Mr Attlee's classes were unpredictable. Some days we would spend the whole hour dissecting a single line of Heller, reading and rereading until the words lost all mystery, and also all meaning. He would have us rewrite it in our own terms within strict parameters: For example every noun must be a colour, or every third word must rhyme, or each last letter must pair with each first (It took kind deities sometimes, so others sought trivial lives).
Occasionally he would walk silently between the desks handing out the day's text, only to sit back down and immediately instruct one of us to collect in the books. Then we would analyse the weekend's post match interviews from Match of the Day. He had transcribed them himself and handed out scripts for us to perform. I was renowned for my Garth Crooks.
Sir was a heavy smoker and often would walk out half way through to conduct the lesson through an open window from the street. Rolling and smoking, rolling and smoking. On those days he encouraged ruthlessness. "Benefit of the doubt" he said, "is for children. Writers deserve no leeway. You think they're talking shit, you say so, but always explain why." Another stock phrase was: "You could write fucking anything and you choose that?"
When they went to clear out his house they found that he'd put all his writing to the bonfire in the back garden and sent all his books, movies and cds to charity shops. He'd even peeled all the labels off food packaging, appliances and plugs and cut the tags off his clothes. Where text had been imprinted on surfaces it was now scratched off. It must have been a mammoth task. The only words to be found in the house were crocheted into the back rest of his armchair:
"You know, like, it's disappointing like. We were all over them first half, you know, but just couldn't sustain it, like. Fair play though, we did ourselves proud, like, but at the end of the day it just wasn't enough."
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