Ian McMillan: A goat scampers through the gates of time

I’d been visiting a school and I noticed, in a corner, one of those old fashioned poles with a hook on the end once used to open high windows. If this were a film and not a column there would now be some ripply music and the screen would go out of focus and then there I’d be, in the early 1960s at Low Valley School in Darfield. I wouldn’t simply be there, I’d be cowering in a classroom with Noel Marsden and Peter Wake and Mrs Hudson would be telling us not be scared but we would all be noticing that her red lips were almost trembling.

The reason for the panic was The Goat. As far as I remember, The Goat had been in the field next to the school for a while. It belonged to somebody, because it was tethered by a lengthy but fragile string to a wooden post, and it munched away happily all day long. We may even have observed The Goat and written a poem about it. In some small way we might even have begun to think of it as The School Goat.

Then, one morning, a note came round from Mr Owen the head teacher. Mrs Hudson read it out: We were to stay in our classrooms, because The Goat had escaped and was loose in the school. The police (the Goat Squad, presumably) had been called but until they arrived we were to stay where we were. One or two people began to cry. I wouldn’t have been sure what to do because I have to say that my life up to that point hadn’t prepared me for how to react in the case of an escaped goat.

All these years later, I wonder why it came into the school, why it didn’t just trot up Snape Hill to freedom. Could it smell the lunch the dinner ladies were preparing? Had it heard Mrs Roche reading the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff to Class Three and simply wanted to hear what happened at the end? Was it, in fact, a goat who wanted to learn? Who knows: the fact is, it was there, running round the hall like an infant in Music and Movement.

Nobody knew what to do. Nobody, that is, except Mrs York, the doughty school secretary. In an image that has remained seared in my mind ever since I saw her running past the window (maybe running is too strong a word) chasing the goat with the long window pole. Her permed hair was set like steel and there was a glint in her eyes that showed she meant business.

The goat’s hooves clicked across the hall in a desperate attempt to escape the pole. Mrs York shouted ‘Get away!’ and the goat scuttled through the open door bleating pathetically and leaving steaming droppings in its panic.

I seem to remember that we applauded. I’d like to think we did.