This time next week - a character study of Gaffer

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October 2002                Matthew Walton 10SB

ENGLISH COURSEWORK

THIS TIME NEXT WEEK

A CHARACTER STUDY OF THE GAFFER 

In this book the Gaffer is one of the main characters involved. He is also known as Mr Gardener, the superintendent of Dickies, a Doctor Barnado’s home. Leslie first met him when he was separated from his brother, Roy, because of the tragic death of his parents. His father drowned at sea and his mother died a short time later. Leslie was then transferred to the Doctor Barnado’s home in Kingston Upon Thames. Doctor Barnado was a kind and considerate man that created a home for homeless children that needed looking after in the 1900’s. After that a link of the homes were distributed across the country.

Doctor Barnado had obviously died before the Gaffer had come along. The first time when Leslie met the gaffer was when he and this man that had brought him to the home walked into the hallway of Dickies and saw this boy. “The man told the little boy to go fetch Mr Gardener the superintendent.” At that moment Leslie had no idea what the Gaffer was or looked like. The way the Gaffer walked towards Leslie indicated that he was well disciplined and strict maybe because he had been in the army at one stage. He was always smartly dressed. Thin and grey with a slight stoop as the years went on. Particularly on special occasions he would wear his green hairy suit. He would also wear it on Sundays as well.

The Gaffer had a son and a wife. His son was in the army as a padre. He wasn’t just a priest but he would also give people advice. For his actions he was awarded the military cross. The gaffer received this news one day and was proud. He announced it to the whole school. Tears ran touchingly down his wife’s face as she put her arm through the Gaffer’s. The Gaffer and his wife, also known as matron, both lived in a red-bricked house round the back of Dickies. His wife was a podgy Scottish woman.

        The Gaffer was biased against most nationalities. Americans, Australians Irish and Welsh. But there were two nationalities that he didn’t mind at all and they were the Scottish and the Ghurkas. The reason for this being was that his wife was Scottish, so it was all right to like them.  His main racial discrimination was against the Welshmen. He thought “If anything awful happened upon a Taffy he would relate it with relish. He frequently insinuated that as a race the Welsh were anti – Churchill and anti – Tory, and therefore they were rotten right through.” This was bad for Leslie because he considered himself a Tory and he liked Churchill and worst of all he was Welsh. The Gaffer found out that Leslie was Welsh one day by asking him. “You’re a Welshman, aren’t you.” Leslie nodded his head and was clumped for being Welsh.

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        The Gaffer added Australians to his list of nationalities against which he was prejudiced. This was because an Australian sportsman called Brother Bill bought lots of new sports equipment for the boys and said that they didn’t have to pay for it. As well as just sports stuff, he bought himself a new watch and a radio set and other oddments. Then he sent the bill after he had left Dickies expecting the Gaffer to pay for it. This made the Gaffer very angry.

        Americans was the other nationality that the Gaffer was biased against. Leslie had accepted a ...

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