Has the Bell Gone Yet?: And Other Curious Tales

By Jon Janssen

Jeremy Smithers is living in a retirement village and suffering from ill-health. He has a story that he desperately wants to tell for several reasons, focusing primarily on the funnier side of his forty years of teaching in secondary schools.

He employs a young writer to help him to transform his ideas to written word. Gradually, from a very difficult beginning, a more meaningful relationship comes to fruition as they work on the book together.

But Smithers is hiding more than one or two secrets from his past that he definitely does not want to come out! Slowly, the pieces are put together through his fractured narration, which reveals his desire to show an often misunderstood side of teachers and teaching, and the observations and reactions of his collaborator, the young protagonist Elaine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jan 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524521448

Jon Janssen

Jon Janssen was born in Sweden in 1970 and moved to Australia with his family in his early teens. They settled initially in Darwin before deciding finally to live in Melbourne. These days, Jon Janssen divides his time between Melbourne and Malmo, Sweden. He travels extensively. Janssen trained as a physicist at university, where he first became interested in writing. He has had several academic articles published, but this is his first work of fiction. He confesses to be fascinated by the diversity of educational systems in the world, but refuses to be critical of those in Australia. He professes to be fascinated by the perverseness of human behaviours and the dichotomy of appearance and reality in them. Jon Janssen continues to observe human behaviours and to write about them. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and three cats. He is retraining currently as a psychologist.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Jon Janssen.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017900298

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-2146-2

      Softcover      978-1-5245-2145-5

      eBook         978-1-5245-2144-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/17/2017

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

749538

CONTENTS

Introduction

Section One The Early Years

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 Mad George’s Circus

Chapter 3 The Students

Section Two The Middle Years

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 The Students

Section Three A Change Of Scenery

Chapter 6 Time Gentlemen Please!

Section Four Quotable Quotes

Chapter 7

I glanced into the room cautiously. I still wasn’t sure that this was where I wanted to be. The old man was propped up on his pillows, but appeared to be fast asleep. Just as I decided to retreat, one eye popped open and fixed me in a myopic stare. You that young feller I spoke to yesterday? I nodded my assent. Right, well don’t muck about. Get yourself in here.

I had better explain a few things at this point. I’ve never met this old man before, never even spoken to him until the ‘phone call ten or twelve hours earlier. See, I’m a budding writer who has never had anything published of my own. I advertise my skills as a ‘ghost’ writer, telling and tidying up other people’s stories. Hence my visit today to the retirement home, responding to a plea from the medical staff initially and then briefly the old man to listen to his story and to tell it for him.

Come on, hurry up. I won’t bite. He probably imagined it as a fearsome growl, but in reality it was little more than a hoarse whisper. Better not be too long a story, came to me involuntarily.

Do you have a tape recorder here? he began.

Is the pope a catholic, I muttered.

What’s that? You’ll have to be much louder than that, you know, was the rejoinder. Great start!

A little uncomfortably, I sat in the chair next to the bed. Um…. Today, why don’t you just give me a feel for what you want to tell me and we’ll start formally next time.

Right…..um….. right. Well, as you can see, I wasn’t born yesterday. And, as you can see, I’m probably not going to be around for long …. bloody cigarettes. I suppose what I want to do is to share some of my experiences while I still can. You see, I was a teacher for a long time ….. I’ve a few stories to tell. I’m not wanting to be nasty about anyone, just to relay some of the funnier or sillier things that I encountered ….. yes….. I suppose, too, that I want to highlight some of the ways in which the world has changed, not necessarily for the better. Yes, I think that’s it. I hope I won’t sound too pompous or pedantic ….

Heaven forbid, my brain shrieked.

…. I want to highlight the way there used to be a real camerarderie then that seems to be missing now, he was continuing.

I wasn’t sure what to think. The old man seemed to read my thoughts, because he ventured hesitantly, Well? What do you think? Can you help me?

The room was slipping further into darkness and he slipping further into the pillows. I was slipping further into confusion. How could he think this was interesting to anyone? Could I help him? I thought back to my own school days; nothing very interesting came to mind. Lost in my reverie, I didn’t notice for some time that the lights outside were now very bright, the room very dim.

All right, I’ll listen to your story and see what I can do with it, I said finally. I turned to the old man. He was snoring softly.

The next day wasn’t busy. To be honest, not many of them are. I made a mental note to visit the old man at his retirement home after lunch. Best time, I thought. He should be awake for a while; in between morning snooze and afternoon nap. I had no idea how much he had to tell me or how long it would take to tell it. The lunchtime traffic wasn’t too bad; I noticed a reasonable pub nearby and decided a schooner and something like a fishburger would help gird my loins, so to speak.

Half an hour later, I felt ready. The short drive to the home was pleasant enough: tree-lined streets, not too many traffic lights and several women on the footpath well worthy of appraisal. I had decided to be pro-active this time, so I entered the room abruptly with what I hoped was a winning, Good afternoon. How are you today? I have my recorder if you’re ready to start.

Where have you been? I was ready to start three hours ago!! came the curt rejoinder.

I suddenly felt sorry for what was probably thousands of students over many years. This bloke needed to lighten up! Then I thought, guiltily, If this is going to work, I need to give this old guy a break. It can’t be much fun lying in here all day every day. He can’t have always been like this. There must be a lighter side hidden somewhere.

Once again it was if he were inside my head. I want to remind you before we start that I want to focus on some of the more light-hearted issues. Perhaps I’ve said that already. I might become a little serious at times; I’ll leave it to you to decide later if it’s all needed. As I said before, I don’t want to offend anyone. Many of them must be long dead anyway. Hopefully, some of my protagonists might get a bit of a chuckle out of it all…. All right, are you ready with that machine? It might be worth recording that I want to focus as well on the lead-up to my career, not just on the schools at which I taught. You’ll see why. In fact, that’s where I want to start. I gave an involuntary shudder. Fancy, he wants to start at the beginning. How novel!

"For reasons that I will explain later, I want the title of the book to be Has the bell gone yet…. and other curious tales? Now don’t look at me like that, young lady. I said I will explain. Many years ago I was at a conference and one of the things we discussed informally over drinks was interesting possible titles for books or articles about teaching. One of the guest lecturers mentioned some of the stranger things she had encountered as an observer and an outsider from the actual teaching profession, and mentioned this phenomenon. She even suggested this title and that one of us might care to use it one day. That was more than forty years ago and to the best of my knowledge no-one has yet. Someone even tried that newfangled computer search for me. A wry chuckle. I suppose we’ll hear from someone pretty soon if it has been used. I want to explain…."

We were interrupted by the nurse bringing yet more medication. I had a chance to think, "Has the bell gone yet…? What the…? I hope I know what I’m doing."

The nurse dispensed with, the old man seemed cheered by the prospect of beginning his tale. He began, Right, well I’d best tell you my name so you can get your smirk out of the way. My name is Jeremy Smithers. Yes, yes, very funny I know. (A sense of humour?) "Now, we won’t get too far today, I would say. I would say that five or six meetings should be enough, depending on how I’m feeling. I have indicated the focus on more humorous moments, and that includes an appendix of some of the