Free King's Cross Kid by Victor Gregg Page B

Calcutta is on?’ So effective was this teaching by rote that at least half the class was able to answer. ‘You there, yes, you with your mouth full of toffee.’ James pointed to one of the young scruffs in the back row who attempted to extract the toffee from his mouth and stick it under the flap of his desk. ‘Tell the class, Roberts, why on the map India is coloured in red.’ ‘’Cause it’s the British Empire and they all belong to us.’ Mr James complimented Roberts on his knowledge. ‘And tell us, Roberts, what do we call the people who live in this India that’s coloured in red?’ Roberts thought about this for a moment. ‘Red Indians, sir.’ ‘Red Indians!’ roared James. ‘Roberts, are you by any chance trying to be Jack the Lad?’ By now the class was roaring with laughter and Mr James could feel his authority slipping away by the second. ‘Out here in front, Roberts, bend over.’ And poor Roberts, whether his answer about Red Indians was intended as a joke or not, was given a couple of strokes with the cane.
    Mr James’s methods wouldn’t be acceptable today but, good or bad, they worked then. The whacks I suffered were forgotten once the stinging sensation had disappeared. In fact, the boys boasted about their teacher’s prowess with the cane, suggesting that they were tougher because they were able to withstand all that he could lay out. And yet all the noise and threats turned out to be a façade behind which the teachers of this supposedly hard-nosed institution gave their all to offer the boys every possible chance to lift themselves out of the gutter.
    At Cromer Street School I was introduced to the personal weaponry that replaced the comparatively frail pieces of wood we used at Prospect Terrace. Strips of half-inch brass were heated and bent to a shape that fitted a clenched fist. The finished article was a primitive knuckle-duster, not as heavy as the real thing but hard enough to stop any adversary who cared to chance his luck. Of course, it was no use having this weapon unless the owner had the guts to use it.
    A couple of pennies between the fingers of a clenched fist was another widely used method of inflicting damage. With one well-aimed slash the pennies could reduce a face to ribbons. The most important thing was to make certain that whatever tool was carried looked like an article of everyday use. If a lad, even if he was a young boy, was picked up carrying an ‘offensive weapon’, or the means of ‘breaking and entering’, it meant a sojourn behind bars, the length of sentence depending on the mood of the magistrate.
    In about the second week, during the afternoon break, six or seven of us, all new to the school, were messing about kicking a ball against a wall. Up sauntered a gang of older boys who went straight to the point: ‘Oi, you lot, f–– off, this is our bit of wall.’ This challenge was answered with a blank stare. We all knew that these boys came from Ossulton Street, a particularly tough area by Somers Town, but nobody was going to make the first move of submission. It was now up to the aggressor to prove his point, which he did by giving the biggest of us – me – a right-hander which split my nose open. Blood gushing everywhere and that was it – a bundle. The opposing warriors were finally pulled apart by a couple of the teachers and the whole pack of us were marched up to the headmaster’s office.
    We all got a right whacking with all sorts of dire threats about further punishment. The head told us that it was us new boys who were the prime culprits, guilty of breaking the peace. ‘Whatever you got away with in your last school, it’s different here.’ I still see the lad who started it all; him and his mates were standing behind the head smirking away. Nobody argued with the head, although, funnily enough, we never got challenged again. Mum gave me another dressing down when she got home that evening: ‘You’re growing up now, time to think