Pastoral Care
Dry, scaly Mr. Jenkins, history teacher
doubling as pterodactyl,
had just that one shrivelled slab of advice
(over and bloody over, Form One, Form Two, Form Three).
In the army, boys, twenty men will jump to attention
when one man blows a whistle.
Boys. In life be the man who blows the whistle.
He was a sad old sod of course
but we were cynics at thirteen
and this was 1958 (there wasn’t the respect in those days).
And in about Form Five, we got this plan.
Dry Mr. Jenkins was courting Arnold’s auntie
(after her sweetshop, we didn’t doubt)
and Russ found in his father’s amdram trunk
a bleeding great police whistle.
You’ll see the plan, we’d get the right moment,
be under Auntie Mona’s bed and
Be the man who blows the whistle.
Never did it of course, we might have killed
the poor old bugger. So Jinksy’s advice
sort of lay around.
Now we blow
all sorts of whistles. We’re tax inspectors,
manage Co-ops. One probation officer.
The Bishop of Stroud and West.
By hell though,
we still think of that whistle going off,
under Auntie Mona’s bed.
Robert Nisbet wrote short stories for over 30 years, with seven collections published. He now writes poetry, teaches a few English literature classes for Swansea University and reports on football for local newspapers and radio.