Mr Runner leaves

Runner had left the classroom and the sense of tension slowly fell away.

I was in a daze. What could he mean by "an essay on nothing". My previous experience of school had never prepared me for such a philosophical idea. Or was it philosophy. Certainly my head was swimming.

The boys, released from the dread of this fierce schoolmaster, rapidly returned to their accustomed air of cynical superiority. As they began to file out of the classroom they used the demeaning nickname that had been given to the teacher. he was known as "Zit" Runner, due to his complexion.

Zit is awful
Yeah, I hate Zit
etc. etc.

I asked one of the kinder boys to give me a hint for what this essay was about. The only idea I got was to describe a vacuum.

Academic terror was descending upon me - a terror with at its origin a complete lack of comprehension for what was going on. IN my last school the essay title might have been "describe an experience of being lost in a forest" and the teacher would have taught us at length how to sue metaphors and similes to achieve this. Then we would be given a fixed half hour period in which to do this prep (at 7-7.30 pm) at the end of which our exercise books were collected.

Here at Goring in almost my first lesson i had been given an essay with an impossible title, with no indication of how I was to write it, with no idea of technique, length or limit, and with no fixed period in which to do it. I could feel that I was completely out of my depth. At that moment it was a feeling for the future. I could delay the moment when I would actually have to try to write this essay. But like water on top of a hot curry, it only made the experience hotter.

Outside the classroom, the corridoor was full of pupil traffic and trudged off reluctant to my next lesson, Maths with Colonel Septimus.