So, Anyway... Page 6

  As far as I can remember, I liked all the other teachers: Mr Gilbert, Mr Howdle, Mr Sanger-Davies (called Sanger-Wagtail after the way he walked), Mr Thom, who wore suede shoes with crêpe soles and seemed a bit racy compared with the others, and nice Mr Hickley the music teacher, who eventually expelled me from singing classes because I was both tragically ungifted and also a bit subversive. (I had my revenge when, fifteen years later, I became the only one of his pupils ever to appear in a Broadway musical.) In fact, it was quite odd how fond I was of them all: when the boys played the staff in the annual cricket match (the latter using very narrow, shaved bats) I always wanted the masters to win, even when I was playing. I think because I trusted Dad so much and always believed he was acting in my best interests I somehow transferred my faith in him to the masters, who were a uniformly decent, kind crowd anyway. Whatever I felt about them, though, the only ones I suspect to have had a soft spot for me were the Reverend Dolman and the headmaster.

  The first impression Mr Tolson made was that he was BIG. Actually, he wasn’t that big, but he seemed so to us. He was six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, and a large, round face, with a welcoming smile, and slightly unfocused eyes behind wide, rimless glasses; and on top of everything, a fine, expansive, completely bald, surprisingly pink, dome. The second impression he made was that he was sort of . . . important. You felt that he definitely owned the school, and that what he said, went. More than that: the tone of the school was an extension of himself. And thirdly – and most unusually, I was to learn – he was quite an emotionally open man, quite unlike the exquisitely refined Mr Bartlett, or the fearsomely gruff and shy Captain Lancaster or the rebarbative Reverend Dolman. He was basically optimistic, warm, encouraging and utterly decent, but he was quite easily upset, especially if boys were wet, or disorder threatened, or if our great rivals, St Dunstan’s of Burnham-on-Sea, beat us at football. And he reserved his most ruffled (and pink) look for occasions when he had tangled with the beautiful, elegant and almost imperial Jean Tolson, a dark, Latinate thoroughbred, who could strike a man dead at thirty paces with one blow of her tongue. For when I said that what Geoffrey Tolson said, went, this was not true if he said it to Mrs Tolson, because then it would not go at all: in fact, it would probably back up a few paces and stay very still indeed. Most of the time, though, he was cheerful, and he often had a humorous glint in his eye, and made well-intentioned jokes. I was hugely fond of, and trusting of, him.

  Oddly enough, the memory of him that stays with me the clearest was the occasion when he rebuked me for being ‘cocky’. He took me aside and explained he’d heard that the previous day my behaviour on the cricket field had been unseemly: not that I said anything wrong, but that my body language had contained a hint of swagger, of conceit, of what the Aussies used to call ‘putting on dog’. And he was right: recently I’d got the idea that I was rather good at cricket, and yes, I had been showing off, I was ‘too pleased with myself’, and ‘getting too big for my britches’! And Tolson explained, very gently, that this kind of thing was not good form, and should not be repeated. And I knew he was right, and I was rather ashamed, and made sure it did not happen again.

  What interests me about this incident was that this relatively small outburst of egotism (of ‘self-advertisement’) had clearly been reported to the highest authority straight away, and that, within hours, the threat of such unmanly Mediterranean conduct spreading to other boys had been efficiently snuffed out. Here Tolson, Bartlett, Captain Lancaster and the others were as one: no swank, no flamboyance, no ‘putting on airs’ . . . no bad manners . . . no ungentlemanly behaviour. (Contrast this with my experience during a Couples Therapy session a few years ago in California, when I explained to the (very famous) therapist that ‘blowing one’s own trumpet’ was regarded in England as a bit unsophisticated, if not slightly common, only to be told that ‘tooting one’s own horn’ was perfectly mature conduct and entirely socially acceptable.)

