Mr Ball

Mr Ball. Unfortunate name for a teacher at a school with a thousand sniggering adolescents. He floats gracefully down the corridor like the proverbial swan - head tilted slightly to one side like an attentive robin - legs mincing madly in the melee of teenage pushing and shoving. 

“He used to be a ballet dancer y’know” my mate informs me conspiratorially. 

“No! Really?” 

“Yeah! Look at him! Haven’t you noticed how he walks!” 

“Who Ball-y?” asks another joining our group tucked away by the lockers, “Pink shirt and cravat...he’s definitely a pouf!" 

Despite his wobbly head and the pale pink handkerchief, carefully tucked into the breast pocket of his tweed jacket, his wispy white moustache and his penchant for humming Amen Corner songs as he walks from the staffroom to his classroom, Mr Ball has a menace about him. New students, full of nervous bravado swaggering around, mistaking being at ‘big school’ with being ‘grown up’ are soon blasted with a stern voice and, sometimes melodramatic, reprimands “You boy! Why are you talking? Turn this way and pay attention!” It’s all a bit old school, very few of the other teachers take this tack and even at 13 I sense a trace of irony in his performances.

It seems that nobody likes Mr Ball, he’s not in with the kids like other teachers and moreover he doesn’t seem perturbed by his lack of popularity. He minces from classroom to staffroom on a continual loop, occasionally acknowledging a colleague or a long-haired sixth-former as he passes, other than that he very rarely strays out of this orbit.

And yet when he leads an assembly the whole school is on the edge of their seats. He is a nobody but his delivery of a tale with a moral packs a punch. The senior management, sitting high in their huge oak thrones - each slightly smaller than the Head’s seat to denote status - can only dream of engaging the audience like Mr Ball does. Mr Dooley's dry monologue on Douglas Bader had us gripped us alright, but only because it was so dull it was funny and we were gripped with fear of being caught being amused. Mr Ball tackles the subject of manners, impersonating a Y9 girl who he has described as generally graceful in demeanor, greeting her friend; and the lower school are in tears as he writhes around on stage imitating her leaning out of a window screeching and flipping the bird. His point is well made and much more effective than the constant beseeching of Mrs White for the girls (who roll their heavily-lined eyes and their cigarettes) to be more ’ladylike’ as she confiscates necklaces and dangly earrings. He clarifies the art of a joke, leading us to the point where he explains that last week someone left a pair of knickers on his car and that because the had been a clean pair he could appreciate the humour but had they not been that would be quite different. The senior management harbour various expressions of being unimpressed mostly at the stifled laughs, snorts and uncontrolled shoulder shaking amongst the rows - it is not appropriate behaviour for assembly. But Mr Ball is in fact laying the foundations of our understanding of acceptable behaviour and, without realising, his status of living legend.

In lower sixth, our second bout of growing up, when we are no longer obliged to wear uniform and now have our own common room, we are none too impressed with Mr Ball. The class collectively take against him after we are berated, no, given an unholy bollocking for leisurely strolling to English sometime after the bell in our first week as sixth-formers. Unlike our other English teacher who speaks to us as equals and launches straight into the syllabus Mr Ball makes us talk about other books we’ve read and we have to make notes on a comprehensive list of literature terminology. We privately share our concerns about his ability to teach A’level English over sandwiches at lunchtime but it is difficult to maintain our stance of no confidence or to suppress a smile, in spite of our determination to be sulky teenagers, in class. “Repair to the ladies powder room and obtain a small quantity of toilet tissue” repeats Mr Ball warming up for the delivery of ‘alliteration’ with a flash of euphemism. “G’down t’the bog and gedda birra bog roll!” he instructs in his best Black Country accent and without a flicker of a smile! He makes us read Sean O’Casey in Irish accents and, although we don’t believe him he points out the gaps between the paragraphs where Paul Morel has sex with Mirium. He never tells us but always asks us what we think. We privately wonder whether he should be teaching sixth-form - shouldn’t he be telling us what the texts are about!  We are eager to capture every pearl of wisdom and hurriedly record every word in our whacky sixth-from folders, plastered in children’s stickers in a, grown-up, ironic kind of way. The folder, like a comfort blanket, sees me through through my English degree.

Before final exams we invite Mr Ball to take us to see Rozencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead at the Birmingham Rep. In complete contrast to seeing Coriolanus with Mr Harris, where, like frightened sheep, we bolted into the seats as fast as possible the slowest - Vanessa - having to sit next to him, we gather around Mr Ball like demented groupies. We forgive him for not being able to drive the minibus and enjoy the adventure of the journey by train; we jostle to offer him sweets, chip in to buy him a drink and are genuinely thrilled by our trip to the theatre to see not an exam piece but one related, it seems somehow more mature. He tells us about his wife and the time when his daughter learned to drive.

As nerves begin to fray in the final weeks, I ask Mr Ball whether I might take his pink handkerchief into the exams for luck. I am surprised when he graciously hands it over and somehow having it on the desk calms my nerves. Mindful of good manners I decide I cannot part with the charm and travel to Beatties department store to replace it with a leaving gift of another pink hanky - this time in bright magenta. He looks genuinely taken aback when I present it to him at our class party.

Over the years the folder has become redundant and the handkerchief faded, but his biggest gift has metaphorically grown and blossomed and regenerated.