To Serve Them All My Days

[talking about the death of Alcock]

Howarth:
That's that, and I hope to God nobody asks me to comment. The thing I find hardest to tolerate is hypocrisy, especially when it takes the form of a sentimental regard for the dead just because they *are* dead. To hear some people talk, you'd think dying was limited to the chosen few.

Dr. Farrington:
You Welshmen are all the same - never satisfied unless you've got something to feel guilty about. Well, I'm afraid this won't fill the bill. Your job's safe and it appears that you've lost an enemy. You'll just have to reconcile yourself to being happy, poor fellow.

Howarth:
Some men can live the celibate life. I don't fancy you're one of them.

David Powlett-Jones:
What did *you* do about women all these years?

Howarth:
[pauses, smiles] Your appetite for sordid revelations never ceases to astonish me.

David Powlett-Jones:
[after learning Julia is moving to the U.S] Why did you wait 'til now to tell me?

Julia Darbyshire:
Well... at first I was nervous. And... then I realized I wanted to go to bed with you one last time. And you are such a gentleman, David, I... I knew you wouldn't let me if I told you.

Christine Forster:
Rowley was my moral tutor at Durham University. In this capacity, he introduced me to socialism... then to his bed... then married me, much to the disgust of his grand family. And he quarreled with me. Finally he left me. Nothing stuck except the socialism. See? No scars.

Howarth:
Anyone who doubts that a new dark age is coming upon us has only to spend a few hours with lower fourth. I despair, I despair. I am, as you all know, a pacifist by nature and conviction; but if a German soldier were attacking Pinkerton Minor, I'd be hard put to it not to come to his aid. The German soldier's, I mean.

Algy Herries:
I always like it when people say "with the greatest respect." It always means they're going to be rude.

Cordwainer:
A pencil becomes a pencil stub when it is too small to hold with the fingers. Take it back and sharpen it. My goodness, Foxson, if we were all as prodigal as you, this country would have no battleships.

Briarley:
[about Powlett-Jones] Look at him pounding away. Do you think he's got a screw loose?

Boyer:
Of course he has. Wouldn't be here otherwise. Mind you, he's his own special sort of loony.

Briarley:
Might be a spy.

Boyer:
What, reporting back to the Kaiser on Killer Carter and the Corps? No, he's just a pro-Hun loony. Pro-Jerry loony? Well, he should know.

Dobson:
I'll bet he won't last long.

Boyer:
No, more's the pity. Well, he's interesting, anyway.

David Powlett-Jones:
[to Alcock after he expels Hislop for holding a bet on Sports Day] Good God, man, if you expelled every boy who told a lie or made a bet you'd have no pupils left to pitch up and bully!

Beth Marwood:
[when Winterbourne has gone missing] Oh, yes, I can just see Carter. He'd have taken the whole cadet corps out onto the moor and marched them into a bog.

Boyer:
[giving David the book "Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne"] Do you remember, sir, back in the fifth, you said that if we wanted to know what war was really like, we should read that? You said you'd lost your own copy at Ypres or somewhere.

David Powlett-Jones:
I wouldn't have expected anyone to remember that.

Boyer:
What you said about it then, sir, was that it helped you get through. No matter how bad things were at the front, those 18th century soldiers had it worse, and if Sergeant Bourgogne could get through his war, then, well, maybe you could get through yours.

David Powlett-Jones:
I said all that, did I?

Boyer:
I thought it might help, sir. Well, you know, now.

David Powlett-Jones:
[after a student criticizes the 1926 coal strike] When I was a young boy... much younger than any of you here, I went to school one morning, leaving behind a father and three brothers working on the early shift. That's 4am to midday. When I got home that evening, my father and two of my brothers were dead. Their bodies were never recovered. It was judged to be too expensive to be worth it.

David Powlett-Jones:
This is my first go at teaching - teaching schoolboys, that is. Up till now, the only teaching I've done is trying to teach recruits to look after themselves and not get shot their first week out. There wasn't time to be patient, see, and I never had to learn to suffer fools gladly. That might take me a bit of time, Mr. Dobson. Until I do, maybe you'd better keep your head down, eh?

Algy Herries:
Ellie, my dear, he thought I was going to sack him.

Ellie Herries:
Oh, he'd never do that. You're Algy's bright idea. I'm afraid failure isn't a possible option for you.

Christine Forster:
Politics is full of people who can't cope with their own lives. I worry about that a lot.

Algy Herries:
Alcock, eh?

David Powlett-Jones:
Do you know what he's done now? He's started a sort of purge on friendships. He can't see two boys walking around the school without thinking they're, well, perverted. He's got a mind like a sewer.

Algy Herries:
Strong words, David. That kind of thing can be a very difficult problem for a Head, you know.

David Powlett-Jones:
It's not a problem at all at Bamfylde!

Algy Herries:
You know, I always like it when people say "With the greatest respect." It always means they're going to be rude.

Algy Herries:
Teaching's a job, you know. You'd just be selling your labor, wouldn't you? You wouldn't be selling your soul. Nothing magical about teaching, it's just a job like any other.

David Powlett-Jones:
No, it's not!

Algy Herries:
Isn't it? I thought you might think that.

Algy Herries:
Ellie, my dear, he thought I was going to sack him.

Ellie Herries:
[to Powlett-Jones] Oh, he'd never do that. You're Algy's bright idea. I'm afraid failure isn't a possible option for you.

Julia Darbyshire:
David, haven't I made it perfectly clear in the most shameful and immodest way that I am quite determined to seduce you?

[David has just been told of the death of Beth and the twins. Howarth has tried to console him but has now let him go for a walk on his own on the moors, for which Algy Herries is reprimanding Howarth.]

Algy Herries:
This is dreadful. What would *you* do in his place?

Howarth:
I find it hard to imagine myself in his place.

Algy Herries:
Yes you do. You do - that's just the trouble.

Howarth:
But if I were, I should probably do what is usually called "something silly".

Algy Herries:
And knowing that, you let him go?

Howarth:
Damn it, man, I don't choose to defend myself! PJ's his own man. What I said to him is entirely between him and me. I don't think I convinced him - I hardly convinced myself. You may see human life as a sacred trust. I see it rather as something to be got through, with as little self-contempt and misery as possible - pretty insupportable at the best of times.

David Powlett-Jones:
I shan't get through this, Howarth.

Howarth:
You will. Out there was just a bloody waste. The boys here aren't numbered for death, not any more. You've got a job to do here, 30 or 40 years of it. It's a job only you can do in the way you do it. Oh, I know that what I'm saying now won't be much help to you in the next few weeks, maybe months, but it will in the end. I promise.

David Powlett-Jones:
Howarth, will you please for God's sake shut up now.

Howarth:
I'm hardly the best man type. More like the spectre at the feast.