Deportment
was a category
in our primary-
school reports sent
home to Mum and Dad
each term-end
in an envelope,
trusted to us to hand
over unopened.
Others were
Attendance and
Punctuality.
Had anyone
dawdled too long
down School Road
of a morning?
or hidden behind
the toilet block
till ferreted out?
Had he forged
illiterate
excuse notes?
Earned being
named truant?
Others had
'problems', not us.
We'd set out
each morning
well-breakfasted,
with clean hanky
and cut lunch,
which we never
ate till lunchtime!
Play-lunch also
and little else
we had in our
leather satchels.
Around us swirled
rule-breakers,
trouble-makers,
smart alecs and
answerer-backs.
In their schoolbags
they'd hidden smokes.
Not us, sister
and I. We stood
to attention, stepped
out smartly
in the parade
to the classroom,
sat with elbows in,
shoulders squared
at our desks,
ankles crossed,
inkwell watched.
Others slouched,
tripped classmates,
spilled ink, yawned
defiantly, and let
their noses run.
Sniggering,
giggling, burping
and calculated
farting occurred.
Miss Feist (she was
thought to wear corsets)
wanted us all to sit
straight, stand straight,
walk straight, like her.
Some of us did.
We earned high marks
for Deportment.
We'd never get
round-shouldered
or spinal curvature.
We'd look people
in the eye, they'd
trust us, we'd
be respected
amongst the world's
respectable.
Others went home
at term-end
destroying
that envelope,
to parents who
didn't even care!
didn't perhaps read.
Their houses
were dirty,
noisy - sometimes
'disreputable',
like the Lawless
family opposite.
Lawless! their
actual name!
Motorbikes were
their life, weeds
instead of grass,
clothes-line a disgrace.
Their letterbox
spilled bill reminders.
Loud laughers, careless -
while we whispered
and held ourselves
well in, and sat straight.
And made our parents
praise us proudly -
never loudly.
[when did inkwells go out? this was 1947-8]
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