Math Problems

I have never been able to do math.  It has always been a closed book.  My dear mother used to say: “Ian is just like me.  He is hopeless with figures”.  That oft-repeated statement to family, friends and even casual acquaintances became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Indeed, it became a point of pride.  At least one of my qualities was worth talking about.

My father was an industrial chemist by training and could work out complex math problems in his head or on the back of an envelope.  My brother became an electrical engineer and, ultimately, designed oil rigs.  Anyone who can keep an oil rig floating around in the North Sea must have some grasp of mathematics.

Unfortunately, my "figures" were always mixed up.  I could never count my bus money correctly or get my pounds, shillings and pence in order.  Twenty shillings in a pound, 12 pence in a shilling; what a weird system.  (Much later in life, I was paid in guineas--21 shillings.  It just got worse).

My mathematical failings were compounded when I was about 6 or 7.  Measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox, ulcerated tonsils and multiple colds conspired to keep me out of school for critical periods of time.  While lying sick in bed might have improved my reading skills and vocabulary, it did nothing for my math.

Somewhere along the line I seemed to miss out on the basic principles of math.  I was never around when they explained fractions and long division and I thought algebra was a skin complaint.  Decimals were a constant source of grief and I could never understand how 0.5 could somehow be more than 0.25. Surely, 25 came long after 5 when you were counting. I only understood decimals when I moved to Canada in 1970 and encountered dollars and cents.  The penny dropped at long last.

One hundred cents makes a dollar, fifty cents makes half a dollar,  twenty-five cents  is....well, you get the idea.  Suddenly it all made sense if you thought in cents.  I discovered that there was no such thing as 0.5.  In reality, it was 0.50.  There’s a bloody zero in there that nobody had bothered to tell me about. 

These were all contributing factors to my innumeracy.  However, if I were to be totally honest about my early inability to comprehend math, I would have to blame it on a large Holstein-Friesian cow.  I am serious.  Even to this day, an image of a large black and white cow comes into my mind when I can’t work out my change or, God forbid, when I have to work out who owes what when we are dividing up a bill in a restaurant.  Let me explain.

I failed the 11-Plus Exam at the end of elementary school in Wales, primarily because I could not fathom the math questions.  (The fact that nobody had ever told us that we were going to take such an exam that morning didn’t help either).  The 11-Plus Exam sorted out the sheep from the goats.  If you passed, you went off to a good Grammar School and became an asset to society.  If you failed, you went to something called a Secondary-Modern School and were destined to become a navvy, farm laborer or petty criminal—sometimes all three in succession.

Quite coincidentally, my father moved from the carbide factory in South Wales to a fertilizer factory in England soon after my terrible exam results became known.  I thought it was some form of banishment associated with my poor results.  We were no longer good enough for Wales.  I took the 11-Plus Exam again in England but it was even worse because I couldn’t understand what everyone was saying in their strange Cheshire accents.  “Take up your pencils,” sounded more like “Tea cups and utensils”). And I swear those math questions were even harder in English.

The Mere near our school

I was dispatched to a private boarding school in Shropshire that kindly dispensed with the 11-Plus Exam.  Payment of hefty school fees was the only entrance qualification.  

Because my mathematical skills were deemed to be well below the appallingly low class average, I was placed in Froggy Brewster’s math class along with other unfortunates who could not add up or tie their shoelaces properly.

This is where our little gang first met.  It included, among others, Toles from Liverpool who went to elementary school with John Lennon; Scott a farmer's son from Staffordshire who had his own Land Rover; Braden the Brave, a lad of unknown but dubious origins; and Johnson who could quote great chunks of William Blake and e.e.cummings.  We became fast friends and partners in crime throughout our school career.

I have no idea why Mr. Brewster was called “Froggy” although he did bear some similarity to a large bullfrog when he thrust out his chin and made an odd but involuntary gulping noise.  Froggy was from Hampshire, talked very slowly and was rumored to have been a farmer at some stage.  He had enormous brown elbow patches on his puke-green sports jacket.  You could see him coming a mile off, trousers at half mast and his academic gown billowing out behind him like a black parachute.

We all looked forward to Froggy’s math classes because they were rowdy affairs and he very rarely flogged anyone.  He was always calm and remarkably patient with his idiot pupils.  Maybe that was because he had worked with farm animals in the past.  He would merely expel you from the classroom when you went too far.  Consequently, as the class comedian, I missed a lot of critical math lessons and failed to understand the basics of new subjects such as geometry and trigonometry.  Standing outside the classroom door had a sad but fitting symbolism: I was indeed an outsider to the mysterious world of math.

Froggy Brewster’s classroom was in the so-called New School (as opposed to the Old School).  It was a modern satellite building up near the boundary of the school.  Fields that were home to a large herd of black and white cows surrounded the New School.  It was our practice to chase the cows around the field while waiting for the building to be opened in the morning.   We also used our school blazers as capes and challenged the mostly placid cows to "bullfights". 

Old School Building

One morning we arrived well in advance of our math class and found that the building had been left open overnight.  We also discovered that two cows were on our side of the fence. They were contentedly munching the grass right outside the New School.  The cows were used to us and, like Froggy, rarely got annoyed.

I don’t know who first thought about driving the cows into the building but we did.  Both the stray cows were persuaded to enter and to move down the corridor.  One cow got anxious when it discovered it could not turn around and started backing up the corridor.  In spite of all our attempts, it backed out of the front door and ambled away in a huff.

The other cow was much more docile and didn’t seem to mind being stroked and patted.  Someone called her Tinkerbell.  We all thought that was hilarious.  I think it was Toles who first suggested that we should try to get Tinkerbell into Froggy’s classroom.  This was easily accomplished.  But it was Braden the Brave, in a rare stroke of genius, who came up with the stunning idea of putting our captive bovine in Froggy’s supplies cupboard.