  In an act that moulded my world view, Mr Tolson once took the whole school to see Scott of the Antarctic. We were all deeply impressed by Scott’s uncomplaining acceptance of suffering. But you couldn’t help feeling that the message of the film was not just that the highest form of English heroism is stoicism in the face of failure, but that in Scott’s case a whiff of success might have tarnished the gallantry of his silent endurance of misery. After all, he and his men all froze to death while losing the gold medal to the Norwegians, in the same way that the magnificence of the Charge of the Light Brigade was enhanced by its utter futility, and General Gordon’s being calmly hacked to death was all the more impressive because it occurred during the course of the complete annihilation of his forces at Khartoum. On the other hand, Lord Nelson’s and General Wolfe’s heroism may have lost a little of its sparkle by the close association with two all-important victories, even if they did get extra marks for being killed at the moment of their triumph. I think Americans must suspect that General Custer may have been of English descent.

  In fact, looking at the figures regarded as our national role models, it’s hard to discern much joy or fun or optimism about any of them. There’s almost a hint of depression around. It’s interesting that the phrase joie de vivre is probably foreign.

  Nevertheless, even while we were being shown edifying lessons about the value of failure, and Mr Tolson was reminding me of the need to harness my ego, my confidence continued to grow, if not my self-esteem. I have to thank my friends for that. A few years ago an American psychologist, Judith Harris, scandalised the therapeutic establishment by suggesting that the influence of parents on a child’s development had been overemphasised, while the impact of the peer group had been undervalued. Whatever the academic rights and wrongs of this viewpoint there is no doubt that my wuss-rating was dropping and that my wetness was perceptibly evaporating, and that this was the result of playing with my pals.

  It was definitely not to do with my achievements. They remained utterly mediocre, apart from in maths and Latin, and I gave no sign of creative ability. When the Reverend Dolman cast me as Malvolio in Twelfth Night I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing; or saying, for that matter. I can still remember declaiming ‘M, O, A, I; this simulation is not as the former. And yet to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my name’ without having a clue what it meant. Nobody explained anything (not even the significance of Malvolio appearing ‘cross-gartered’), but at least I went out there and said the lines in the right order, even if I don’t remember getting a single laugh, and I didn’t faint, and everyone seemed satisfied.

  In my last year at St Peter’s, however, I really did seem to take a big leap forward. I once read a book entitled Mastery by a deeply impressive man called George Leonard, who helped Michael Murphy run the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, where some of the brightest people in America ‘went to talk about what was really on their minds’. In it he pointed out that when we work at acquiring some skill, we do not improve gradually, like some ascending straight line on a graph; the improvements take place suddenly. After a period of not appearing to get better at all, if we just keep patiently practising, there will be an unexpected jump up to the next level. Plateau . . . jump! Plateau . . . jump! Plateau . . . jump! It’s a bit like saltation in evolutionary theory. That had been my experience of learning maths with Mr Bartlett, and now I suddenly seemed to be good at a lot of things – and not just because I was now taller than any of the masters, including Mr Tolson. (Although it did help in things like the high jump, boxing, hurdling, bowling, and making me feel a bit more important than I’d ever seemed before.)

  Mr and Mrs Tolson, with Mr Bartlett (to right) and me behind Mrs Tolson.

  I was now in a class of just six thirteen-year-olds. It didn’t feel like school: it was more like an exclusive learning club. We were being individually taught, and I loved it. Every subject became exciting and fun, as never before (and, little did I know, as seldom agai
n). I can remember thinking that in this atmosphere, I seemed to be getting cleverer, and I was even improving in areas of life that had previously been a closed book to me. Notably rugby. I was still too cowardly to be allowed in the first team, but as I was now about a yard taller than anyone else, when placed in the second team I proved unstoppable. In our first match against King’s School Taunton I was passed the ball, saw the massed ranks of the King’s second XV just melt away in front of me, ran through them and scored. There was another kick-off, St Peter’s got the ball, it was passed to me, and I scored again. Soon it became almost monotonous. In the old days when I had got the ball I would pass it quickly before I got hurt, but now I cantered gently forward, like a giraffe among pygmies, who each time fled before me like the Red Sea parting for Moses, allowing me to touch the ball down between the posts entirely unmolested. I estimate we won by about 430–0.

