My influences: Mr Wheaton

In my final year at Knowle Park Junior Mixed School, my primary school, I was taught by Mr Wheaton. This was regarded as a privilege; he was one of the few male teachers in the school.

The only other apart from Mr Proudlove, the Headmaster, was Mr Warburton, who was the art & handicraft teacher. I had a very poor opinion of both of them; Mr Proudlove talked about "Americker" and "Africker" whereas, as a good Bristolian, I knew the correct pronunciations were "Americle" and "Africle". And Mr Warburton used to bang on about "cutting knives"; I was unaware of any knife that wasn't used for cutting so I regarded him as stupidly verbose.

Anyhow, Mr Wheaton was well thought of by the children, one of these teachers who never had a problem with discipline although he never appeared to do anything about it. However, despite his best efforts and my immaculate behaviour, we had a run-in. I was unjustly accused of talking in the line whilst we were waiting to go into assembly. I wasn't talking, so I denied it. When we got back to the classroom, I was again accused of talking and again denied it. Mr Wheaton stood me in the corner of the classroom whilst he got on the with the class and every ten minutes or so, he gave me the option to change my mind. I declined. When we got to break he said, "Alright, you clearly aren't going to admit you were talking" and I said, "That's because I wasn't", so it was declared a draw. Or, in my mind, a clear win for me.

What did I learn from that? Well, when I'm certain of the rights of my case I am very determined or, as even my friends would say, stubborn.