of Education, two such people emerged: Mr. Salama and Mr. Iskandar. Both were
Copts and they were literally running the school. The headmaster, Dr. Abdel Rahman,
like the British sovereign, reigned but did not rule. Especially Mr. Salama, a short
rotund man, was constantly on the go, forever hurrying here and there, out of breath,
out of time, unable to stop and take in what you had to say to him, unable to give you
a straight answer to your problem. He was not a bad person. He was pleasant and
ready with a smile, which was the most you could get out of him. Obviously I am
exaggerating a little as I am apt to do in this sort of memoir but I sketch a caricature to
give an impression and the impression was rather comical. Many years later, I visited
the school and asked for Mr. Salama. I was told that Dr. Salama was not available at
the moment. Dr. Salama? Well, well! I had a hunch the Doctorate was awarded by
him to himself. However, in all fairness, I do not discard the possibility that I am
being gratuitously malicious.
The above was an introductory paragraph to Mrs. Swinburn. She was a
busybody as well but perhaps more focused than Dr. Salama. Like him, she was
constantly busy, running around on untold tasks that had to be done. But she taught
classes as well and is fondly remembered by Samia together with the stories of
Rudyard Kipling they read in her class. She was perhaps a little younger than Mrs.
Wilson, in her late forties or early fifties, thinner and taller. Also unmistakably
English with a pleasant but not by any means attractive face. Two things about her
stand out in my memory. One is the frequent fainting fits of Roger Tamraz during
morning assembly when Mrs. Swinburn would rush to the crumpled body on the
floor, sweep him off the ground, hoist him like a sack onto her shoulder and carry him
to the infirmary, on the floor above. The second was the inordinate fondness she had
for Leila Thabet, which was quite out of character with the mostly aloof British
educators. Leila’s father was an important official in King Farouk’s palace and every
afternoon at the end of the school day, a limousine was stationed outside the school
with Leila’s nurse inside waiting to take Leila safely home. More than once, I heard
Mrs. Swinburn ask, with some anxiety, if Leila had left the premises. She often went
searching for her during school hours and she obviously wanted her for some reason
but this preoccupation with Leila was not an isolated incident.
Whereas we never knew Mrs. Wilson’s marital status, Mrs. Swinburn’s
husband appeared at school now and then. He was a tall, handsome man with a
nonchalant bearing and smile, and round about his wife’s age. On one occasion, when
Mrs. Swinburn was occupied, he took over the class and read to us a story. His ruddy
complexion makes me think, in retrospect, that he must have been fond of his tipple.
It is strange that of the many teachers at the G.P.S. I only remember two other
ladies whereas I recall almost the totality of teachers of the English School during the
English period. Of course, I was much older then. As for the period after 1956 when
the school was taken over by the Egyptian Ministry, I only attended it for two years
and it was a period where I was as close to being a juvenile delinquent as I ever was
in my life. I describe this period in my memoir “Delinquents”.
I must have been in Mrs. Porch’s class at one time or another but I remember
her specifically because of one single incident that was etched indelibly in my
memory. The G.P.S. being a junior school, had class teachers that taught all the
subjects. There was no changeover of teaching staff for specific subjects. In other
words, geography, history, English, arithmetic. . .etc. were taught by the same person.
However, Mrs. Porch, who was not our form teacher during the last two years when
hockey entered the curriculum, was the person who undertook to teach us the game.
Each student brought his/her own hockey stick for the game. Our gym shoes were
