(W) Kilmore (5) The End Game

  Kilmore: The End Game

Mum and Dad went back to Ireland at the end of January 1992 and  I was in increasing trouble at school. the bursar said she wanted the use of the school car, something i had had the use of for more than a year. She had her way.

I started to cycle to school. I knew the end game had begun. Things were brought to a head by the most infamous of all incidents that happened at my time at the school:

The Staffroom Incident

One day I was in the staff room with most of the other staff at break time . Everyone was there. Suddenly Rasputin began a rant: speaking in a loud voice in a  strident and strained tone in what appeared to be some sort of prepared speech. After a short while I realized that this speech was an attack on me and my leadership. Basically, I was being accused of not consulting with staff  on a range of issues. 

After he had finished his tirade, most curiously,  he asked me what I was doing in school on Saturday mornings! This was an absurd question to the balanced individual-as it is obvious to all what a Principal might be doing on a Saturday morning in a school-working of course.

Being in school of Saturday morning is something one normally expects to be applauded for! But in the atmosphere of that school this was apparently a ‘suspicious’ activity. In certainly was to to Rasputin - the blowfly's lapdog.  Both Rasputin and the blowfly were now suspicious of me. A few days previously they had changed the lock on the business office door. I can only think they didn’t want others , particularly myself, to have access to the papers inside. Frankly, it didn’t bother me as I never went in there anyway.

Anyway, the abrasive and disrespectful tone of his speech was such that the rest of the staff were acutely embarrassed and quite naturally began to leave the room. I asked him to come and speak with me in my office. But no, he wouldn’t do that. He only wanted to rant if there was an audience.He was the classic bully of course and nothing more than a stooge of the blowfly. He had sold himself to them. He just wanted to demonstrate to everyone else how important he was, and that he could say anything to anybody at any time. The blowfly hought he was indispensable to RW.I suppose Hitler also thought Goebbels and Goering were indispensable  Anyway, Rasputin was wrong, he  was wrong and eventually sacked by the blowfly, like everyone else some time after I had left.

In my view the incident was very serious as it upset our small staff and undermined by authority to the point where I felt I could not carry on unless something was done about him. I thought my position was untenable

I got in touch with the chemist, who was acting Chairman of the Board in the Chairman's  absence when the latter was too 'busy' to come to the school, which was almost always by this time. ( In fact. I only saw the Chairman twice at the school in my twenty months  there.)

In classic Nixon fashion I then  made one or one or two tactical mistakes which were to make things much worse for me. First, the next day I was sick. I suppose I could have gone to school but I really wasn't well with some gastric problem although it probably looked to everyone like I had been run off the premises! I negotiated with the chemist  about the Rasputin rant over the phone from my house. I was insisting he  do something about Rasputin: his behavior had been thorougly unprofrssional and required a sanction. In the end he agreed to investigate. He made an investigation and decided that Rasputin's   behavior was totally unacceptable. However as usual the problem was what could be done? Rasputin was The blowfly's stooge.  While I was still in my house the chemist  had a meeting with the staff assuring them that I was coming back and that Rasputin  would have to apologize to me for the outburst.

I was initially pleased with this. I certainly believed the chemist-whether or not he ever had the intention of making Rasputin apologise or not I don’t know.  But it never happened. There was no apology.  I  certainly didn’t think  that  the chemist would NOT back up his words with actions. As it turned out, he simply asked Rasputin  to apologize without insisting that it be done in his presence. The result was of course that Rasputin  said yes he would apologize but didn't! Moreover, when I suggested  that he come to the office and apologize in front of a witness he came to the office but not only refused to apologize but  also refused to give a guarantee that he would not repeat the behavior.

 Things were at crisis point! When I told the Chemist  that I insisted on an apology as my position was untenable, the chemist then said he couldn’t make him apologise. 

This changed things entirely for me. The staff were under the impression (having been told by the chemist, the Deputy Chairman of the Board himself,  that RI had indeedadmitted his unprofessional behavior and apologized to me for it. The reality was he had not . On the contrary, he clearly stated that he had no intention of pulling his head in.

