...ruffles...

If universities chose to fashion a degree course for slapstick comedy, they’d do well to look at an A Level Geography syllabus before doing anything else.

A’ Level Geography is a microcosm of life with the bad bits taken out. It’s all about standing in puddles, falling in mud and seeing ageing films of African tribeswomen with no tops on, (PHWOAR if you’re 17, and socially inadequate).

At my school Dougie Humph taught Geography, he’s the only teacher I remember because he was a minor celebrity. For one, he pronounced it “Jaggerfee” like he was announcing the name of a fiendish ghoul lurking in the depths of Hogwarts. This added a certain drama to the principles of bank full rivers and renewable forests. He was regularly in the local paper because of he played rugby for Chinnor in Thame (don’t ask, it’s all mere details). Dougie was also head of fifth year, and just to prove that ambition has a downside, it was him who taught a class of 15 year of boys the importance of cleaning under the foreskin with a cotton bud. Dougie also had an innate talent for story telling. Everyone remembers one story in particular, though nobody remembers the point of it, it was the story of Jackie Paper. Now if I think really hard I might remember it. Here goes… nope, it’s gone. I suspect every year his wife would give him his briefcase one morning, and say.

“So Dougie, what have you planned for today”
“Well my love I’m teaching Jaggerfee” he’d say “then I thought I’d tell them the story of Jackie Paper”
“Lovely, now remind me, how does that go again?”

It involved tearing a piece of paper into the shape of a man; there was a moral in there somewhere. But, enough, this isn’t the story of Dougie, this is the story of JAGGERFEE (Part 1).

One early assignment was a major project of our choosing. Katie decided on measuring the profile of a river down by the local Asda. Australia Jo and myself happily volunteered to help. Measuring a river is fairly simple. You move across the channel in the vehicle of your choice (wellys, waders, small yacht) and at regular intervals you drop a line and measure its depth. The stats are put onto graph paper and the profile of the river revealed. There are reasons for doing this, but I’m not going to tell you them here. The river at Asda was fairly deep, beyond wellies deep and Katie’s not very tall, so it was best that we found something she could float on. Thankfully one of our class, Arch Lesbian Rachel, said her parents owned a small inflatable boat we could use. It was perfect, Katie was to paddle across the channel, whilst Jo and I ate sandwiches, jotting down her findings. The problem was, when we got to the river, the channel was a torrent of white water, the current was so foreboding and dangerous there were cows being washed down stream. There was no way Katie could steady the boat to take the measurements. So we got a piece of string…

Yes, string.

…from the back of Katie’s brown Vauxhall Cavalier (on loan from her parents). The aim was to paddle across the river, with the piece of string, and, after successfully traversing the river once, I would hold one end, Jo the other and Katie would then return across the channel using the string to steady herself whilst taking the important measurements. Right, where’s the boat.

Oh yes, the boat or “boat”. It was a one man blow up dingy with anchors and ropes painted on the side. It wasn’t suitable for a choppy swimming pool, let along an angry beast of a river hungry to devour the limbs of those who dared pass. It was designed specifically for fat old ladies to sunbathe on whilst they bobbed over the gentle seas of Magaluf attaining 3rd degree burns. It was not for Geography fieldtrips to a river by Asda.

We gave it a shot anyway. Katie set off in a fairly circular fashion due to there being only one paddle. The boat buckled and distorted and deflated and filled with water. This was really noticeable only when she was equidistant from both banks, at the deepest part of the channel. She drifted with the current so by the time she was within reaching distance of Jo; she was also within reaching distance of 800 square miles of stinging nettles. Somehow Katie had to get back up stream. I began tugging from the other side of the bank and she started drifting back to the middle of the channel. Time and time again we battled to dock her. Jo getting progressively further into the river whilst trying to reach the periled damson. I was on the other bank drawing every last ounce of my strength to get her back on track, screaming for the villagers to help with the rescue.

Gosh, this is more exciting than I remember it.

Katie was helpless, the boat was little more than an inch above the water. It lapped over the edge with every rise. Would she ever make it ashore?

Of course she did, she was soaked above her wellies, but she made it. The string was successfully straddling the river. Though not taught and proud like we had envisaged, it dangled, limply surrendering to the surge. To get her bank profile, all she had to do was return, measuring at regular intervals. But the poor mite was sopping. You just wanted to sweep her up and put her in front of a big fire with some cocoa. And so did Katie, that’s why she asked someone else to make the return journey for her.

It had to be Jo, I was too big, and anyway, Katie promised to help Jo with her perilous project of a traffic survey or some such (technical methodology: - pick a sunny day, buy lollipops, count cars). Even at the age of 29 Jo’s like an eager puppy full of energy and willing to please, at 17 she was more so. If we’d thrown a stick, she’d have run straight in. She was on for it, how bad could it be? It all happened again, in reverse. The boat deflated, Jo drifted down stream, the string was a hindrance not a help. She had one hand on the paddle, one hand on the sting and one hand on the measuring stick. I.e. not enough hands. She did, eventually, make it across the channel with some kind of measurements screamed over the deafening torrent. She was wet, cold, and no closer to passing her Geography A’ Level. But we had beaten the river.

If Katie had actually used the stats, I suspect she would have mapped something akin to the New York skyline rather than the bank of the local river by Asda. Instead I believe she did what we all did, made them up.

There’s more Jaggerfee stories, but you’ll have to wait for them.

Labels: General me