By

Craig Ennew

—

Thirty-Five: A Farewell to the Close

This week: Craig leaves Bishops school after a life term!

Lanyard: mostly, I will be forgetting to wear it…

Thirty-two years and ten months ago, I stepped out into Salisbury Cathedral Close, barely able to believe my luck.  A couple of years before, a chance encounter with my old art teacher in my local had nudged me into considering a teaching career –  a prospect that a few years before, one awkward, self-conscious teenager would never have entertained.  However, dead-end employment in Kwik-Save and Wiltshire Planning and Highways Department had jolted me into action. 

Returning to Swansea Uni, I’d had a blast in my teacher training year and I now I found myself accepting the offer of being the newest and youngest recruit to the staff of one of the highest ranked state schools in the South West – Bishop Wordsworth’s Boys’ Grammar in Salisbury.    

At interview, so much about the place had charmed me – the old ‘Number Eleven’ building with its wonky wood panelling; the inkwelled desks with ancient graffiti; a cobbled courtyards and mysterious locked doors.  It was pre-Harry Potter and a world away from the tough, rural comprehensive – more Grange Hill – that I’d endured for seven years.  One of my PGCE tutors told me that I might find Bishops and some of the staff  ‘a bit cobwebby’. He wasn’t far wrong and the final irony was that, three decades on, I’d become cobwebby too. Nevertheless, back then – treading a fine line between euphoria and ‘imposter syndrome’, I had accepted the job.

From Day One at Bishops, there was a clear pecking order.  The prefects (or ‘upper sixth’ as they were called then) had a lot of facial hair, looked the same age as me and wore bright blue blazers.   In those days, they were charged with taking the younger kids’ classes if the teacher was away; and as far as I could see, my status as a young teacher was barely higher than theirs.  Most of the established staff were male, where chain-smoking in the staff room (and sometimes beyond) was de rigeur.  It was even known for some, in the Summer Term, to have a sly gin and tonic by the squalid  outdoor pool (where the Sports Hall now stands) after the final bell.  And every Friday lunchtime without fail, me and a young Maths teacher who I lodged with would go for a few games of pool at The Anchor before digesting ham egg and chips, promptly washed down with three or four pints of beer.  The resulting wind would be blamed on the front row of our unfortunate afternoon classes. Like most schools,  Bishops had its own vocabulary – ‘prelims’, ‘tuck room’, ‘Great Yews’ – terms, routines and strange rituals that one was presumed to osmose upon arrival – and many of which survive to this day.

Thirty-two years and ten months on, I have stepped out into the Close again, possibly for the last time.  Having presumed I’d only leave the place in a coffin, I find myself similarly euphoric and imposter-like as I head for pastures new in Dorset.

At my last Leaver’s Lunch, I read out a  poem I’d penned to friends and colleagues.  I leave it as a final affectionate word on the place.  It’s called The Things I won’t Miss About Bishops.

The first morning of term,
The coughing, the germs
January Mondays
And seven-page essays, 
Unwritten reports,
Seeing colleagues in shorts
Sprawling handwriting
Exam-day nail-biting,
Prelims and mocks
Result-day shocks
The no-shows, the cock-ups
The mullets, the buzzcuts,
Peanutting, wedgies,
Flying Prizegiving veggies
Unruly queues for Christmas dinners
Rubic cubes and fidget spinners
Unfortunate choices
Yodelling voices
Misplaced apostrophes
House assembly catastrophes
The whistles, the bells,
Lynx Africa smells
The flimsy excuses, 
Semi-colon misuses
Exploding biros
Embarrassing typos
Self-declared geniuses
Graffiti-penises
Bulldog and tag
The over-sized bags
The discarded lockers
The 3:50 clockers
Lunchtimes detentions
Too numerous to mention
Late buses, missed trains,
The discarded remains
Of unwanted packed lunches
The tangled up bunches
Of superfluous cables
Gum stuck under tables
The shirt-tails a-flapping,
The poking, the slapping,
The scrums and the chasing,
The corridor racing
Procrastination
Car-parking vexation 
Exam grade reviews
Ducking out of Great Yews
Twilights and INSET
Waking up in a cold sweat
Unreliable printers
Keyboard warrior squinters
The know-alls, the slackers,
Staff-meeting hijackers
Brom-Com, C-POMs,
UCAS and Ofqual
Teams and Aim High,
And bloody AI 
In short: the beautiful, maddening organised mess
That is BWS.

©Craig Ennew 2025

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