Dam Buster’s Bard idea that bombed

OUR CLASS had a new English teacher, a former RAF flier. It was the 1950s and rumour had it he was one of the Dam Busters, so he became our hero. In his first lesson he asked the class to assemble in the school hall to perform Shakespeare on stage. His hero status vanished into thin air. He issued us with a script and a role, mine being the Clown. Mr Dam Buster was not happy with our dismal, monotone efforts. He interrupted constantly, demanding more feeling, and demonstrated with extraordinary passion how it should be done. Come my turn, I soon found out, to my horror, the Clown had to sing! There was no way I was going to do that in front of my classmates. So I recited my lines. ‘Sing,’ he shouted. I still recited. ‘SING,’ he roared back. I recited — we had reached an impasse! Eventually we came to an agreement whereby we would sing together. With that he burst forth into song so loud that even an opera singer would have been impressed. As for my efforts, well, I could have sung Colonel Bogey or, even better still, The Dam Busters theme, for all he knew. I spotted my classmate Peter laughing at my predicament. Mr DB also saw him and took it as a personal affront, rushing across to wallop him with his script, sending Peter’s script bouncing across the stage. We had discovered he had a short fuse — even shorter than his bombs. From that moment on, our teacher got our full attention and I was ready to sing like the proverbial canary. We did put more effort into the play, but he soon realised there were no Gielguds among us. It was a Bard idea that bombed.

David H. Cox, Kidlington, Oxon.