(U) Kilmore (3)

24th September 1991  Birth of my daughter.

 The blowfly had a young sidekick called Rasputin who was an interesting and influential character in this drama.

T
On a very special day–the day of my daughter  birth to be precise - when the new Principal "Billy Bunter'  was away on business in Melbourne, a most peculiar sequence of events took place: The twenty-fourth of September was a memorable day on all fronts.

At two in the morning Maria  felt her labour pains and off we went to the hospital in which happened to be just beside the school where I was acting as Principal in the absence of Billy Bunter who as in some far off place in Melbourne. It was a very long delivery and my wife  claims that I spent much of it reading a book of short stories by Thomas Hardy!

Anyway, at about eight o'clock in the morning I staggered out of the hospital and went directly to work. I was in fact early and I was the first person at school - or so I thought. In fact, when I got there I met Mr. Coldfish , who had been a  former Deputy Principal-my predecessor no less-and who had resigned some time before my arrival. as time progressed I might other Zombies like Coldfish, in the community, who had worked in the school and fallen out of favour with the blowfly, and been demoted or fired.

I couldn't think what Coldfish would be doing there so early in the morning. He hated the place. I knew he had had several confrontations with the blowfly, eventually resigned in disgust before my arrival - that is one reason I was appointed-to replace him.

Anyway, on my arrival, coldfish came in to my office and said

" I'm sorry to have to do this to you, it's got nothing to do with you, but I'm resigning as a teacher as from this moment "

He promptly handed over his keys and walked off the premises! I had precisely 20 minutes to cover all his classes etc .


This alarming situation was made much worse when the boarding master, the one and only Rasputin___ decided to assist things by going into the boarding house and announcing to all of the students that Coldfish had resigned and that Rasputin, too was also resigning.

Rasputin  was the Senior Boarding Master in a small school of about thirty students!


 A few minutes later, I remember Rasputin  meeting me at the photocopier , presenting me with his resignation,  and saying he had given a copy to the blowfly. 

The blowfly  and Rasputin were very good friends. There is honor and friendship among thieves. I didn't like Rasputin. he disliked me because I threatened his influence over the blowfly. He wanted to discredit me and so made things worse by resigning in order to show the blowfly that he needed Rasputin more than he needed me. There was worse to come.

On hearing of Rasputin's resignation form Rasputin himself the boarding students, not altogether surprisingly, decided to exit the building and sit down on the public road outside the school on strike, just in a place conspicuus enough for the public to see.

At this point I confess I retreated to the science lab at the back of the complex , well outside the battle zone in order to gather my thoughts.

I was wondering what the hell to do!.

There were only about six permanent members of staff at this school. Two of them had just resigned and the third, and most effective - my assistant ,  was in Adelaide for the weekend at a marriage. The blowfly swung into action. He persuaded Rasputin,  little lapdog that he was, to retract his resignation.

Slowly the students started returning to the building.

The reader may be wondering (like I was at the time ) just why Rasputin  had resigned. Well, the truth was I think it was because he felt  threatened by my arrival. He certainly felt he should have been given my job. I think this was his way of not only getting rid of Coldfish, whom he hated, but also me, whom he did not quite hate yet. (But only because he hadn't quite known me long enough for his contempt to change into hatred)

The ‘strike’ was important in another way because Billy Bunter (who was relaxing in Melbourne ____ realized now that he had a real job on his hands – not just a sinecure.

Worse still for me, it became clear to me in the next few weeks that the blowfly  had no time for billy Bunter, and for once I think the blowfly was probably right).
Billy bunter  was lazy. He thought he had a cushy number but he was dead wrong! Soon the Blowfly and his wife were sharpening their knives for the final coup de grace. I knew what was going to happen but I didn't want it to happen- so desperately I didn't want it to happen. But I knew it just had to. I was nervous – no, neurotic - with anxiety.

Soon after this strike , ( but only about three months after our arrival in Australia) Billy Bunter came to me and said

"Look, the blowfly  is mad, completely mad!"

I told him that I had already had known this for some weeks. I confided to Billy Bunter  H that I did not want to have to take over should he decide to leave. Billy Bunter  reassured me by saying "Don, If I decide to leave , you'll be the first to know!"

