A long long time ago in 1990 the living quarters in boarding school often mirrored that in prison. Long corridors of thirty plus rooms/cells on each side where we slept, worked and housed the possessions we were permitted (and the ones we weren’t). Schools were divided into “houses” for the purposes of arranging sports teams and each house had its own housemaster (teacher) and head of house (boy) who ran the place. Some houses developed a reputation for excelling at academia, sport or the arts. Ours had a reputation for carnage which we encouraged and protected with alcohol, rule breaking and general acts of fuckery resulting in the powers that be providing us with a new shit kicking housemaster to whip us into shape. The resulting power struggle was the stuff of legend. Sometimes he won. Sometimes we won. This story is an example of the latter.
Our corridor had an entrance at one end and a large doorway and balcony at the other that over looked a large courtyard (known as the Quad because we never missed out on a chance to use Latin) two floors below. Being Summer the doors to the balcony were left open to allow the breeze in (and help disperse the cigarette smoke). A pigeon had come to frequent the balcony as I think some of the boys had been feeding it (bit like that bloke in Shawshank – just saying!) and he had been given the name Harry.
It was prep, 90 minutes reserved for “home” work. Obviously we didn’t get to go home so had to call it something else but the concept was the same. Absolute silence was mandated and you were not allowed to leave your room for any reason even to go to the toilet. The last point didn’t really matter because we didn’t have one. 68 boys and not a single toilet. That worked well! Anyway back to prep, a system that was policed by prefects rather than teachers so a game of cricket was in full swing in the corridor. Our house supplied several members of the school’ first cricket team including its opening batsman who was at the wicket that evening. To add to the excitement Harry had joined us on the balcony but had come through the doors and was flying around our corridor. A vicious inswinger had hit an imperfect section of the floor, causing the ball to pitch up higher than the batsman was expecting. As at home playing off the backfoot as front he instinctively waited a fraction longer before hitting a wonderful drive through extra cover but with the result of greater elevation than he would have liked. The only fielder in the covers was Harry. In a valiant attempt to stop the ball Harry gave up his life in a burst of feathers. The ball and Harry hit the ground, the latter’s head hanging from a thread of sinew to the rest of him. What was probably the greatest sacrifice to save a boundary in the history of cricket was not lost on us but we had little time to dwell on it as we heard the warning of the approaching housemaster.
In those days junior boys were instructed to “keep the door” and effectively act as a lookout for teachers when we were doing something we shouldn’t like playing cricket or killing pigeons. In this instance it was a soft warning as the housemaster had been seen in the Quad below but was not heading towards us. Yet.
The need to be quiet did not slow the communication as we looked at the housemaster below, at each other, at Harry and then back at the housemaster. A crystal clear, perfect and universally held realisation formed as we knew that Harry was going to fly for one last time.
We were lucky to have the school’s first team hooker as well as opening batsman whose accuracy throwing in at the lineout was impeccable. He was the obvious and willing candidate for Harry’s propulsion and we watched as we steadied himself, raised Harry above his head in both hands and adjusted for the mild summer breeze and unusual angle.
Harry took to the skies, and assured his place in glory by striking the housemaster square on the back. With no little surprise he turned around looked at Harry, then over to Harry’s head and then up to the balcony which had been deserted less than a second ago. He picked up Harry, then Harry’s head (probably too angry to experience any of the usual feelings of disgust at touching a decapitated pigeon) and set off with some speed in our direction.
A single loud crash of 67 doors slamming in perfect unison preceded his entrance by less than a second. A perfect silence and empty corridor manned only by the Head of House (entrusted with keeping order) met him. This particular prefect had a calm smoothness that made David Niven appear like a Jeremy Kyle guest. He doubtlessly went on to a successful career in PR, politics and adultery using skills he learned dealing superbly with situations like this.
“Good Evening Sir”
“What is this?” spluttered a furious housemaster gesturing with most of a pigeon in one hand and the head of a pigeon in the other.
“A pigeon Sir? Is it yours?”
“Of course it’s not mine. I was hit by it in the Quad”
“How unfortunate – however of the two of you, you seem to have come off the better Sir”
“Who threw it?”
“Threw it? It’s prep Sir. Also if someone had thrown it, wouldn’t it have flown away before it reached you?”
We listened in awe as an 18 year old boy managed to convince a man in his forties that a kamikaze pigeon had struck him, possibly protecting its young that might have nested in the Quad and decapitated itself in the process.
“Perhaps he saw you as a threat to his mating rights Sir? Were you looking at his bird? That’s just a little joke Sir.”
Whether he was prepared to believe that a jealous or paternally enraged pigeon had formed itself into a beak-tipped missile to perform the ultimate sacrifice or whether he realised he was beaten on this one, the housemaster left (with Harry) and what was left of his dignity.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many, to one pigeon.
Diaries of Boarding School 