Froggy was very proud of his supplies cupboard.  He kept all the writing pads, pencils, rulers, compasses, protractors and different colored chalks for the blackboard in there—all neatly stacked in boxes on the shelves.  He called it the “chalk cupboard.” We called it the Black Hole because there was no light in there and it lacked any real ventilation.  If you had done something really heinous, Froggy would sometimes thrust you into the chalk cupboard for the rest of the class.  It was reasonably spacious so you could easily lie down on the floor and go to sleep.

The cow was reluctant to enter the chalk cupboard at first.  She was docile but not totally stupid.  We pushed her from behind but she refused to go into the Black Hole.  Then someone came running in to say that Froggy was on his way over from the Main School.  We panicked.  Someone gave the poor thing a nasty jab in the ribs with the blackboard duster.  She lurched forward and we slammed the door behind her.  We retired to our seats and expected her to kick down the door and charge around the room in panic.  But she made no sound whatsoever.  Nor did we.  We were horrified.  Froggy entered and was immediately suspicious.  He had never encountered silence before and looked around the classroom with a puzzled expression.  “What’s going on in here?” he asked.  “Nothing sir,” we all chanted in unison and kept our heads down.

I was actually scared.  Even by our depraved standards this was extreme. It was going to get us all flogged within an inch of our lives if the cow burst out and attacked Froggy.  But nothing happened.  Froggy got on with the class and we all sat there in total and unaccustomed silence watching him move around the classroom and write things on the blackboard.  Toles broke the tension by asking to go to the bathroom.  Going to the bathroom was not allowed during any class and Froggy told him to go stand outside the door for interrupting him.  Naturally, once outside, Toles pulled himself up to the glass window that ran along the top of the classroom and made faces at Froggy when his back was turned.  Nobody laughed.  We were actually paying attention in a vain attempt to appear innocent of any bovine fury that might suddenly erupt from the chalk cupboard.

The only fury was Froggy--furiously writing on the board while explaining some now forgotten principle of mathematics.  Finally, he ran out of chalk.  He threw the stub of chalk into the waste-paper basket with deadly accuracy and proceeded to the chalk cupboard.  We all looked on in utter horror.  I almost raised my hand to tell him to stop but I was paralyzed with fear.  Holy Mother, Froggy was going to be trampled by an enraged beast.  

Froggy opened the cupboard and froze.  He was staring at the ample rump of a large cow that was flicking its tail back and forth.  You could have heard the proverbial pin drop.  Froggy didn’t move.   Afterwards, somebody said that they thought he had suffered a heart attack and died standing up, frozen in horror.  But Froggy was made of sterner stuff.  He slowly turned around, surveyed our anxious faces in a bemused fashion and enquired in his slow, deliberate Hampshire accent: “Who put this cow in the chalk cupboard?”

The tension broke.  Somebody sniggered.  Someone else smothered a laugh.  Most were too stunned to do anything. But suddenly the whole classroom burst into raucous laughter. We literally (I mean literally) fell about laughing, slapping desks, slapping each other, hooting, howling and hollering at the top of our voices.  

Froggy was totally unmoved.  This just made us laugh even more.  It looked as though finding a large Holstein-Friesian cow in his chalk cupboard was the most normal thing in the world.  He shook his head and walked towards the class room door.  He stepped into the corridor and said: “Toles, get this wretched cow out of here. NOW!” I don’t know why that was so funny but it started a new frenzy of laughter.  I was sitting on the floor, holding my knees and sobbing with laughter.  I couldn’t stop.  It wasn't until half way through "A Fish Called Wanda" many moons later that I was reduced to a similar state.  It was the most insane thing that had ever happened at school. And that was saying something.

Toles did not seem to be infected in quite the same way as us.  He looked scared.  He went into the cupboard with some reluctance and gently pushed the beast backwards.  She came out nice and slow and was just turning towards the door when some pent-up flatulence was released.  This was greeted by more howls laughter.  Even Froggy cracked an involuntary smile.  When Froggy finally announced that he was going to report us to the Headmaster and that we would all be flogged, we laughed even harder.  We were beyond caring.  Nothing could be more painful than this uncontrollable laughing.

I can’t remember how it all ended.  The cow was probably taken back to the field.   Several of us were dispatched to the bog (bathroom) to find a mop and bucket to remove an unfortunate amount of liquid that Tinkerbell had left behind on the floor.  The lesson was never resumed and Froggy marched off to the Main School to report our dastardly deed to the Headmaster.

We were all duly flogged.  Not by the Headmaster but by the Head Prefect who was the most feared flogger in the school.  He would take a run at you and the cane could land anywhere on your rump, legs or back.  We were not exactly heroes—nobody died of flogging—but we were much admired by our peers for our ingenuity and daring, if not for our math skills.

Froggy was also admired for his cool detachment and demeanor in the face of unprecedented provocation.  He never mentioned the incident again; but for us, he had reached a peak rarely achieved by other masters.  We all agreed that he was "a good chap".  Praise indeed for one of our oppressors.

I could never take math seriously after this "Froggy and the Cow" episode.  Whenever equations, trigonometry or isosceles triangles were mentioned in the classroom,  I could barely suppress visions of cows trapped in dark cupboards.  Tinkerbell ruined my career prospects in fields such as nuclear physics, hedge fund management and economics.

On the other hand, maybe I should thank her for my quite different trajectory in life.  Ironically, I ended my days working for an institution where serious math was restricted to working out travel expenses, the number of sick days left and the scale of future pension benefits.

Math, like Latin, has very limited uses for the common man.