#233— DEAD OR ALIVE | Schooldays | Memoir

Art for Art’s Sake, Money for God’s Sake

The Day I was Witness to a Robbery

Have I mentioned that I love making art? At school art and English were my favourite subjects. Both talents I can now share in Medium posts (did you see this one where I crafted a Halloween wreath?)

One thing gave art a slight edge over English lessons: Sometimes you could wangle leaving the classroom to do it. I can’t ever remember an English teacher saying why don’t you all pick somewhere out of doors to sit and write an essay? but with art it’s feasible.

If you need to draw a tree — go outside. Paint a sky full of clouds — go outside. Sketch a building (you’ve got it) go outside. So one Friday afternoon found myself, with my friend Sarah, sitting on an expanse of grass outside the front of my primary school. We both had a drawing board resting on our knees bearing a clipped-down sheet of paper because we were sketching the school.

In the early 1970s, I attended an independent girls’ school. It was housed in what must once have been a private residence. Bedrooms and reception rooms had been converted into classrooms and an attractive veranda hugged the ground floor at the front.

Sarah and I were attempting to commit the straight lines of the roof and walls, plus the shape of the turreted classroom, to paper. We were interrupted when a van pulled up to the entryway and stopped. Two men got out and hurried inside the school, the door being always propped open. After a short while the men came out again, carrying something bulky and heavy between them.

As the men struggled to stow the object in the back of their blue van, the headmistress came out of the front door. She descended three steps, glancing briefly at the men (hopefully she was spared an eyeful of ‘builder’s bum: Trousers weren’t worn low or baggy in that decade) before she got in her car and drove off.

The men slammed the back door of their van and then drove off fast, their spinning wheels throwing up gravel, which was their biggest mistake. Nobody who visited our school drove fast or recklessly around the semi-circular drive because:

a) 10 mph speed limit

b) terrible, suspension-wrecking potholes

The way they drove made Sarah and me pay attention. We began to laugh about their speeding, joking that it was a getaway car. I suspect that’s what froze the details of their actions and appearance in our minds. Soon after, the art teacher sent someone to call us back, so we packed up our supplies. At 4.15 mothers came to fetch daughters from school and drive them home.

When we reached my house and unlocked the front door, the phone was ringing.

My mother answered (in her refined telephone voice) and after a brief conversation, told me my headmistress wanted a word. This was very odd. I felt serious foreboding. Was I in trouble?

Headmistress: Had I seen anything out of the ordinary when I was sketching the front of the school?

Me: Did she mean the two men carrying something heavy?

HM: Yes she did, what could I tell her?

I spoke about the men and their van carrying something heavy, and how they seemed in a hurry, particularly when they drove off.

HM: Well, that’s very useful. Would I mind telling a policeman the same thing?

Me: I didn’t mind, but they should also ask Sarah, who’d been sitting right next to me.

I was puzzled. My headmistress was asking me what I had seen when she had been there too. When I put this to her, she admitted that she hadn’t thought of them as anything but two workmen. We’d had builders in school during the week and she’d assumed the men with the van worked for the builders.

A policeman came to my house soon after. A detective I suppose, as he wasn’t in uniform. He asked me lots of questions, in a very relaxed way, making me feel quite important. I remember he wanted me to describe the driver’s appearance — I thought he looked like Robin Hood in the film I’d recently watched. In 1970s Britain, we only had three TV channels, so by a process of elimination he deduced I was describing Errol Flynn.

I was buzzing with anticipation all weekend for more news, but couldn’t compare notes with Sarah until Monday, not having her phone number. She’d also had a police interview, and she had learned that the men had stolen the school’s colour television.

Maybe the men scoped out the ground floor prior to the job, but its location made it a no-brainer. The TV room, which accommodated 1 class for the purpose of watching educational programmes, was the first room on the right, inside the front door. Other doors off the hallway led to two classrooms and two smaller areas that housed toilets and washrooms. The latter’s doors always stood open.

I never heard whether the theives were caught, but after a short while the gap where the TV had stood was filled with a replacement. I can’t imagine they flogged the TV for much money, being second-hand, so it seems an opportunistic crime. I’ve always felt rather proud to have been an eyewitness to a robbery and asked to give a description to the police.

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