Lindsay

I had never liked Lindsay Longheath. He was the Head of Year 10 in a rough, east-London school, and he was easily as mean to me as any of the kids were.

Once, during morning break, when all the teachers were discussing the financial plight of the school, he had implied (with stubby-index-finger-pointing) that it was my fault, and that—as a supply teacher—I was "raping the school".

Another time, when I was chatting with another teacher, and they commented that I sounded more English than Australian, Lindsay struck again:

"Yeah," he said, quickly making leave of his own conversation, "that's 'cause ees a Posh-stralian."

And he had meant it to sting.

I never quite got to the bottom of why Lindsay didn't like me, but I had an inkling: early in my "tenure", while teaching a class of year 10s, I had accidentally referred to their Head of Year as, "Mr. Lohan".

He wasn't in the room at the time, but perhaps he didn't need to be.