ABSTRACT
Mr Walker had been headmaster of Gaymount Primary School for a number of years. He had the reputation of being ‘rather an old misery’ very ready to see the worst side of everything. The school was situated in a decayed inner area of a large northern city: it was a difficult district and Mr Walker was quite right in saying that it had gone down a good deal, so that recent admissons tended to be more uncouth than formerly. One of the few things Mr Walker was concerned about was swimming, and everything was subordinated to this, until in the end the tail wagged the dog and even the music specialist spent more time escorting children to and from the baths than she did at her main task. By the end of the term the children seemed more settled, and the teachers were correspondingly happier in their ability to control them.
