Chapter 13. Karate, an alternative story.
The boarding school and training at Suzuki Sensei's headquarters in London.
In the gym at the boarding school in Essex, around 1985.
Living at the boarding school.
My first flat and the inherited problems (legacy of the previous Art teacher).
UKKW headquarters, training at Marvic House with Suzuki Sensei.
Very ‘senior’ instructors; Bob Wignall and Bill Bishop.
Sugasawa Sensei.
Other training partners.
One of a series of reminiscences about the early days of Wado karate in the UK. To read the article in full and all of the previous episodes, become a paid subscriber. It’s only the same monthly price as a cup of coffee.
Some names changed to protect the identity and the privacy of those involved.
Previously, on Substack: The year 1982 and landing a job in an old-fashioned English boarding school in rural Essex. Negotiating the internal politics to establish karate in the school.
The benefits.
Outside of being close enough to London to train with the Japanese Sensei in their regular weekday and weekend Dojo locations, it didn’t escape my attention that my new job as a teacher at a boarding school provided lots of in-house opportunities for exercising, working out and karate training.
A basic list of advantages:
· Acres of grounds and open spaces for running.
· An indoor swimming pool, about ten yards from my flat. Swimming; always good for cardio.
· A spacious gym/school hall, ideal for training. Access 24 hours, if I was so inclined.
· Numerous extra rooms and places where training could be conducted – I was rather fond of the cricket pavilion; tucked out of the way, carpeted floor and its own heating system. I spent hours on my own in there; mostly racking up kata repetitions.
· Once things got up and running, I conspired to work with training partners from various sources (more of that later).
Living and working conditions.
I inherited a flat from the previous art teacher, who I met when I was there on interview in the May of 1982.
He’s worth a mention because it was more than the flat that was passed down to me. Unfortunately, according to headmaster Roger Barker I also inherited his ‘rebellious bohemian attitude’ (Barker had an axe to grind with anyone in the creative fields. I have no idea where that particular bias came from).
Art teacher Terry Sutton was a thorn in Barker’s side. He was also an incredibly gifted portrait painter and a suave ladies-man. He had a side hustle doing oil portraits of the daughters of rich farmers, this gave him ample opportunities to charm young women and there was always a string of them in and out of his flat for various ‘sittings’.
In rural Essex at the time, there was no shortage of wealthy land owners; we came across them in the local pubs; cash poor and asset rich. An old saying from my grandfather’s day stated that there were two things you never saw; a dead donkey and a poor farmer.
The flat.
As the flat was at the end of a corridor inside a dormitory wing, the comings and goings from Terry Sutton’s flat had been spotted by the eagle-eyed older boys. Privacy was really difficult to secure.
Sutton was an avid football fan and owned a top range large screen TV and would sometimes invite these older boys into his flat to watch the important games.
The boys couldn’t help but notice the half-finished portraits of young ladies hanging on the walls; some of them, what could be described as semi-clad or, naked as Eve. What was also obvious to the boys was that Mr Sutton’s ‘studio’ was actually his bedroom (they could see the easel through the open door).
Inevitably, a plan was hatched.
Right next to Sutton’s bedroom was a student dormitory, which had a peculiar section jutting into it that was actually a corresponding alcove in Sutton’s bedroom. The boys figured if they could get on top of a wardrobe in the dorm they could hop across to the roof of the alcove and with a little patience they could whittle a spy hole to see into the bedroom. A great plan, (albeit a little creepy), but the whole building was made of decrepit plankwood and partitioning that was little more than cardboard.
They chose their time carefully; lookouts had spotted a young lady coming for a sitting. They waited a discreet time and then crept up to the peephole. But there were too many of them and their combined squabbling and fussing, plus their body weight, caused the roof of the alcove to collapse under them. Naturally, there was hell to pay.
All teachers had nicknames, and Sutton was forever afterwards called ‘Smutty’.
When I took over the flat in the September of 1982, the first thing I had to do was cover up Smutty’s home decorating paintjob. He thought it cool to emulsion the place bright red, less of a Parisian Bordello, more of a slaughterhouse; he’d even painted the toilet seat a startling vermillion.
It had to go.
The collapsed piece of ceiling had been patched up with gaffer tape, so I also had to sort that out as well.
I had only met the man very briefly but he proved to be a generous chap, as I was to find out one late September evening when he sent one of his lady friends round to make sure I was okay and settling in. What her fuller motives were I had no idea, but we ended up going on a few dates. That caused tongues to wag across the dormitory block.