My position was untenable.

the Chairman could not be contacted, as usual.  I went back to work after a couple of days and the blowfly and his wife  continued to play their games.

The next move was to stop the mail going into my office. A lot of my work was generated from the mail. The blowfly started to intercept the mail and divert it to my assistant. When I realized what was happening I asked her to redirect mail which was redirected to her by the blowfly's  to my office. This was only partially effective, and it started to cause a strain between my assistant  and myself. In retrospect I see that this is of course exactly why the blowfly  did it.

Although, I could not see it clearly at the time I realize in retrospect that the blowfly's  tactics were very clever. He knew I had a good relationship with my assistant,  and I don't think neither she nor I could clearly see at first that he was going to do his best to sabotage it.

He was successful, eventually.  But,  I began to see what he was up to.

I became frustrated with my assistant  because I thought she did not see what the blowfly was doing. The blowfly was clearly building a case to the Board that I wasn’t doing any work- and that my assistant  was doing it. In fact, it was true to a certain extent!  She was getting  the mail and much of the work generated from it.

Sometime later the wedge was firmly driven between us when the chemist  informed me subsequently that my assistant  had been given extra money during these last few weeks - some money for her ‘Extra responsibilities’. My assistant denied requesting it.

For me, this was the last straw. the chemist's words,  and his lack of action over Rasputin acted on me like a slow poison. I came to believe both the chemist and my assistant were going to just watch as the the blowfly  did with me what he wanted. In the chemists case, he was just going to try to keep me in place until the smoothoperator  arrived from Hamburg. I thought my assistant would ring her hands but stay in place until the smoothoperator arrived from Germany.

 I began to suspect treachery from all sides.. I was certainly in the process of some sort of breakdown or ‘anxiety attack’ –one of the characteristics of which is paranoia.

This type of anxiety attack has subsequently recurred from time to time causing me bother both at work and at home. I have learned to  control it now with counselling and medication.

But my tolerance to stress decreased after this episode. I also started to drink too much alcohol at this time – not in binges- but on a daily basis in order to anaesthatise myself from my trials and get some sleep. The alcohol only increased my irritability.

By the time the smoothoperator arrived in March from Hamburg for a visit I had had enough. Mentally, I was exhausted and beaten. I could see no no point in staying on until July when my contract was up. I felt increasingly isolated. I had become estranged from my assistant. She could do nothing except watch and wring her hands.  I went to the Chairman,  but he seemed just to want me to hold on until the smoothoperator  came permanently in July. In fact, this seemed to be everyone's strategy.

I could see that this would be an ideal scenario for everyone except me. I now knew the the blowfly and his wife were basically vampires were Vampires and no-one could work with them. I knew my contract would not be renewed - some excuse would be found to get rid of me. In the end I was convinced none of them would care. Yes, they would wring their hands and say how awful it all was! But in the end it would be me left in middle of the bush with no job.

The mind games of the W’s continued. They were absurd. Each day in my office the blowfly  would pull up my blinds so he could see in as he walked past - just to unnerve me! I was, and still am convinced that he punctured my bicycle tyre with a drawing pin one day so that I could not go home! Who knows whether he did or not? Such was my paranoiac state of mind.

in desperation, I sent a  fax to the smoothoperator, and another  and another to the chairman castigating them  for their  lack of support against continued intimidation by the the blowfly.

With this latter fax I think I burned my boats with the chairman. I remember my exact words. With a little Irish melodrama I announced in the fax that if ‘he continued to procrastinate and prevaricate his soul would roast in hell’.  These words are  indicative of my state of mind at the time.

I didn’t realize it at the time but the truth is there was not very much the Chairman could do at the time. It was far too late to do anything.

