his student’s powers of recall by the very ferocity of his nature.
    His handling of classic literature was legendary—there are still many fine literary masterworks that I cannot consider without an involuntary tremble as a result of the efforts of Mr Demetre. He would set the class to reading—say For the Term of His Natural Life—and he would prowl up and down the aisles with one eye on his own text and the other on the class.  At frequent intervals, he would name a pupil at random and demand they recite, without looking, the last sentence they had read, and then relate the course of the chapter up to that point. Should the unhappy student fail to have either maintained Mr Demetre’s reading pace or falter at the recitation or recap, punishment was inflicted. It was in the area of punishment that Mr Demetre was at his most creative.
    The majority of his techniques possessed names which he would pronounce to the dread of his victim or victims with great delight, although I admit that the general significance of these titles escaped me most of the time since the condition of awaiting retributive treatment was hardly a good time for appreciating literary wit. There was the Olivier Twist where the defaulter would stand, hands cupped and upraised before them, murmuring ‘Please sir, I want some more’ after each lash of Mr Demetre’s thick and well-worn strap. Or The Charge of the Light Brigade at which Mr Demetre would cry “Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right” as he rushed, strap flailing, down the middle of a double row of unfortunate boys with their outstretched hands. Or, more complexly, The Mill on the Floss where he would stand perhaps six boys on their desks facing outward in a circle of arms length radius with himself at the centre on the floor and whirling a sort of pirouette, his strap cracking over the calves of the boys like the wheel of fortune at a carnival. All of the students—even the most ardent and barbaric bodgies—lived in terror of Mr Demetre...