Monkey Turn Over

It was used mainly on Friday afternoons when there were fights in several classrooms. Now these were friendly fights. For example, any pupil in your class could come up to you and say something like, "Ayeh man, you want to fight me?"

If you did not accept the challenge, you were considered a coward by your school friends. It was far better to fight and lose. There were rules to these friendly contests. For instance, as soon as a combatant said, "Surrender," that was the end of the fight.

The spectators too made sure that there was fair play. These were all wrestling bouts — wrenching of arms, pulling, tugging, lock neck, stranglehold, full and half nelson but cuffing, kicking, pinching and biting were strictly forbidden.

Teachers never objected to these friendly fights but "bad" fights were strictly forbidden. As a matter of fact, the fighters were taken to a teacher and after he listened to the evidence, licks with a guava or tamarind rod were administered to the palms of the hand or the buttocks.

Female teachers often asked the males to flog the boys whenever a good licking was necessary.

At the back of each class, sat the "dunces", the "blockheads", the "doo-doo" heads, the "numb skulls" as they were frequently called by the teachers because they had failed the "Christmas Test" and had to remain in the class for another year or even more.

One of these characters was a fellow called "Max" in my first Standard class who would always challenge me and since I could not say no, I was beaten to a pulp on many an occasion. Sometimes I would say, ‘Surrender," before he even started choking me. My major problem was how to beat this Max.

My brother, Victor and I used to wrestle every Friday on the Piccadilly Greens in East Dry River on the opposite side of the Mosque at the bottom of Queen Street. I would win one fight out of ten. Victor was a year and nine months elder than I. When I related my problem, he told me to challenge Max.

A day or so later, I tapped Max on the shoulder and uttered the words of war, "Ayeh man, you want to fight me?" He was shocked and replied. "You not tired get licks?" And, I had to show him I was a real tough guy so I said, "Oh, you fraid me?" Max agreed to the battle.

The showdown was on Friday. We went to the Infant Department, cleared out an area for the ring. My brother told the guy, "If you beat him, you have to fight me after."

There were only two or three spectators apart from my brother for this bout.

Max had beaten me so many times that this was considered a no-contest and onlookers went to other classes for better bouts.

Victor sat on one of the desks surrounding the ring and shouted, "Fight him, Freddie."

The way he said those words energised me and I immediately felt as if I were ten feet tall.

We rushed at each other, trying to lock on to the neck but tumbled to the floor, rolling all over the place until I managed to lock his neck and squeezed with all my might. Eventually, he muttered the words of defeat, "Surrender."

One day, a big dunderhead was asked, "If a child is ten years old today, in what year was that child born?" He answered, "I don’t know Miss, you didn’t say if the child is a boy or a girl?"