The Harpole Report, by J L Carr, 1972
I am a great admirer of J L Carr, particularly his 1980 novella A Month in the Country, and therefore my expectations for The Harpole Report were high. While it doesn’t reach the heights of A Month, on its own terms this was an enjoyable little novel. It is told in the form of report by an unknown author, commissioned by Harpole himself into his last term as a teacher. This ends up being simply a framing device rather than the more ominous introduction to a report into a serious incident – it never really becomes clear why the report is required, but by the time that becomes apparent the reader cares little for that minor anachronism. The report’s author uses and quotes from a wide variety of sources, including the school logbook – a kind of official record or diary – as well as correspondence, diaries, and other official and less than official sources.
Stories set in schools are usually written for children, be it the slapstick comedy of St Trinian’s and St Custards, or adventures in the manner of Enid Blyton and her successors. I can’t recall reading another novel told from the perspective of the long-suffering teaching staff. This novel is grounded in personal experience – Carr was a primary school teacher for almost 40 years, including 15 years as a Head. It opens with his avatar, Harpole, being temporarily given the headship of the Church of England primary school of Tampling St. Nicholas. The setting is the early 1970’s, at a point where much of education was still dominated by attitudes from the pre-war era (Tampling is described as being “run along the lines which were the height of fashion when Chadband (the former head) was trained in the 1920s by men who learnt their educational practices in the early years of the century”) and progressive attitudes towards education were hard to find. Corporal punishment, even for younger children, was commonplace, the curriculum unchanged for decades, and schools still maintained a ‘backward class’ taught by an untrained teaching assistant.
Harpole makes some tentative attempts to modernise the school, moves that are fiercely resisted by the Education board, his teaching staff, his recalcitrant janitor, and the parents. Some of the minor battles, such as whether to fly a flag at the start of each school day, are lost, but slowly through stubbornness and dedication Harpole begins to get his way. The ferocity with which Harpole’s attempts to drag the school into the modern era are resisted prove the source for much of the novel’s comedy.
In addition to completing the school log, Harpole keeps a personal journal revealing more detailed information which he often wants to keep out of the official record. Although many of his innovations are modest at times he shows signs of what could almost be described as radicalism. He proposes that caning be abolished – which provokes a response accusing him of encouraging “acts of the utmost depravity” – and that students stop referring to teachers as ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’. Each proposed step forward is met with fierce resistance, not least from the education authorities that see him as a trouble-maker. Even a simple request for a new blackboard is met with astonishment at his effrontery. Despite this resistance he slowly begins to reform his school, encouraging outside visits for each class, (which inevitably go disastrously), securing support for some of his children who are being mistreated at home, and winning the confidence of his staff.
Two sets of correspondence are threaded through the narrative. Harpole’s letters to his fiancé, Edith Wardle, unanswered apart from her ‘Dear John’ telling him she has found love elsewhere, are dominated by details of his missing spanner – it’s not hard to see why she moved on. His place as teacher of the Scholarship class, a group of students identified as having the potential to pass the 11+ and go on to grammar school, has been taken by a supply teacher and recent Cambridge graduate, Miss Foxberrow. her letters to her sister are full of her lively independence of thought. References to Harpole are initially mocking, but her admiration for him slowly grows, particularly when he confronts a parental bully, Mr Bullitt. beating him with a cricket bat. Immediately after the fight she describes her reaction:
“a great hush had descended on the building and it was evident that all lessons had ceased and everyone was listening in petrified rapture. GH then turns towards me his eyes positively glittering, and hackles rampant (with me quite limp with adoration and the joyous expectation of being dragged off to his cave and debauched).”
There is a hint of the origins of A Month in the Country in the scene when Harpole and Miss Foxberrow are out in the country on a date of sorts, visiting a remote church in Ferry Farthingale in the sea-marshes.
“She then pointed out an area of decomposed painting above the nave arcade. This showed three ancient lords in fine raiment parading in a field of lilies and the three same, naked (with even the hair around their parts scorched off) in a fiery furnace.”
This medieval wall painting is precisely the type of relic that Birkin is employed to restore. The fruition of George and Emma’s relationship in such unlikely circumstances is one of the many delights of the book. If you haven’t discovered J L Carr yet, this might not be my recommended starting point, but on its own terms it is a witty and enjoyable novella.
The Reading Bug 