And things turned out as I had predicted. The smoothoperator  arrived in March. I told him what had happened with Rasputin. I said I wanted to resign immediately as my position was not tenable. The blowfly and the bursar and the chemist  him their side of the story. I don’t know what he believed –but he certainly didn’t understand at that time what the blowfly and his wife were like were like. He did later of course -as he fell out with them within a few months and resigned himself, like everyone else who worked for the blowfly.  I don't know what my assistant  said either but I am confident she would not have undermined me by anything she said. I know the other senior female member of staff spoke in my defence. But it was all pointless.

The new plan of the smoothoperator was quite simple. I was to resign and that would be a major problem solved for everyone (except myself) and my assistant would take over until July when the smoothoperator arrived  permanent  (or so he thought at the time). That is what happened: the smoothoperator  went back to Germany to finish his contract and and the chemist  was asked to handle my ‘Departure’.

This he did with aplomb. I was effectively escorted off the premises by the chemist  in the time-honoured fashion of other administrators of the this  International school – quickly to be ignored and forgotten like the rest.

We were left high and dry in our house, not 200 metres form the school.

The most painful thing about the next few weeks was the complete absence of communication from anybody connected with the school. If things had been bad, they were about to get much, much worse.

Marie and I agree that the next year in particular – in fact-the next few months were perhaps the most unhappy of our lives. Starting almost immediately there was complete silence from everyone we knew. All the colleagues and people who had been friendly towards us appeared to disown us. Nothing from the chairman, the chemist, the secretaries, the teachers. Even my assistant did not visit us. There was no-one connected with the school who had anything to do with us apart from the other senior female teacher. We just became invisible-non citizens in the literal sense of the word –even to our neighbours–one of whom was a teacher at the school, and  with whom I thought I had a good relationship. We were completely  cold-shouldered. And I was never so miserable. Everything began to disintegrate around us. I lost  my confidence in myself. I don't think i have ever completely recovered it

Strangely enough the only people who took an interest in us were Social Security. They were excellent, and I will always be grateful for the sensitive way in which I was processed to receive the dole .It was of course a labour government at that time. I wouldn’t like to have been in the same position with the  parasitic conservative government of John Howard.

It has always been a paradox: there was a marked contrast between the way in which my colleagues and associates at school reacted to our situation and the state. The latter could not have been more supportive, whereas the former vanished into thin air.

I decided to act decisively. (some might say I panicked-sometimes there is not a lot of difference).

I went to Ireland to apply for work in an overseas setting. But everything seemed to conspire against me. I arrived home in Belfast to find that a school in the Canaries had answered my application for Deputy Principal. They had just phoned Belfast one hour before my arrival from Australia , but my dear old Mum had not asked for their number so I could not call them back!

It was just before Easter. They never called back although they said they would. I spent a frantic two weeks waiting for the phone call that never came. I expected the phone to ring any minute for the whole two weeks. It never did! In those days there was no internet so I could not get a contact number for the school. They must have appointed someone else.

I took a further decisive step (Panicked again?) and visited the Yorkshireman  in Portugal.  He  was now the Head of an International school in Portugal. But there were no jobs for me there, and he didn’t know of any. He was in a very bad state himself. One of the many victims of the blowfly.

Back to Australia and I took a further decisive step and immediately vacated the house at Bindley Court and and moved into a very inferior one in Sutherland Street. The rent was a hundred a week. I felt we didn't have enough money to stay in the other house. Well, it was true we didn't have much money all right but looking back that was not a good decision.We should have stayed there in that nice house. The new one was cold, had rats in the back, and mice in the bedrooms. The kids didn’t care but Marie did-she hated the house. Marie is very easygoing and has a forgiving nature. But around this time I noticed that she started to be negative about Australia too. Of all the places she has been to with me, Australia is still the only one to which she said she did not want to stay in.

I applied for jobs all over the country and made nearly a hundred and twenty hand-mailed applications to private schools in Australia. (no computers in those days). There was no internet at this time. There was almost no response at all. I came to dread the little stroll to my post –box at the end of our driveway in Sutherland street to return clutching a handful of ‘Thin’ letters whose message was always the same ‘Thank you for your interest the school,  but...... – the ones who bothered to reply that is.