Irwin is in a wheelchair, in his forties, addressing three orfour unidentified MPs.
Irwin This is the tricky one.
The effect of the bill will be to abolish trial by jury in at least half the cases that currently come before the courts and will to a significant extent abolish the presumption of innocence.
Our strategy should therefore be to insist that the bill does not diminish the liberty of the subject but amplifies it; that the true liberty of the subject consists in the freedom to walk the streets unmolested etc., etc., secure in the knowledge that if a crime is committed it will be promptly and sufficiently punished and that far from circumscribing the liberty of the subject this will enlarge it.
I would try not to be shrill or earnest. An amused tolerance always comes over best, particularly on television. Paradox works well and mists up the windows, which is handy. ‘The loss of liberty is the price we pay for freedom’ type thing.
School. That’s all it is. In my case anyway. Back to school.
Though the general setting is a sixth-form classroom in aboys’ school in the eighties in the north of England, whenHector first comes in, a figure in motor-cycle leathers andhelmet, the stage is empty.
His sixth-formers, eight boys of seventeen or eighteen,come briskly on and take Hector out of his motor-cyclegear, each boy removing an item and as he does sopresenting it to the audience with a flourish.
Lockwood (with gauntlets) Les gants.
Akthar (with a scarf) L’écharpe.
Rudge Le blouson d’aviateur.
Finally the helmet is removed.
Timms Le casque.
The taking-off of the helmet reveals Hector (which isboth his surname and his nickname) as a schoolmasterof fifty or so.
Dakin, a handsome boy, holds out a jacket.
Dakin Permettez-moi, monsieur.
Hector puts on the jacket.
Hector Bien fait, mes enfants. Bien fait.
Hector is a man of studied eccentricity. He wears abow tie.
Classroom.
Now fades the thunder of the youth of England clearing summer’s obligatory hurdles.
Felicitations to you all. Well done, Scripps! Bravo, Dakin! Crowther, congratulations. And Rudge, too. Remarkable. All, all deserve prizes. All, all have done that noble and necessary thing, you have satisfied the examiners of the Joint Matriculation Board, and now, proudly jingling your A Levels, those longed-for emblems of your conformity, you come before me once again to resume your education.
Rudge What were A Levels, then?
Hector Boys, boys, boys.
A Levels, Rudge are credentials, qualifications, the footings of your CV. Your Cheat’s Visa. Time now for the bits in between. You will see from the timetable that our esteemed Headmaster has given these periods the euphemistic title –
Posner looks up the word in the dictionary.
– of General Studies.
Posner ‘Euphemism … substitution of mild or vague or roundabout expression for a harsh or direct one.’
Hector A verbal fig-leaf. The mild or vague expression being General Studies. The harsh or direct one, Useless Knowledge. The otiose – (Points at Posner.) – the trash, the department of why bother?
Posner ‘Otiose: serving no practical purpose, without function.’
Hector If, heaven forfend, I was ever entrusted with the timetable, I would call these lessons A Waste of Time.
Nothing that happens here has anything to do with getting on, but remember, open quotation marks, ‘All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use,’ close quotation marks.
Who said? Lockwood? Crowther? Timms? Akthar?
Pause.
‘Loveliest of trees the cherry now.’
Akthar A. E. Housman, sir.
Hector ‘A. E. Housman, sir.’
Timms Wasn’t he a nancy, sir?
Hector Foul, festering grubby-minded little trollop. Do not use that word. (He hits him on the head with anexercise book.)
Timms You use it, sir.
Hector I do, sir, I know, but I am far gone in age and decrepitude.
Crowther You’re not supposed to hit us, sir.
We could report you, sir.
Hector (despair) I know, I know.(an elaborate pa