  The return match was more interesting. King’s School kicked off, St Peter’s got the ball, gave it to me, and I set off. But suddenly I saw a small King’s jersey running towards me, instead of away. Naturally this attracted my attention. It was clear that there was a tiny creature inside the jersey, and as I slowed to get a better view, it suddenly lowered its head, accelerated right at me and butted me in the solar plexus. This produced a spectacular effect, akin to a slow-motion demolition of the Eiffel Tower. I was carried off and had to lie at the edge of the pitch, unable to breathe for half an hour, while King’s built up a hefty half-time lead. However, by the start of the second half, I was back on the pitch, and the moment I got the ball, I looked for the assassin. And there he was! Approaching at a good speed, too! So, timing my move carefully, I waited till he lowered his head, and then swivelled my hips . . . so that instead of his head embedding itself in my middle, the top of it was met by solid bone. That was the end of him. St Peter’s won by about 130–18, but it was still a much more even game.

  I think that my last months at St Peter’s were, in a childish way, the happiest time of my life. I was doing well – I was even captain of the cricket team, although I can never remember making any runs or taking many wickets – learning was fun, I was feeling cheerful and confident, I liked everyone (and they seemed to like me, which was very important). Looking back it seems like a golden age, when all the slightly more grown-up distractions of wondering how you’d get everything done, and whether you were studying hard enough to pass your exams, and being disappointed that there were people who were better than you at things you really cared about, and worrying about your skin and feeling hopelessly uncomfortable around girls . . . were not even specks on the horizon yet.

  In fact, I think the only speck around was . . . my mother. A speck? Let me explain.

  The salient feature of the human perceptual apparatus – the five senses – is that they are designed to detect change. A movement, a new sound, a pinprick, a different taste or smell – we immediately register it. It’s a survival mechanism. If nothing’s changing, we’re safe. So we block out anything that isn’t changing: the drilling noise that irritates us this morning doesn’t impinge on us in the afternoon unless we make a conscious effort to notice it. It’s the same with ‘atmospheres’. You habituate to them until they feel so familiar you cease to register them. Well, the following tale says a lot about the standard atmosphere in the Cleese household in Weston.

  When I was twelve, we moved (again) to a second-floor flat right above St Peter’s (so that my parents could watch me walk down our drive, across the road, through a gate, and all the way to the school’s back entrance, when I would turn and wave to them). It was in this house that my dad sat me down one evening and calmly explained to me that it was likely that Mother would be moving out in a few days and going to live somewhere else; and that his sister Dorothy would move in and look after us instead. Odd to recall, this did not feel particularly dramatic, or even surprising. I liked Dorothy very much, and I simply thought: ‘When Auntie comes here it will all be so calm and happy and everyone will be nice to everyone and everything will feel so easy.’

  But nothing ever happened. Dad didn’t mention it again. Dorothy, who had been staying with us, went away, and I didn’t see her again for a very long time. A year later we moved to Bristol, where I was soon to start as a day boy at Clifton College, and Mother, of course, came with us.

  I rather liked the new home. It felt familiar because it had been Grandpa’s for many years, and we used to visit him there; when he died in 1952 at the age of eighty-five he left it to Dad. It was the first time we’d had a whole house; it was semi-detached, with a tiny front garden and a small back one, at the end of which was Redland Police Station, which made us feel very safe.

  It was my twelfth home in thirteen years. Partly because I have a poor visual memory, but also because I never spent very long anywhere, I have only fragmentary pictures in my mind of the first eleven – a bedroom where Mum pummelled Dad, the stairs up to Mrs Phillips’s, the back garden where I made a century, the living room from which our budgerigar escaped in Burnham. But I can recall every room in No. 2 East Shrubbery, Redland, Nr Clifton, Bristol, in some detail, because it was to be home for the next five years – practically a geological period by Cleese standards. And I spent a lot of time there, not just because I was a day boy but because even during the holidays we very seldom ventured far.

