Archive > Vol. X no. Z

Keith Hutson

The Man with the Xylophone Skull

 i.m. Professor Cheer 1879 – 1938

Let’s hear it for this prematurely bald headmaster: struck by the disquieting fact his crown — hit with a brass door handle — could resound, a bell, his temples too, he taught himself to scale an octave, frontal bone to back, and at the Christmas show knocked out a carol, Ding Dong Merrily, performed, he quipped (as teachers do) on high! But what should have stayed a daft percussion act at school — festive morale — didn’t. He went on tour, six years — concussion, mild first, getting worse, till memory went with his pension, somewhere old wolves paw at stone, ravens croak, snow falls on carcasses through which a cold wind howls.