HEADCASES AND HEADLOCKS

Of all the oddball comments I’d heard in TEFL over the years, the words that issued from the Principal’s mouth that lunchtime definitely made the top three. Sweeping into the staffroom with his hand clasped to his brow, he blurted to no one in particular, “That idiot’s just put one of the Thai girls in a headlock”. Books were slowly closed, and eyes cast downwards, as we strived collectively to imagine circumstances in which putting a Thai girl in a headlock would be a) necessary, or b) warranted. The Thai girls at the school at the time were all demure, unfailingly polite and cheerful, and none of them appeared likely to require incapacitating physical restraint.

The “idiot” in question, whose name slips my mind, was one of the many unhinged summer teachers who’d descended out of nowhere and tricked their way onto the staff due to a long career spent teaching English all over the world. In fact, a long career in TEFL should arguably be a very good reason not to employ someone, such is the psychological deterioration frequently witnessed with the passing of the years, but that’s an argument to be fleshed out on another occasion.

He was a heavy-set gent, probably in his late forties or early fifties, and there was something unnerving about him. Everything, from the way he walked to the manner in which he engaged in conversation, was just a little too… deliberate. He stomped around heavily as if he’d finally decided to grab an axe and put a stop to his neighbour’s late-night trumpet practice. He asked bizarre questions about subjects nobody had any idea about, such as the Welsh Assembly’s new rules on use of the Welsh language in dog training and the like, which a Welsh colleague dismissed with a delightfully crisp, “How should I bloody know?” And he had plans to conquer Europe by travelling around camp sites teaching English to continental caravaners, a scheme which we were all too eager to encourage, even offering to help him find out about ferry timetables. So, when word reached us that he’d grabbed an unsuspecting Thai student in class from behind and playfully set about strangling her, disbelief was not the common reaction, but rather weary resignation.

The Principle, genuinely decent and ever the peacemaker, was forced into a corner and felt he had to act decisively. The heavy-handed goon would have to be dismissed for gross misconduct, with immediate effect, he concluded.

The next day I arrived at the school and a colleague had casually asked the Principal how the sacking had gone, to which I caught the tail end of his reply. “… Because I’m a bloody coward!” he roared, as he bounded up the stairs to the safety of his office. I wondered whether there had been some sort of physical confrontation, and maybe the Principal had backed down, but when the full facts came to light, it turned out that he’d driven out to a remote farm where the muttonhead was staying, and rather than risk a possible showdown, the consequences of which would have been, to say the least, unpredictable, particularly on a remote farm, he had left his letter of dismissal wedged in the gate and run for it, and I can’t say I blame him for that.

The nitwit must have received and read the letter, because we never saw or heard from him again and we never knew whether he had gone on to terrorise European camping enthusiasts or received the clarifications he felt he required regarding the Welsh Assembly’s linguistic directives. 

But peace once again reigned in the kingdom, however briefly.