Famous last words!

However, like many things at this school the manner of his leaving came as a complete surprise not just to me but to everyone. Billy  invited all the teachers to a Christmas party, which, as nowhere else was available was actually held , at my house.

It was the 24nd of December 1991. I remember it well. A couple of other teachers were leaving and it rained very heavily. I remember Billy  leaving early in the pours of rain. It was Christmas Eve.

It was the last time I ever saw him. A few days later I discovered that he had come back to the school the next day and resigned-on Christmas day. I was stunned, to say the very least. Shattered would be a more accurate description –I had backed the wrong horse again –and confided in Billy Bunter  too much –just like the Yorkshireman, his predecessor,  and the  Chairman.

This time there was nothing to be done. I had to take over as Principal, or go home. The latter was not on option because we had no money at all. we could not have paid for the flight.

I began to have panic attacks around this time . I was very nervous indeed about the future. The only person who could possibly have taken over was my assistant. But, not surprisingly, she was not interested. She could see that the chances of survival in such a job were not very high. She had been there almost since the beginning.

The first Principal of this school in the late eighties was " Zombie 1", a local teacher from a local  catholic school . This man, by all accounts was a good man , a good teacher and a good manager.

Unfortunately , he turned out to have no teaching qualifications.

When the Registered Schools Board of Victoria got wind of this he was given his marching orders.

He was followed by another Zombie (2) an  from Scotland who had wide experience of the IB but was an academic in the true sense of the word and soon fell out with the blowfly  as they were not on the same page.

Zombie 2  eventually resigned in disgust and spent six months sitting in the bush working out what to do - something I was later do myself. This was all before I arrived

Then came the Yorkshireman, and then yours truly.

I forgot yo mention the original business manager, who was also a Zombie . He was actually still alive in the community and I  later got to know him. Lets call him 'Bombie' as his name began with a B.

Back to Christmas 1991....

There was nothing to do about Billy Bunter_ - he was gone and had not said a word to me as he had promised!.

Once again I articulated my misgivings to the Chairman , who was by now becoming a bit weary of the blowfly and myself. In the end I knew I had no choice. The one thing I had to my advantage was that the blowfly seemed to like me or was pretending to like me, I'm not sure which it was. He thought he needed me for the time being.

My assistant and her husband very kindly invited us to stay in their house in Adelaide for Christmas, I had come to respect and admire both of them. We had the use of a house in Adelaide and we thoroughly enjoyed the break. I liked Adelaide - it seemed small, clean and civilized.

My assistants husband (also a teacher) suggested the  idea  of solving  the problem of the school management by forming  a management committee.

This turned out to be a great success at first because the blowfly, who was of course on the committee, was in some measure held accountable for what he said and did! I don’t think he was used to this! It worked very well for about six months but in the end it was it was it’s very success which caused it to fail.

 The blowfly decided he  didn’t like being accountable and realized what was happening. He started to ignore the committee and later to actively sabotage it.

But at first it all went well. I had only been appointed to act as Principal temporarily.

I then made a big mistake. Things were going so well that I decided to apply for the job of Principal. I suppose I deluded myself that I could keep the blowfly sweet. 

This turned out to be a major miscalculation

In February 1992 interviews took place for the position. People came from all over the world and in the end no one was appointed. When I took over as ‘Acting Principal in January, I had no intention of of applying for the job. But it went so well for a few months mainly due to the efforts of my assistant  and the general support of the teachers that I was tempted to apply for it. The blowfly  seemed to think I was wonderful (and probably a lot cheaper than an import). I was the blue-eyed boy for a few months.In the end I did apply but was not successful.

The job was given to mr smoothoperator, an Australian, who was at the time Head of an  International school in Germany. Smoothoperator wanted to come back to Australia. But he still had 18 months to run on his contract. This arrangement suited the blowfly down to the ground. He got the kudos for the school of a big fish like smoothtalker  , who was a big name in the council for international schools and  the IB. Meanwhile, on the cheap, I was to be Acting Principal for the eighteen months. It suited me fine. no extra money of course, but i would have the use of the car.

As has been the case throughout my entire career, I was pleased to have any job at all.