by Meredith Stephens

London, 1988

I woke in the usual London darkness to ready myself for the long commute to school. Today the inspector was coming to watch my lesson so I dared not be late. I put on my favourite bottle green woolen dress, and hastily made my way to the Northcote Road. It was market day and the stall holders greeted me.

“Morning, Miss!”

This made the long walk down the Northcote Road quite enjoyable. I felt I was being cheered along as I made my way to Clapham Junction. Once at the station I climbed the stairs to cross the bridge to access the platform for the train to Waterloo Station.

“Queenstown Road, Ba’ersea Park, Wa’erloo!” the guard shouted in a London accent, announcing the forthcoming stops. 

 I raced down the stairs and heard the departure whistle. The train lurched forward and the doors closed. The guard noticed my distress at missing the train and kept a door open for me, inviting me to leap inside the guard’s section at the rear of the carriage. As the pace was still slow, I did as bidden. Then the guard opened the glass door for me leading into the carriage with the rest of the passengers. 

Soon we reached Waterloo Station, and I joined the throngs of commuters in business attire inside the cavernous space. Arrivals and departures were announced in hushed tones of Received Pronunciation. I looked up as I did every day at the billboard promoting American Express credit cards. The generic name on the card was M.A. Stephens, my name. Why should my name feature as a typical name in this city when I did not have the right to work? Being Australian and not from an EU member country, I could only work casually under the working holiday scheme for a maximum of two years and before the age of twenty-seven. Today’s classroom observation of my French lesson was an attempt to gain credentials to apply for a work permit.

My Australian teaching qualifications were not recognised in the UK, so I was on a lower pay scale than my British peers. The alleged reason was that I did not have a secondary school qualification in 0 Level (Year 11) Maths. In Australia you could qualify as a teacher without certification in Maths, but not in the UK.

I transferred to the City Line where I was crammed into a train with bankers in pin-striped suits clutching briefcases. Then back onto the tube heading to the East End, The train was relatively empty and there were few people wearing suits. I alighted and walked to the school in Stepney Green where I was temporarily posted. Although I was known as Miss Stephens, my nickname was Miss Stepney Green, probably because ‘Stephens’ looks like ‘Stepney’, and my preference for wearing the bottle green woolen dress. Yet another sign of how I was positioned as an insider even though I had limited working rights as a Working Holiday Maker.

I’m not sure if it was because I was in the East End, but Londoners possessed a ready charm. Students would greet you as they passed with the East End greeting, “Miss!” The pace of the banter, the quips, and the irony kept me smiling most of the day. Understatement and overstatement (The bus ticket was so expensive I thought I had bought the bus!’) appeared more frequently than I was used to.

 I felt so at home that my speech started to accommodate to British English. Rarely was I asked “Where are you from?” Only when I raised my voice at the children did they suddenly ask me, “Miss, are you Australian?” Heightened emotional states sent me back into Australian English. 

The moment had come for the inspection of my lesson. If I succeeded I would have the paperwork to apply for a work permit as a teacher. The class was Year Seven. The Communicative Methodology had replaced Grammar Translation, and I was well versed in the new methodology. I did my best to call on students equally and tried to show that I had learnt all of their names. The children were aware that a visitor was present and that it was a special occasion and were impeccably behaved. 

At the end of the lesson after the children had left the room the inspector remained in the classroom.

“I’m going to recommend you be granted recognition as a teacher in the UK. I only have one piece of advice. You could have made more use of the target language.”

I cast my eyes downward. I didn’t admit to her that I wasn’t confident enough to conduct the whole lesson in French.

“Thanks for the advice. I’ll do my best to incorporate more French instructional language into my classes.”

Soon afterwards the borough transferred me to a school in Bethnal Green. It was hard saying goodbye to the children in Stepney Green. I had remembered their names and there was mutual trust. At least I had got what I wanted, the right to work in a city where I had such a strong sense of belonging. I commenced my new post in Bethnal Green, but I didn’t stay there long. Whether it was my mother insisting I return to Australia, or an anti-climax after getting the paperwork to process my work permit, I am not sure. I returned to Australia. My hard-earned work permit arrived in the mail, but I never returned to teach in this country where I had felt so much at home.