Mr. Kevil

Mr. Kevill - Similar to Mr Budgen from Waterloo Road, also an English teacher.

Mr. Kevil taught English at Tulketh and had been a relatively new teacher when we first years arrived in 1975. Nicknamed Evil Ken evil after the American dare devil motorbike stuntman who was popular at the time.

I came across him if only briefly for the first time when I was in 1N he co- taught us English with a lovely lady called Mrs. Roberts. He used to use room 14 which was next to the school library. We used to wait outside his room, and he would with military precision always be on time. Small in stature with a strawberry blonde hair with moustache to match and he wore very conservative clothing and spoke like an Army sergeant which according to school gossip he had served in the Army before becoming a teacher. I must admit we as pupils were in awe of him. Even some of the younger teachers were in awe of him. I remember Mr. Kevil, pulling up a trainee teacher for parking in his spot on the school driveway.

I later came across Mr. Kevil in the fourth year when was charged in getting us through our C.S.E, English exam. He taught Set 4 which comprised of around 30 pupils who were hoping to pass the exam to garner some hope of getting employment when we left school.  I remember some of my fellow pupils like Paul Bennett, Gary O’Kane, Carl Thompson and then some of the girls like Susan Duckworth, Janet Cavanagh, Julie Crocket, Susan Rhodes, and Rita Sumner. He once had a set to with Janet Cavanagh which resulted in Janet storming out of the class. Janet was later moved into another class as I remember. But it certainly put the wind up Mr. Kevil, sails as he had to explain himself to Deputy Head Mrs Ackers. When we were reading Hobson's Choice as part of our English Literature lesson Mr. Kevill would read out the parts in the book with enthusiasm of an classical actor which used raise a few sniggers in class and saved one of us having to read. One of the problems back then we used to have to share text books sometimes which came rather battered and torn more often than not.

One task Mr. Kevil asked to do was to go home and read a favourite book or magazine and come back in next lesson and he would randomly select pupils to stand up and read to the rest of the class. I decided to read a book I purchased about drug abuse in the modern society which I picked up at Sweetens bookshop for 99p in the bargain basket. Unusually for me at the time because I loved Football and Pop music like a lot of my fellow pupils.

So, the day came along double English on a wet Tuesday afternoon. We trundled into class with an assortment of paperbacks and magazines. I was asked to read out my piece of literature to the rest of the class. Those few minutes seem like an eternity and Mr. Kevil made light of some of my reading material he found it strange piece of literature to read out he even argued some of the points I had raised from the book. He could see this was going above all our heads so decided to move on swiftly.  Then he asked Paul Bennett who read a couple of pages from the novel Jaws by Peter Benchley which a couple of years previously had been made into a Hollywood blockbuster film about a blood thirsty shark that preys upon a small resort town on the West Coast of America. Paul rather confidently read out in all its gruesome detail the attacks the shark made on the unlucky people in the small resort town much to Mr. Kevil distaste, in fact he went rather pale and green around the gills. He complemented Paul on his reading and then said I just need to nip out for a second. The class went quiet and then burst into laughing as for Mr. Kevil, he was outside in the yard taking in the fresh air. Uni Kampz teased Paul Bennett that he picked the most gruesome passages to shock which to most of the class it did.  When Mr. Kevil returned he selected Alison Danby, who read an article about Pop star Blondie and her successful album Parallel Lines. Fortunately, the bell rang before Roderick Davies could read his piece on, Life in South Wales resort of Tenby, lovely though it might of been..

Sadly, after we left in the Summer of 1981 Paul Bennett died in a motorbike accident this was so sad because he had achieved so much in the final two years at Tulketh to earn an apprenticeship with British Aerospace. I remember how pleased he was to achieve the chance to work at such a prestigious company like British Aerospace when out of over a thousand applicants only 62 could be selected. Due to work commitments, I could not attend the funeral. His best friend at the time Gary O’Kane took it bad.

As for Mr. Kevil he stayed on at Tulketh into the mid 1990’s and then retired. He hailed from Blackpool as I recall. We would often pull his leg about being a Blackpool F.C supporter which of course he denied.