  I remember it with real affection: it seemed a secure base from which to emerge into a rather more grown-up world.

  Chapter 4

  THE EVENING BEFORE my first day at Clifton College my parents took me to a posh Bristol restaurant to mark my rite of passage to fully fledged public school boy. I was mildly aware of the significance of what was being celebrated; but I think that for them it was a milestone. They were proud they were sending me to a ‘good school’; and they were also proud of the hint of upward social mobility this implied. Not that Clifton was that high in the rankings. Comfortably below Rugby and Marlborough, though slightly ahead of Sherborne, it was probably on a par with Malvern and Tonbridge and even Haileybury (these small gradations in the pecking order were a major preoccupation). Quite where Clifton stood in relation to Uppingham and Oundle I never fully worked out.

  But the thrill of the evening for me was the food: it was the first really fine meal I had ever had, and the experience was comparable to the moment when I had first watched people playing Monopoly. A whole new world opened up: elegant, exotic, leisurely and intensely pleasurable. I had never known that food could taste this good. Even my mind seemed stimulated by it. That delight has never gone away; indeed I find, at the age of seventy-four, that food tastes better than ever. There are, in fact, only three comestibles that I do not allow to pass my lips: celery, sea-urchin and raw human flesh.

  Strangely enough, my memory of the meal eclipses that of my first few weeks at Clifton, but I think that’s because my life as a ‘new boy’ was very ordinary. Now that I was growing up (I turned fourteen during my first month at Clifton), nothing seemed as impressive or daunting as it had in my early days at St Peter’s: the masters were people, not titans, and had no power of life or death over me. There was also something very undramatic about my new school life: it was calm and business-like and brisk – almost matter of fact – because Clifton was thoroughly middle-of-the-road in all things. It was a kind school in which there was no bullying; a well-mannered, unexceptional and decent place; and so . . . strangely unmemorable.

  It was, however, big. There were about seven hundred boys, the vast majority of whom were boarders, split up into eight houses where they slept and spent their spare time. The day boys were divided between two further houses, North Town and South Town, depending on what part of Bristol they inhabited. My house was North Town, dominated by a large central room lined with fair-sized lockers, and with a huge table in the middle surrounded by chairs. Each of us was allocated one of the lockers, which was expected to contain all our possessions and schoolbooks. Just off the Big Room there were two studies: one for the house p
refects and the other for the housemaster. Upstairs were a library and an area where we could play chess or study. And right opposite North Town House, literally across the street, was the entrance to Bristol Zoo, from which throughout the day emanated sounds of gibbons and lions and elephants and wild dogs and parrots and American tourists. I liked these noises: they were reminders of an exciting world outside.

  The great advantage of being in a house populated by day boys was that the people I came to like were always around: they did not disappear to various parts of the country for half-term and holidays. As a result, and also because I had become less wussy, and a little more fun to be with, I started to acquire plenty of friends, whose houses I would visit. Among this group were a couple of boys I was particularly close to, whose curious, playful and slightly mischievous mateyness brought out a corresponding ‘larky’ part of me that had been dormant these past fourteen years (Adrian Upton is now Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at McMaster University in Canada, with a list of degrees as long as your leg; Michael Apter is a psychologist, who originated Reversal Theory: he has held visiting professorships all over the planet, and now works with Georgetown University in Washington DC). They were brighter than me, but the three of us would use the Big Room to carry out ‘prank experiments’ that we found both entertaining and revealing. One involved leaving a folded note on the huge table, with the name of someone in the house written on the outside: for example, ‘For Foster’. The three of us would then lurk and observe just how compelled other boys felt to discover its contents: almost without fail they would hang around, glance to see if they were being observed, and then stealthily pick the note up and quickly look inside, to find a message like ‘Is your name Foster?’ or ‘You are being watched’; at which point they would drop it and try to work out if anybody had seen them. Another prank was to swap the contents of two lockers: as each boy’s entire life was in his locker, this gave us the opportunity to observe how people behaved when they were really panicked.