Legend

On an Old Grammarians site there was an amusing anecdote relating to the Great Man in his school days.

So ... some of the kids used to make farting machines. They involved a bicycle clip, an elastic band and half a lolly stick, sandwiched between the pages of an exercise book. You sat on the book and when you lifted one cheek it released the tension and it made a loud farty noise. I was far too timid to do anything like that ... so I had to be coerced. In one of Morley’s English classes I had Steve Manville sitting on one side of me and Joe Flynn one the other and I was ‘coerced’. I still wasn’t going to lift that arse cheek, until I got a real hard elbow in the ribs and recoiled. PRRPP. Morley looked shocked. “Who was that? Was that you, Clark?” Then he made his fatal mistake. “Stand up” he said. Well, I could see what was going to happen, if no-one else could, but who was I to argue. So I stood up. PAAAARRRPPPPPP!
Uproar. I had to stay behind after class. When I got a chance to speak, I just said “Look who was sitting either side of me”. Realisation dawned. He was all for sending them both to the Head, but I pointed out that that would get me in even deeper **** for grassing them up. So he sent me out of the classroom with a shouted “AND LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU!” Sure enough my tormentors were waiting outside to see if I’d grassed them up. No, no, I lied, and as far as I’m aware it remained mine and Morley’s secret thereafter. He was a really decent bloke.