An Assembly

I hated and objected to the assemblies.
I'd sit and mock them from the back row, within earshot of the teachers. I thought them a waste of time, and was very bitter and convinced about it. The line I took was that it was not education, and ate into teaching-time. I was very cynical about the whole idea of education.
Sitting up the back with Stephen Thompson and Beano, I made some cynical remark which they wheezed at. Sitting nearby, her fat backside in a chair, was my old English teacher, Mrs. Anderson. She gave no sign that she had heard.
After the religious element of the assembly was over, there was a long secular part which was, quite plainly and undisguisedly, a re-affirmation of authoritarianism, in order to cow the pupils en masse. The priest would shuffle off toward the doors at the back of the hall, off to attend to other business, his duty done and conscience quite clear. It struck me then, the hypocrisy and uselessness of the priests, the willing partners in this subjugation.
The rector and the heavy duty administration staff, the "strict" teachers, then took the stage. To me it was as if, after the token prayers and hymn-singing, the official religious stamp on the proceedings, the true nature and purpose of the assembly was revealed in all its ugliness.